"Well, we'll tell Wright about it. In the mean time, come in to the laboratory and meet Bartholemew."
Bartholemew was at the moment engaged in tracing a very complicated curve, the integral of a half dozen or so other curves. Wright was carefully watching the thin line left by the pencil. There was a low steady humming coming from the machine, and a bank of small transformers on the other side of the room connected to it. Wright turned off the machine as they entered, and after greeting Waterson, and meeting Gale, proceeded at once with an enthusiastic description of the machine. He was obviously proud of the machine, and of the man who had developed it. The entire machine had been enclosed in a metal case when Gale entered, but now Wright opened this, and Gale was decidedly surprised to see the interior. He really had had no reason to form any opinion of the machine, but he had expected a maze of gears, shafts, levers, chains and every sort of mechanical apparatus. Somehow the mention of a machine for doing mathematics conveyed to him that impression. The actual machine seemed quite simple—merely a small cable leading from the separate "graph interpreters," as Wright called them, to the central integrater, and hence a small motor carried the integrated result into practice and put it on paper.
This machine made possible a type of mathematics hitherto unknown. This new calculus was to the previous integration what integration was to addition. Integration is an infinite summation of very small terms, and this new mathematics was an integration in an infinite number of dimensions. The beginner first learns to integrate in two dimensions. Then come three. Einstein had carried his mathematics to four. The machine seemed to work in an infinite number of dimensions, but the conditions of the problem really chose the four out of infinity that were under discussion. An infinite number of dimensions has no physical meaning. It might be put this way, Wright said: there are an infinite number of solutions to the equation x=2+y, and as such it has no meaning. But if for example you say also that 2y=x, then auto-mathematically you choose two of an infinite number of values that fit the problem in hand. A man might have done all this machine did, had he lived long enough and been patient enough. This machine could do in an hour a problem that would have taken a man a lifetime. Thus it had been able to develop the true mathematical picture of the atom.
Over the supper table that night they had a final discussion as to the name of the ship. It was decided that the name should be "Terrestrian," and plans were made to christen it in as scientific a manner as possible. Considering that the shell was made of iridium, and therefore highly inert to chemical action, they decided on a bottle of aqua regia which dissolves gold and platinum, and does not attack iridium. A bottle was prepared, and they were ready for the christening in the morning. Just as they decided to call the day done, the telephone rang. It was Dr. Wilkins of Mt. Wilson calling Waterson. The conversation was rather lengthy, and Wright, who had answered, told Gale that Dr. Wilkins had called before, about two months ago, on a question in astro-physics, and Waterson had been able to give the answer. This time however, Dr. Wilkins, it seemed, was greatly agitated. Just then Waterson returned.
"Gale, it seems we chose our name well. Also I am lucky in having you here. I must go to Mt. Wilson at once, I'll be back about dawn, and I'll tell you two all about it then. I've got to hurry. So long."
A moment later the two men heard the hum of the motor as the hangar doors were opened. Another moment and the entire countryside was flooded with a blaze of bluish white light, that illuminated the desolate dry desert for miles, and for all those weary miles it was an unending, rolling surface of sand. In the glow of sudden light, great strange shadows which started up by the buildings gave weird effects on the sand, but with it all there was a rugged and compelling beauty to the little world which the light had cut from the darkness. There was a sudden whistle of air, and the light faded as the car shot off toward Mt. Wilson.
"What a mass of sand there is around here! It would seem almost like a dried up ocean bed," said Gale.
"I suppose there is a lot of sand in the world—there should be though, it is the direct compound of the two most abundant elements on Earth, silicon and oxygen."