They asked him about electronic structures. First they had to tell him what an electron was; after that, he did the talking. He confused me and practically everyone else present. He kept talking about a "whatchamaycallit." Finally Dr. Enderby of the Blair Research Foundation pinned him down as to the exact nature of this mysterious something.
Blair grayed visibly when he discovered that Hank's "whatchamaycallit" was identical in meaning, value and structure with h—that abstruse physical concept known as Planck's constant.
Hank offered apologetically, "They ain't no word to describe it exactly. It—well, it just is, that's all. I reckon if you wanted to, you could say it was the diff'rence in energy values in them there light rays we been talkin' about. But that ain't all. It's more'n that. It's also the amount of diff'rence in the way things are. I mean, when you bet or gamble, the whatchamaycallit comes into the picture."
Blair wept. "Heisenberg! The uncertainty factor! Identical with Planck's constant!" He went home gibbering.
Then the graybeards realized that Hank was not just a freak; he was the Answer Man in person. They started digging up toughies that had stymied them for years. They served them in simple language and Hank dished up replies in homespun.
Me, I don't pretend to understand half the stuff I heard them talking about. So you'll have to overlook it if I botch the job of retelling. I recall hearing an astronomer ask one night,
"Mr. Cleaver, what in your opinion is the explanation of the observed fact that celestial bodies apparently always move in conic sections of elliptic or infinite orbits?"
Hank twiddled his fingers and said, "Why, 'pears to me that's on account of nature is lazy."
Someone ejaculated, "Nature lazy?"