The Impossible Invention By Robert Moore Williams [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astonishing Stories, June 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I had to admire this little guy's courage. Fradin, his name was--James Arthur Fradin, with a string of letters after it that even the alphabet agencies down at Washington could not have unscrambled. The letters represented honorary degrees conferred on him by half a dozen different colleges, and they should have entitled him to be heard with respectful consideration, but they weren't. The assembled scientists of the Institute of Radio Engineers were giving him merry hell. "What you are saying, Fradin," one of the scientists interrupted hotly, "is gross nonsense." "It is absolutely impossible," another shouted. "Faker!" somebody yelled, and a dozen voices took it up until the room echoed with the sound. I sat back and grinned to myself. If this meeting ended in a free-for-all fight, which was what looked like was due to happen, I would be able to make a swell human interest humorous yarn out of it. My editor went for human interest stuff, which was largely why he had sent me down to cover this meeting. He knew I wasn't likely to develop any front page news here, scientific meetings being what they are. But there might be a human interest angle that would be good for a laugh. And the way these solemn scientists were calling Fradin a liar, it looked like the laugh was coming. There was one man who wasn't doing any name calling, I noticed, a tall, cadaverous-looking individual sitting two seats down from me. He had listened very carefully, almost eagerly, I thought, to everything the speaker had said. Glancing at him, I got the impression that I should know him, but at the moment I couldn't place him. Tall, bony face, thin, hawk nose--yes, it seemed I should know him. Fradin had stopped speaking when the storm of abuse broke over him. He stood there on the platform, a little, white haired guy with a gentle face. "If you numbskulls will only be quiet for a moment," he said, when the noise had subsided for an instant, "I will offer incontrovertible proof to support my statement that radio waves are transmitted through what I must, for lack of a better term to describe the undescribable, call the fourth dimension." What I mean, the roof must have been nailed down tight, or the explosion that followed would certainly have lifted it off the building. You never did see so many excited scientists in one group. Normally a scientist is supposed to be cool, aloof, and impersonal. But this group was anything else! They went right straight up in the air. I couldn't tell whether they were angrier because he had called them a bunch of numbskulls or because he had said that radio waves were transmitted through the fourth dimension.