"Consider first, doctor, that there was a total projection of three hundred and sixty different characters. The same number as the number of degrees in a circle. Consider also that there were eighteen different orderings of the characters, or nineteen counting the alphabetical list. The square root of three hundred and sixty would lie between eighteen and nineteen."
"Yes," I said. I remembered there was something significant about the numbers, but I wasn't at all sure that it was this.
"Consider also," he continued, "that the communication was through the medium of a sphere. Moreover, keep in mind that physics accepts the path of a beam of light as its definition of a straight line. Yet, the path is a curve; if extended sufficiently it would be a circle, the section of a sphere."
"All right," I said. By now the patient was pounding the coin against the sole of one shoe.
"And," he said, "keep in mind that in some sense time can be thought of as another dimension." He suddenly thrust the papers at me and sat back in the chair.
I picked up the translation and began reading. The patient sat stiffly in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. Nervously he pressed a coin into the palm of one hand.
"Just start anywhere," I said, "and tell me all about it."
"As before?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued, the coin clutched tightly in one hand. "I'm Charles J. Fisher, professor of philosophy at Reiser College."
He looked at me quickly. "Or at least I was until recently." For a second his face was boyish. "Professor of philosophy, that is."
I smiled and found that I was staring at the coin in his hand. He gave it to me. On one side I read the words: THE STATEMENT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS COIN IS FALSE. The patient watched....