The 4-D Doodler | Page 2

stout figure of Pillbot. He rose and stood aside unassumingly, as Pillbot bent over the scrawls on his charts, clucking interestedly.
Harper flickered a worried glance over to the corner. He hoped they wouldn't notice his stress-analyzing clay model standing there. It looked like a futurist's nightmare, with angles, curves and knobs stuck out at all angles. Professor Gault might not understand....
* * * * *
For one of his retiring temperament, Harper was aiming high. There was a standing award of $50,000 for the lucky mathematician who would solve the mystery of the "stress-barrier" encountered by skyscrapers as they were built up toward the 150 story mark. At this height, they encountered stress and strains which mathematical computations and engineering designs had been unable to solve. Harper believed the "stress-barrier" was due to an undetected space-bending close to the earth's surface, a bending of space greater than ever provided for in the prediction of Einstein. And if he was right, and could win that award, then there might be wedding bells, and a little bungalow with Judith....
Harper's greatest fear was that he would do something to annoy Gault into firing him, thus depriving him of the privilege of using the mathematical charts and computing machines available in the laboratory. Right now, he hoped Gault wouldn't notice that statue in the corner--
"What's that!"
Harper's heart leaped. The Professor was glaring at the statue, as though it were something the cat brought in.
Pillbot looked up from examination of the "doodles" and followed Gault over to the futuristic statuary.
As Gault made strangled noises, Pillbot stared interestedly. "Why--its like some of the designs in his doodling," he exclaimed.
"And made with some of my best modeling clay for reproducing geometric solids!" rasped Gault. He wheeled upon Harper.
"Get that thing out of here! I won't stand for such rot in this laboratory. Throw it into the hall for the janitor!"
"Ye-yessir," said Harper, gulping. He took hold of the statue, pulled at it.
"It--it won't budge," he exclaimed amazedly.
"Eh? Won't move? It's not heavy, is it?" demanded the Professor.
"No--about thirty pounds, but it wont move!"
Gault took hold of one of the angles of the thing, jerked at it savagely. He gave it up with an oath, returned to Harper's desk muttering.
Harper suddenly noticed the top portion of the statue. It didn't seem to be all there! He was positive there had been another section on top, shooting off at an angle, representing a problem in tangential stress. What had happened to that top section?
He would figure that out later, when the occasion was more propitious. Right now, he realized that only the presence of Dr. Pillbot prevented Gault from firing him. He cast an apprehensive glance toward his employer.
With trepidation, he saw Gault reach for something projecting from behind a bench. Gault pulled it out, held it dangling before him. A strangled exclamation of wrath came from him. His long nose pointed accusingly toward Harper, like a finger pointing out a criminal.
"I was afraid of that!" he grated. "Cutting paper dolls!" Gault was holding up a large paper cutout of a human figure--a long, rangy man.
"This is the last straw," Gault went on, his voice rising. "I have stood enough--"
"It--it wasn't me, sir," Harper cried quickly, with visions of his job and $50,000 vanishing. "It was your ten year old nephew, Rudolph, when he was here yesterday. He cut it out, said it looked like--like his uncle--"
Harper stopped as Gault seemed about to explode. Then the mathematician subsided, a malicious expression crept over his face.
"H-m-m," he said. "Might be just what I need to explain things to Dr. Pillbot."
"I shall take this matter before the Psychiatric Society," Pillbot was saying excitedly. "Undoubtedly you have some strange faculty--an instinctive perception of four dimensional laws ... what was that, Professor?"
"I said if you will step over to this desk I will explain to you in elementary terms--very elementary and easy to understand--why you will never be able to study four dimensional beings--if any exist!" Gault's voice was tinged with sarcasm.
Pillbot came over, followed by Harper, who was interested in any explanations about the fourth dimension--even elementary ones....
Gault, with a glint in his eye, pressed the paper figure flatly on the surface of Harper's desk.
"This paper man, we will say, represents a two dimensional creature. We lay him flatly against the desk, which represents his world--Flatland, we mathematicians call it. Mr. Flatlander can't see into our world. He can see only along the flat plane of his own world. To see us, for instance, he would have to look up, which is the third dimension, a direction inconceivable to him. Now, Doctor, are you beginning to understand why we can never see four dimensional beings?"
Pillbot frowned thoughtfully, then looked up. "And what about the viewpoint of the four dimensioners themselves--what would prevent them