Page:Fantastic v08n11 1959-11.djvu/48

build a machine that goes through such a trivial rigmarole, why in short I should spend my declining years dancing attendance on monotony. The answer is that I am trying to trap Maxwell's demon. Here is Olafson's Hole.

Who is he? Why, as I told you, he is our machinist—Oh, Maxwell's demon. Well, he might be described as the element of the fantastic in the cosmos—the element of the possbile but wildly improbable.

Bother, Olafson has gone off on some errand. He had locked up and hung his "Back in 20 minutes" sign on the door. I fear the Fates are against us, Di, tonight. They do not wish you to see Geller's Folly, and be disillusioned. I am sure of course that they are wiser than we.

You still wish to see it? You are most flattering to an old man. Well, we can confidently wait for Olafson—his 20 minutes never means 21, nor—oddly—19. Better, we'll take a turn around the quadrangle—it is a mild night for January and you have your furs, while I will simply button the cardigan I wear in winter beneath my suit coat. Allow me a moment to scribble a note to Olafson so that he does not go off again. Better, I'll tell him to meet us at the Folly.

How do I expect to trap Max—I mean the fantastic in the Folly? Well . . . You are sure I am not boring you? Yes, I agree that if you wish to see the Folly, it is likely that you wish to understand it. Thank you. Well, in the Folly I have a double handful of air—billions of molecules of several gasses, each moving at thousands of feet a second, endlessly colliding, rebounding from each other and the walls of the Folly hundreds of times a second, a shuffled jumble of particles. The energy of movement of these molecules, of course, adds up to the air pressure—I fear I grow stuffy, Di.

Science does not allow me to predict the behavior of any one of the molecules—as Whitehead puts it, the individual particle is a rare bird—but I am able to make significant predictions about the behavior of the flock. For instance, I can say that at any given moment the chances are overwhelming (I will not trouble you with the figures) that half the molecules are moving predominantly westward and half eastward—and the same for north and south and up and down.

But that, mark you, is only the overwhelming probability.