Transcribe
Translate
Variant, v. 1, issue 2, whole no. 2, May 1947
Page 11
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
May 1947 VARIANT Page 11 Let this speak for itself. EEK! by Milton A. Rothman "Betwixt the ineffable and the insupportable." Nature, swathed in gloomy mystery, peeks out at us from behind a cloud. "Boo!" it says. Charles Fort, shell-like ears quivering with excitement says, "Ah, what does this mean?" He scampers about collecting newspaper accounts of strange events, waves them in the faces of Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein, shouting, "See, you dull clods, your universe is all wrong. It does not explain the inexplicable." Frogs fall from the sky, men disappear, ships vanish, lights move about the heavens. The stars are but holes pricked in the shell surrounding us, and the earth is flat. The ocean is inhabited by beings from other planets, and we are being kept. "And those who do not believe this," shrieks Fort and his followers, are being narrow minded and blind, closing their eyes to the realities of nature, afraid of admitting the truth of anything which is likely to upset their neat and muscle-bound system of nature. Newton, that dull clod, creator of calculus and the science of mechanics, smiles to himself as he regards the apple dropping from the tree. It falls! The rain falls from the sky, the bomb falls from the airplane, the meteor falls from space, and always they fall down, never up. The planets circle the sun, and the suns circle each other bound to each other by irresistible and unchanging forces despite the vast and unimaginable distances that separate. Newton smiles, contemplating the fall of the apple, but the smile is a grim one, for although he can measure the speed of the fall, and although he can predict the motions of the planets around the sun, he has not the vaguest notion of what mechanism reaches through empty space, causing the apple to fall and the stars to revolve. And three hundred years later, Poincare, knowing full well that his science is based upon the most utter mystery of all, mutters, "Science cannot explain. It can only describe." No need to search for newspaper accounts of mysteries. Just look around. No need to hunt for falling frogs. Falling apples are a sufficient mystery. Falling apples and growing apples. Trees blooming in the spring, browning in the fall. Flowers exploding with colors, the bees and the birds, females of the species bearing young, the young growing old and bearing more young. And yet -- a grown body contains more cells than there are molecules in the chromosomes of the egg. Still within that egg are contained the blue prints for every detail of the matured body, for the shape and positions of the bones, blood vessel, nerves, glands, organs, because from a human egg does not grow a tiger, and children do resemble their parents. Completely inexplicable, and not an oddity, a rarity, a fragile piece of evidence to be seen by only a few. It is for all to see. So science is dull and stodgy and will not recognize new and daring concepts? Certainly if science will not accept the truths and the strangeness of nature, it will not accept the preposterous claptrap of men being able to talk to each other over distances of thousands of miles -- and as for sending pictures over those distances, let us discuss the matter no further.
Saving...
prev
next
May 1947 VARIANT Page 11 Let this speak for itself. EEK! by Milton A. Rothman "Betwixt the ineffable and the insupportable." Nature, swathed in gloomy mystery, peeks out at us from behind a cloud. "Boo!" it says. Charles Fort, shell-like ears quivering with excitement says, "Ah, what does this mean?" He scampers about collecting newspaper accounts of strange events, waves them in the faces of Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein, shouting, "See, you dull clods, your universe is all wrong. It does not explain the inexplicable." Frogs fall from the sky, men disappear, ships vanish, lights move about the heavens. The stars are but holes pricked in the shell surrounding us, and the earth is flat. The ocean is inhabited by beings from other planets, and we are being kept. "And those who do not believe this," shrieks Fort and his followers, are being narrow minded and blind, closing their eyes to the realities of nature, afraid of admitting the truth of anything which is likely to upset their neat and muscle-bound system of nature. Newton, that dull clod, creator of calculus and the science of mechanics, smiles to himself as he regards the apple dropping from the tree. It falls! The rain falls from the sky, the bomb falls from the airplane, the meteor falls from space, and always they fall down, never up. The planets circle the sun, and the suns circle each other bound to each other by irresistible and unchanging forces despite the vast and unimaginable distances that separate. Newton smiles, contemplating the fall of the apple, but the smile is a grim one, for although he can measure the speed of the fall, and although he can predict the motions of the planets around the sun, he has not the vaguest notion of what mechanism reaches through empty space, causing the apple to fall and the stars to revolve. And three hundred years later, Poincare, knowing full well that his science is based upon the most utter mystery of all, mutters, "Science cannot explain. It can only describe." No need to search for newspaper accounts of mysteries. Just look around. No need to hunt for falling frogs. Falling apples are a sufficient mystery. Falling apples and growing apples. Trees blooming in the spring, browning in the fall. Flowers exploding with colors, the bees and the birds, females of the species bearing young, the young growing old and bearing more young. And yet -- a grown body contains more cells than there are molecules in the chromosomes of the egg. Still within that egg are contained the blue prints for every detail of the matured body, for the shape and positions of the bones, blood vessel, nerves, glands, organs, because from a human egg does not grow a tiger, and children do resemble their parents. Completely inexplicable, and not an oddity, a rarity, a fragile piece of evidence to be seen by only a few. It is for all to see. So science is dull and stodgy and will not recognize new and daring concepts? Certainly if science will not accept the truths and the strangeness of nature, it will not accept the preposterous claptrap of men being able to talk to each other over distances of thousands of miles -- and as for sending pictures over those distances, let us discuss the matter no further.
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
