"Artie--!" I said, uneasily, but by then, he, too, had recognized the objects for what they were. "Burt--" he said excitedly. "Do you realize what we've done? We've invented a _syntheticizer_!" Even as he was saying it, the objects completed their mid-air materialization (time: five seconds, start to finish), and clattered and clinked onto the scale. We stood and looked down at them: A bowl of cornflakes and a silver spoon. "How--?" I said, but Artie was already figuring it out, aloud. "It's the soundwaves," he said. "At ultrasonic, molecule-disrupting vibrations, they're doing just what that Philosopher's Stone was supposed to: Transmuting. Somehow, we didn't clean out the reflector sufficiently, and some of the traces of our other trial insulations remained inside. The ceramics formed the bowl, the metals formed the spoon, the cornflakes formed the cornflakes!" "But," I said logically (or as logically as could be expected under the circumstances), "what about the rubber, or the fabrics?" * * * * * Artie's face lit up, and he nodded toward the machine, still hovering at one foot above the scale. In its wake, amid the distorting turbulence of the sound-tortured air, two more objects were materializing: a neatly folded damask napkin, and a small rubber toothpick. As they dropped down to join their predecessors, the machine gave a satisfied shake, and rose steadily to the two-foot level. I was scribbling frantically in my notebook: _Bowl + cereal + spoon: 5 seconds. Lag: 10 seconds. Napkin + toothpick: 3 seconds. Total synthesizing time: 18 seconds. Allowance for rise of machine per foot: 2 seconds._ "Burt--!" Artie yelled joyously, just as I completed the last item, "Look at that, will you?!" I looked, and had my first presentiment of disaster. At two feet, the machine was busily fabricating--out of the air molecules themselves, for all I knew--_two_ bowls, _two_ spoons, and _two_ bowlfuls of cereal. "Hey, Artie--" I began, but he was too busy figuring out this latest development. "It's the altimeter," he said. "We had it gauged by the foot, but it's taking the numerical calibrations as a kind of output-quota, instead!" "Look, Artie," I interrupted, as twin napkins and toothpicks dropped down beside the new bowls on the table where the scale lay. "We're going to have a little problem--" "You're telling _me_!" he sighed, unhappily. "All those damned _random_ factors! How many times did the machine have to be repaired after each faulty test! What thickness of ceramics, or fabric, or rubber, or metal remained! What was the precise distribution and dampness of each of those soggy cornflakes! Hell, Burt, we may be _forever_ trying to make a duplicate of this!" "Artie--" I said, as three toothpick-napkin combinations joined the shattered remains of triple bowl-cereal-spoon disasters from the one-yard mark over the scale, "that is _not_ the problem I had in mind."