Immortality -- Fiction; Physicists -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
As soon as the experiments were confirmed, Arkadt sent a telegram to
Dr. Henry Talbot, in care of the address which had appeared with his
original article, informing him of the happy developments. He and
Findrun were still celebrating their spectacular success a week later,
this time with Dr. Arrhenial, director of the institute, when Arkadt
mentioned that he had sent such a telegram and had received as yet no
answer.
Arrhenial smiled into his vodka. "Didn't you know? Talbot was
seventy-five years old when he wrote that article. I'm afraid you were
a little too late for him."
"I didn't know," Arkadt replied.
"A shame," Findrun murmured. "It would have made him so happy."
The telephone rang and Arkadt answered it. His wife was calling, with
unusual news. He had just received a letter from America. Imagine that.
From a Henry Talbot.
<tb>
Henry Talbot saw his face on the cover of <i>Time</i> magazine. He refused
a request to appear on a television quiz program. (The contestant
the network had had in mind to appear with Henry won his money
nevertheless, in the category Theoretical Physics, by correctly naming
the year in which Einstein first published his Theory of Relativity,
the number of papers which comprised the entire theory, the language
in which it was first published, the magazine in which it was first
published, the year in which the magazine was first printed, the
name of the first printer of the magazine, and the year in which he
died.) Henry Talbot was termed "The Dean of American Men of Science"
by the New York <i>Times</i>, which paper triumphantly reported that only
thirteen people in the world understood his Warped Field Theory.
When asked if there was now anything else for science to do, he
replied, "Indubitably." When pressed for more details, he said that
his housekeeper always removed his vodka from the refrigerator at
three-thirty, and that if he did not immediately return home, it would
become unbearably warm.
On the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, he was given a gigantic
testimonial banquet by the Arnold Research Corporation, "under whose
auspices the entire research which culminated in the justly famous
Warped Field Theory was conducted."
The next week, when he requested the use of their massive cyclotron to
run an experiment, he was told that the machine was in use at the time.
A week later, his request was again shunted off. This happened twice
more, and Henry went to see Larry Arnold, Jr.
The coordinator was affable, and told Henry that he had checked
himself, and that unfortunately the machine was in use and that of
course since he, Talbot, was actually at the lab on only a part-time
basis, he could not expect to usurp the machine from full-time research
workers.
Henry asked what kind of research was being done.
Larry wheezed twice and told him it was investigating certain aspects
of the Warped Field Theory.
"I invented the goddam theory and I can't even get at the machine?"
Henry shouted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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