"We might cut the power."
"Or spread out quite a bit. I still say, however, that this is no signaling system."
"It works like one."
"So can a clothesline be made to serve as a transmitter of intelligence. But its prime function is completely different."
"S'pose we have a super-clothesline here?" asked Christine.
"The way that hammer felt last night, I'm not too sure that this might not be some sort of tractor beam," said Jim.
"Tractor beams are mathematically impossible."
"Yeah, and they proved conclusively that a bird cannot fly," said Jim. "That was before they found the right kind of math. Up until Clerk Maxwell's time, radio was mathematically impossible. Then he discovered the electromagnetic equations, and we're squirting signals across the Inner System every day. And when math and fact do not agree, which changes?"
"The math. Galileo proved that. Aristotle said that a heavy stone will fall faster. Then Galileo changed the math of that by heaving a couple of boulders off the Leaning Tower. But what have we here?"
"Has anyone toyed with the transmission of power?"