George O. Smith

“ He smiled. There must be something beyond. After all, small stones moved quietly in natural poltergeist manifestation; they would be able to reproduce that eventually. But for now, the engineer was willing to accept the limitation whereas the physicist would not.
He knew now. And he'd leave the sky car until the engineer returned. Let him beef up the control force. It was his baby.
Thomas put the panels back on the sky car and stood off to admire it. It was a neat job, just what the public wanted. The urge to get in and drive was a most compelling one, and Thomas succumbed. ”

“ Yes, the engineer had done it again—all of which made Thomas chuckle. A bit more of this and the engineer would have such an income that he'd no longer worry himself into engineering. Then—
Thomas turned the sky car and drove across the city toward Dr. Hamilton's place. He landed on the psychiatrist's lawn and startled the doctor out of a week's growth.
"I've won," he told the doctor.
"Good," laughed Hamilton. "Mind if I ask which you are today—and how do you know you've won?"
"I'm Thomas Lionel, Ph.D. And the engineer has worked himself out of a job." ”

“ These are all natural phenomena.
"The radiation of a thinking brain, gentlemen, is not a natural phenomena—not a natural characteristic warp in space," he corrected with a slight smile. "It causes a vibration in the region of the end-hysteresis loop of space itself when space is saturated to that threshold by the natural warps and strains. It exerts a triggering action that releases a more powerful nonphysical radiation, which in turn releases the space strain that causes—things—to move. ”

“ For three solid hours, Elaine sat at the typewriter. At the end of that time, Tom smiled, patted her on the top of the head and said: "You've been a good girl, kiddo."
"Thanks," she mumbled. "But there are things about your physicist that I do admire. He never makes his women work." ”

“ Sol, and the other suns," explained Hamilton.
"But where did the earth—?"
"Creation," murmured Thomas. "Who knows? I don't. Every time somebody comes up with a perfect answer, someone else comes up with perfect data that proves that the answer couldn't be anything that anybody has ever used before.
"The atom factory is the Solar Phoenix. You start with hydrogen and carbon. The solar heat is such that they combine atomically to an unstable isotope of nitrogen which immediately becomes a stable isotope of nitrogen. More hydrogen gets in, making it unstable oxygen and so forth. ”

“ Radiation from his mind or brain in thinking goes out and starts a very minor sympathetic oscillation in the warps and strains of space. If these strains are in the right vectorial situation, the minor oscillation builds up the response amplitude—"
"That doesn't make sense," objected the doctor. "Mental radiation must be weak. How can it induce high power?"
"It can't. But if you know radio at all, you'll recall that a high 'Q' circuit will develop very high voltages across the terminals with a very small driving voltage. Well, this is analogous to the epicenter effect. ”

“ I'm no scientist in physics." Hamilton held up a hand as Thomas started to protest. "I use 'scientist' despite your dislike of the word only because there is no term that describes both of the attributes of practical engineer and research physicist. ”

“ The epicenter wave causes instability in the space strains because the brain wave is not a natural phenomena of space. Then—like two sticks end to end under compression, it takes very little sidewise thrust to make the compression-force collapse, forcing the sticks out at right angles. ”

“ The D plates were all neatly machined and the high frequency plumbing was all rearranged into mathematical and technical symmetry. The hours-use counter showed constant operation for several days solid, which interested the physicist.
"He's found a use for it," he grinned at Elaine.
"He finds a use for most everything," she said. "He's a pretty sharp man."
"Thanks," grinned Thomas, recalling what the psychiatrist had said regarding the mutual efficiency of the mind in Thomas Lionel's body. ”

“ How long can you take a forty percent regeneration in a hundred kilowatt genedyne?"
"Well, not long," admitted Thomas. "You understand the principles involved?"
"Not entirely."
"I'll explain. The force-fields created by the full-phase poles under the power output from the driver create a nonelectromagnetic field radiation. The intensity of this field is a function of the driver output, derived tertially through the pole system. Now the development of the field radiation creates a space hysteresis that—"
"Look," snapped White, "I don't give a care about field theory. It doesn't apply in my job. ”

“ Thomas forgot about the pilot model. What he wanted to know was the whereabouts of the five tons of equipment that had been an integral part of this idea. He looked at the model. He wondered whether the engineer had installed the whole thing, stepping up the power and using the main part of the power to support the equipment. That did not seem possible. Any failure would cause the little sky car to collapse of its own dead weight. Besides there was not enough room in the little crate to pack all that equipment-tonnage. ”

“ But we are here to discuss the epicenter effect."
"The epicenter is a generator of the radiation which causes release of the potentials indigenous to all material bodies. This radiation is of a complex nature. It requires both physical, electrostatic, electromagnetic generators to produce the radiation that triggers the poltergeist potential. ”

“ And it was then and there that the physicist understood what the engineer had been doing.
Instead of the low-voltage high-current supply lines, with their attendant heavy busbars, thin pipes ran about the sky car. Seamless aluminum tubing carried the energizing current. Or, rather the space inside of the tubing carried it. At the generator end, a ten megawatt microwave generator supplied high power at ultra high frequency. At the terminus, rectifiers brought the ultra high frequency down to direct current for operation of the force-field generators. ”

“ It does state that you cannot get more out of anything than is put into it. The guesswork comes in deciding how the energy got there. Coal, for instance, is just a black stone. It has potential energy which was put into it by the eons of solar energy shining on the carboniferous forests. A stone has potential energy for falling. Where did it get it? It may have been carried up the hill; it may have been dropped from space—put out there by the cosmic eruption that caused Creation. ”

“ And then took a suspicious glance at the oxy-hydrogen torch on the table. A growing fear hit him. Tungsten wouldn't budge under an acetylene torch. Acids were not too effective, and plain, old-fashioned cutting tools were sheer foolishness. But heat the block white hot and hit it with an oxygen lance—
Thomas looked on the back side.
Uh-huh. The engineer had enjoyed himself. The back side of his little tungsten wave generator had been poked full of ragged holes; cut in ribbons with the oxygen lance, and generally made messy. ”

“ These forces have no relation to the force of gravity acting upon the object, other than can be similarly observed in the free flight of a projectile, where both the forward motion and the gravitic attraction cause summation of forces into a parabolic path. ”