The Absolute at Large/Chapter 2
Chapter II
The Karburator
"I've been expecting you!" Marek repeated, when he had seated his guest in a comfortable leather chair. Nothing on earth would have induced Bondy to own up to his vision of the fallen inventor. "Just fancy!" he said, with a rather forced gaiety. "What a coincidence! It struck me only this very morning that we hadn't seen one another for twenty years. Twenty years, Rudy, think of it!"
"Hm," said Marek. "And so you want to buy my invention."
"Buy it?" said G. H. Bondy hesitatingly. "I really don't know . . . I haven't even given it a thought. I wanted to see you and"
"Oh, come, you needn't pretend," Marek interrupted him. "I knew that you were coming. You'd be sure to, for a thing like this. This kind of invention is just in your line. There's a lot to be done with it." He made an eloquent motion with his hand, coughed, and began again more deliberately. "The invention I am going to show you means a bigger revolution in technical methods than Watt's invention of the steam-engine. To give you its nature briefly, it provides, putting it theoretically, for the complete utilization of atomic energy."
Bondy concealed a yawn. "But tell me, what have you been doing all these twenty years?"
Marek glanced at him with some surprise.
"Modern science teaches that all matter—that is to say, its atoms—is composed of a vast number of units of energy. An atom is in reality a collection of electrons, i.e. of the tiniest particles of electricity."
"That's tremendously interesting," Bondy broke in. "I was always weak in physics, you know. But you're not looking well, Marek. By the way, how did you happen to come by this playth . . . this, er . . . factory?"
"I? Oh, quite by accident. I invented a new kind of filament for electric bulbs. . . . But that's nothing; I only came upon it incidentally. You see, for twenty years I've been working on the combustion of matter. Tell me yourself, Bondy, what is the greatest problem of modern industry?"
"Doing business," said Bondy. "And are you married yet?"
"I'm a widower," answered Marek, leaping up excitedly. "No, business has nothing to do with it, I tell you. It's combustion. The complete utilization of the heat-energy contained in matter! Just consider that we use hardly one hundred-thousandth of the heat that there is in coal, and that could be extracted from it! Do you realize that!"
"Yes, coal is terribly dear!" said Mr. Bondy sapiently.
Marek sat down and cried disgustedly, "Look here, if you haven't come here about my Karburator, Bondy, you can go."
"Go ahead, then," Bondy returned, anxious to conciliate him.
Marek rested his head in his hands, and after a struggle came out with, "For twenty years I've been working on it, and now—now, I'll sell it to the first man who comes along! My magnificent dream! The greatest invention of all the ages! Seriously, Bondy, I tell you, it's something really amazing."
"No doubt, in the present wretched state of affairs," assented Bondy.
"No, without any qualification at all, amazing. Do you realize that it means the utilization of atomic energy without any residue whatever?"
"Aha," said Bondy. "So we're going to do our heating with atoms. Well, why not? . . . You've got a nice place here, Rudy. Small and pleasant. How many hands do you employ?"
Marek took no notice. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "it's all the same thing, whatever you call it—the utilization of atomic energy, or the complete combustion of matter, or the disintegration of matter. You can call it what you please."
"I'm in favour of 'combustion'!" said Mr. Bondy. "It sounds more familiar."
"But 'disintegration' is more exact—to break up the atoms into electrons, and harness the electrons and make them work. Do you understand that?"
"Perfectly," Bondy assured him. "The point is to harness them!"
"Well, imagine, say, that there are two horses at the ends of a rope, pulling with all their might in opposite directions. Do you know what you have then?"
"Some kind of sport, I suppose," suggested Mr. Bondy.
"No, a state of repose. The horses pull, but they stay where they are. And if you were to cut the rope"
"—The horses would fall over," cried G. H. Bondy, with a flash of inspiration.
"No, but they would start running; they would become energy released. Now, pay attention. Matter is a team in that very position. Cut the bonds that hold its electrons together, and they will . . ."
"Run loose!"
"Yes, but we can catch and harness them, don't you see? Or put it to yourself this way: we burn a piece of coal, say, to produce heat. We do get a little heat from it, but we also get ashes, coal-gas, and soot. So we don't lose the matter altogether, do we?"
"No.—Won't you have a cigar?"
"No, I won't.—But the matter which is left still contains a vast quantity of unused atomic energy. If we used up the whole of the atomic energy, we should use up the whole of the atoms. In short, the matter would vanish altogether."
