"As best I can. The present concept of space is that space itself is under internal strain. Force vectors in cancellation prevail, resulting in a stable continuum. Space is warped by electrostatic effects, magnetic effects, and gravitic effects. These local effects do not create a discontinuity in the space strain, and therefore no eruption takes place. Now enters the epicenter. 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. 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. Follow?" "But where did this energy or force come from?" puzzled Hamilton. "Isn't that a violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy?" "Not at all. The law is still valid. 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. Or it may have been on the edge of a gully and the potential drop made by the stream eroding the ground out from under it." "How about atomic power?" "You mean, how did the power get locked in the atom?" "Yes." "The power in the atom was put there by the universe's atom factories. 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.