Stories From The Old Attic | Page 6

with the pipe made one
last attempt to reason with him.
"We are all scientists here, all educated men. All of us agree that it is
impossible for a heavier-than-air device to fly on its own through the
air. Don't you see that? This is against the laws of nature--it violates the
law of gravity."
"Well," said the traveler, "perhaps there is another law, or perhaps there
is a higher law than the law of gravity, which, when it is understood,
will explain how planes can fly."
"That's just what I'd expect a religious fanatic to say," said a man who
had been listening in. "Science can jump into the trash as far as you
religious types are concerned."
"Not at all," said the traveler. "But your science is not perfect. You do
not yet know everything about everything, what is possible and what is
not possible."
"Go take your religion to a church and keep it away from serious

people," the man concluded, stomping out of the room.
In the weeks that followed, the traveler was ridiculed and denounced in
the newspapers, being called everything from a con artist to a
prospective mental patient. (The scientific journals said nothing about
the man because they considered the whole matter as beneath serious
thought.) As a result, the traveler was often left to himself, and so he
pulled out his tiny portable television set and began to watch it. Just by
chance, some visitors happened to come by and see the little box. They
were very impressed and urged the traveler to market his invention for
putting a movie inside such a small space.
In a few days, word had spread about this mini-movie and several
scientists were convinced (after some debate) to come see it, together
with some engineers representing the movie projector manufacturers of
the nation.
They were sufficiently impressed as they watched a few scenes, but
when the traveler changed channels, their enthusiasm turned to gaping
astonishment. The traveler switched all around, showing them twenty
channels in all. Such was the amazement and even incredulity of the
engineers that they already began to suspect some kind of trick. The
scientists looked confused.
"You certainly have a lot of films stored in that little box," one of the
engineers said. "How do you get them all in there?"
"The pictures are not in the box," said the traveler. "They are all over in
the air around us. This antenna brings them in and the set makes them
visible." The engineers laughed while the scientists sneered, the latter
now sorry they had allowed themselves to be talked into coming to hear
this notorious nut.
"Come now," one of the scientists said. "Do you expect us to believe
that there are pictures floating around us in the air--pictures we cannot
see? And that twenty sets of these pictures are all present at once,
scrambled together, just waiting for that little box to take them and sort
them out? What do you take us for anyway--a bunch of gullible

greenhorn fools?"
"And besides," continued an engineer, "how do these pictures get into
the air in the first place? Where do they come from?"
"They're sent from a satellite in the sky," the traveler said, as all heads
looked up. "You can't see it, of course. It's too high. But it's there."
"And of course you expect us to believe in something we can't see,"
said one of the scientists, with a touch of scorn.
"Believe it because of its effects--the results--the evidence of its
existence," the traveler said. "If it weren't there, you would see no
pictures."
"We know you're lying," another engineer said. "Even if there were a
device in the sky, held up by a balloon or whatever, it couldn't send a
signal down here without a wire. That would be against everything we
know about electricity. And I don't see any wire."
"Well, it doesn't use a wire," said the traveler. "The signals are sent
through the air. And the satellite isn't held up by a balloon; it stays up
because it's high enough so that gravity doesn't pull it down."
"Now he's denying the law of gravity again," said one of the scientists.
"Let's go. I've heard enough. Whatever he does to perform his little
trick, he isn't telling us about it, so let's just leave."
"Yeah, let's get out of here," another scientist said. "Every time we
catch him in an impossibility, he tells us the explanation is in the sky."
Then turning to the traveler to say goodbye, he added, "We cannot
believe something when the weight of scientific evidence is against it."
"But when the physical evidence is clearly before you," said the
traveler, "how can you not believe, even if your theories cannot explain
it?"
"Because