"Aha! Now I understand."
"It's just as though we were to grind corn badly—as if we ground up the thin outer husk and threw the rest away, just as we throw away ashes. When the grinding is perfect, there's nothing or next to nothing left of the grain, is there? In the same way, when there is perfect combustion, there's nothing or next to nothing left of the matter we burn. It's ground up completely. It is used up. It returns to its original nothingness. You know, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make matter exist at all. Take away its existence, compel it not to be, and you thereby release an enormous supply of power. That's how it is, Bondy."
"Aha. That's not bad."
"Pflüger, for instance, calculates that one kilogramme of coal contains twenty-three billions of calories. I think that Pflüger exaggerates."
"Decidedly."
"I have arrived at seven billions myself, theoretically. But even that signifies that one kilogramme of coal, if it underwent complete combustion, would run a good-sized factory for several hundred hours!"
"The devil it does!" cried Mr. Bondy, springing from his chair.
"I can't give you the exact number of hours. I've been burning half a kilogramme of coal for six weeks at a pressure of thirty kilogrammetres and, man alive," said the engineer in a whisper, turning pale, "it's still going on . . . and on . . . and on."
Bondy was embarrassed; he stroked his smooth round chin. "Listen, Marek," he began, hesitatingly. "You're surely . . . er . . . a bit . . . er . . . overworked."
Marek's hand thrust the suggestion aside. "Not a bit of it. If you'd only get up physics a bit, I could give you an explanation of my Karburator[1] in which the combustion takes place. It involves a whole chapter of advanced physics, you know. But you'll see it downstairs in the cellar. I shovelled half a kilogramme of coal into the machine, then I shut it up and had it officially sealed in the presence of witnesses, so that no one could put any more coal in. Go and have a look at it for yourself—go on—go now! You won't understand it, anyway, but—go down to the cellar! Go on down, man, I tell you!"
"Won't you come with me?" asked Bondy in astonishment.
"No, you go alone. And . . . I say, Bondy . . . don't stay down there long."
"Why not?" asked Bondy, growing a trifle suspicious.
"Oh, nothing much. Only I've a notion that perhaps it's not quite healthy down there. Turn on the light, the switch is just by the door. That noise down in the cellar doesn't come from my machine. It works noiselessly, steadily, and without any smell. . . . The roaring is only a . . . a ventilator. Well, now, you go on. I'll wait here. Then you can tell me . . ."
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Bondy went down the cellar steps, quite glad to be away from that madman for a while (quite mad, no doubt whatever about it) and rather worried as to the quickest means of getting out of the place altogether. Why, just look, the cellar had a huge thick reinforced door just like an armour-plated safe in a bank. And now let's have a light. The switch was just by the door. And there in the middle of the arched concrete cellar, clean as a monastery cell, lay a gigantic copper cylinder resting on cement supports. It was closed on all sides except at the top, where there was a grating bedecked with seals. Inside the machine all was darkness and silence. With a smooth and regular motion the cylinder thrust forth a piston which slowly rotated a heavy fly-wheel. That was all. Only the ventilator in the cellar window kept up a ceaseless rattle.
Perhaps it was the draught from the ventilator or something—but Mr. Bondy felt a peculiar breeze upon his brow, and an eerie sensation as though his hair were standing on end; and then it seemed as if he were being borne through boundless space; and then as though he were floating in the air without any sensation of his own weight. G. H. Bondy fell on his knees, lost in a bewildering, shining ecstasy. He felt as if he must shout and sing, he seemed to hear about him the rustle of unceasing and innumerable wings. And suddenly someone seized him violently by the hand and dragged him from the cellar. It was Marek, wearing over his head a mask or a helmet like a diver's, and he hauled Bondy up the stairs.
Up in the room he pulled off his metal head-covering and wiped away the sweat that soaked his brow.
"Only just in time," he gasped, showing tremendous agitation.
- ↑ This name which Marek gave to his atomic boiler is, of course, quite incorrect, and is one of the melancholy results of the ignorance of Latin among technicians. A more exact term would have been Komburator, Atomic Kettle, Karbowatt, Disintegrator, Motor M, Bondymover, Hylergon, Molecular Disintegration Dynamo, E. W., and other designations which were later proposed. It was, of course, the bad one that was generally adopted.