The billiard ball
The billiard ball (also the zero field ; Original title: The Billiard Ball ) is an approximately 20-page science fiction - short story by Isaac Asimov from 1967 that the strained relationship and the struggle for recognition between the inventor and entrepreneur Edward Bloom, and the theoretical physicist Professor James Priss. It is told from the perspective of a reporter who conducts interviews with both scientists.
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Professor James Priss is a brilliant theoretical physicist, “the greatest mind since Einstein”, and has already received two Nobel Prizes . He is an extremely slow but careful thinker, inconspicuous in clothing and habit. Edward Bloom, on the other hand, was a classmate of Priss at college but never - like Priss - finished his training ("Hell, by the time Priss got his Ph.D. , I was working on my second million.") , is a millionaire inventor and entrepreneur, and the opposite of Priss: He is "tall, broad, loud, harsh towards others and self-confident". He made his fortune by commercializing Priss's theoretical ideas. Despite their different characters, both have maintained the habit of playing pool together on a regular basis .
When Priss presented his new two-field theory to explain gravitation , the reporter visited him, who wanted to stir up the conflict between Bloom and Priss for his readers. In an interview he urged Priss to make a statement as to whether the manipulation and abolition of gravity will ever be possible in practice. Ultimately, Priss lets himself be carried away into calling the technical creation of a zero-gravity field impossible. This in turn incites Edward Bloom, who defiantly announces in an interview that he can make this possible.
Months later, Bloom invites the press and scientists, including Priss, to a large-scale demonstration of a zero-gravity field. The experimental setup is designed so that Priss is supposed to push a billiard ball into the field created by Bloom in front of everyone; For Bloom, who is enthroned in an armchair diagonally across from Priss and smiling at him, this is the ultimate satisfaction, as he has found a technical solution to a problem that Priss considered impossible. Since ultraviolet radiation is generated when the field is generated, which Priss perceives with interest, everyone present must wear protective goggles. At first Priss stands petrified in front of the billiard table and only after a long hesitation does he play the billiard ball over gang in the zero-gravity field. There is a loud bang and when everyone's eyes are on Bloom, he is sitting dead in his armchair and has a through hole the size of a billiard ball in his forearm, his heart area and in the back of the chair.
Months later: The reporter meets again with Priss, who is handsome and now better dressed and is head of research at Bloom Enterprises, where he leads the technical development of the zero-gravity field, which has proven to be the first type of perpetual motion machine and has solved all energy problems. From Priss's point of view, a tragic accident occurred during the demonstration due to Bloom's incomplete foresight and lack of knowledge of the matter. According to Priss, he was only able to explain the course of events in retrospect: Without gravity, there can be no mass and the billiard ball was accelerated to the speed of light in the field . After crossing the field, it materialized again with a tiny mass defect , but with enough residual kinetic energy to presumably still race through the vastness of the Milky Way.
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The introductory tension is built up by the fact that the reporter, who remembers the process in retrospect, already suspects a murder by Professor Priss on the first page. According to Priss' explanation at the end of the story, he makes this assumption with the last questioning word Murder? voiced again.
Asimov mentioned that after reading the story, a friend suggested him the title Dirty Pool . He (Asimov) refused, however, because the title “too flippant” seemed to him for such a serious story. But it could also be that he (Asimov) was internally “just corroded with jealousy”, because this title had not occurred to him himself.
reference
- English: The Billiard Ball , in The Best of Isaac Asimov , 1954–1972, Sphere Science Fiction, London (1977), Ed. Angus Wells
- English: The billiard ball , in Isaac Asimov - Science Fiction Kriminalgeschichten , Heyne Verlag (1969)
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Evidence and explanations
- ↑ For example: the greatest thinker since Einstein.
- ↑ For example: Hell too, when Priss was finishing his doctoral thesis, I was [already] working on my second million;
- ↑ A play on words : dirty pool (billiards) , and also dirty (swimming) pool .
- ↑ About: too superficial, funky.
- ↑ For example: simply eaten away by envy
- ^ Isaac Asimov: The Billiard Ball , in The Best of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1972 , Sphere Science Fiction, London (1977), Ed. Angus Wells, p. 147.