[PLUG] Brain the size of a planet - algol

Ronald Chmara ron at Opus1.COM
Fri May 6 02:21:02 UTC 2005


On May 5, 2005, at 6:58 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> You know, that reminds me of a story. A few years ago, the scientists
> somewhere (Bell Labs, I think) discovered some unusual radio waves
> buried in the typical background noise that affects communications. So
> they analyzed it and came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, the
> echoes of the Big Bang that created the Universe as we know it. IIRC
> they got a Nobel prize for this.
>
> They took the waveforms back to the lab and wrote a program to simulate
> the equations of the Big Bang to verify their conjecture. When they ran
> the simulation, the radio signals they had detected were indeed 
> present.
> Then one scientist got the idea, "What if we run the simulation
> backwards ... we could find out what happened *before* the Big Bang!"
>
> In eager anticipation, they adjusted a few parameters and re-ran the
> simulation. They took the waveforms and piped them into a primitive
> speaker and heard
>
> "Oops"

This (and the subject line, of course) reminds me of The Final Message:
-----
They rounded the foot of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains, and there was 
the Message written in blazing letters along the crest of the Mountain. 
There was a little observation vantage point with a rail built along 
the top of a large rock facing it, from which you could get a good 
view. It had a little pay-telescope for looking at the letters in 
detail, but no one would ever use it because the letters burned with 
the divine brilliance of the heavens and would, if seen through a 
telescope, have severely damaged the retina and optic nerve.

They gazed at God's Final Message in wonderment, and were slowly and 
ineffably filled with a great sense of peace, and of final and complete 
understanding.

Fenchurch sighed. "Yes," she said, "that was it."

They had been staring at it for fully ten minutes before they became 
aware that Marvin, hanging between their shoulders, was in 
difficulties. The robot could no longer lift his head, had not read the 
message. They lifted his head, but he complained that his vision 
circuits had almost gone.

They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and 
insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in 
turn, The first letter was a "w", the second an "e". Then there was a 
gap. An "a" followed, then a "p", an "o" and an "l".

Marvin paused for a rest.

After a few moments they resumed and let him see the "o", the "g", the 
"i", the "s" and the "e".

The next two words were "for" and "the". The last one was a long one, 
and Marvin needed another rest before he could tackle it.

It started with an "i", then "n" then a "c". Next came an "o" and an 
"n", followed by a "v", an "e", another "n" and an "i".

After a final pause, Marvin gathered his strength for the last stretch.

He read the "e", the "n", the "c" and at last the final "e", and 
staggered back into their arms.

"I think," he murmured at last, from deep within his corroding rattling 
thorax, "I feel good about it."

The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.

Luckily, there was a stall nearby where you could rent scooters from 
guys with green wings.
-----

-Bop




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