He responded with great
good humor, but rather in the manner of a schoolmaster addressing pupils
who, he knows, cannot entirely follow him.
"These knobs and handles on the walls," he said, "control the driving
power, which, as I have told you, comes from the atoms of matter which I
have persuaded to unlock their hidden forces. I push or turn one way and
we go ahead, or we rise; I push or turn another way and we stop, or go
back. So I concentrate the atomic force just as I choose. It makes us go,
or it carries us back to earth, or it holds us motionless, according to
the way I apply it. The earth is what I kick against at present, and what
I hold fast by; but any other sufficiently massive body would serve the
same purpose. As to the machinery, you'd need a special education in
order to understand it. You'd have to study the whole subject from the
bottom up, and go through all the experiments that I have tried. I
confess that there are some things the fundamental reason of which I
don't understand myself. But I know how to apply and control the power,
and if I had Professor Thomson and Professor Rutherford here, I'd make
them open their eyes.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35