aj47
December 21st, 2013, 05:19 PM
He read the words again. I haven't the time. An image of one of Everiste Galois' last letters was on Verne's tablet, full of algebraic theorems, many without proofs because Galois was correct about not having the time.
Verne LeBlanc had the sudden realization that Galois was wrong.
Everiste Galois was a genius whom many hailed as the father of modern algebra. He was also a political radical who died before he reached adulthood in a duel that some claim was orchestrated by the French government. If Verne was right, Galois was further ahead of the curve than anyone had thought.
The clues were there, but in the political writings, rather than the mathematical. LeBlanc was doing his thesis on mathematical genius in French history -- Galois, Fermat, and such -- and so he had developed a fluency in pre-millennial French to be able to read the writings of his subjects in their original language.
In Camembert's biography The Boy who Fathered Algebra, Verne had read about some of the peculiar artifacts found in Galois' study. A circular alloyed plate on the floor measuring exactly one meter in diameter with a corresponding parabolic mirror in the ceiling directly above it. That was not decoration or an oddity, Verne was certain. It was, rather, the framework of the first time machine.
But how would he have been able to control it? Verne pulled up the book on his tablet and searched the index. He knew it would be some sort of calendar device so started with the C's. Jackpot! There were two references to a mechanical calendar, one spanned four pages. He touched it with his finger and began reading.
About a third of the way through, he knew he was onto something. Camembert referred to the mechanical calendar as an "alarm calendar" because it had a dual display for both date and time, one which progressed at the rate of one second per second and another which was static and which sounded a chime when the two displays were in agreement. Verne was certain if you put that box into the field created by the plate and mirror and supplied a source of power, that Galois would have a working time machine. Camembert did not mention the presence or absence of a lightning rod on the Galois residence, but Verne was certain that is where the power would have come from.
So why didn't Galois realize what he had? The answer was in his last letters. He thought of his machine as a "permutator" and considered it a way to explore permutations of the future. However, the genius also knew that to return to the present would require his machine to be functioning to "receive" him. In some of his political writing, Galois spoke of time spans and how the permutations often took years to affect results. Thus he would first try to "return to today" at some point in the future.
But the duel had happened before he was able to perform that experiment with his apparatus.
The thought occurred to Verne that if he could find evidence of the machine being operational, it would be possible for someone to go back to 1832 France and possibly change the outcome.
Galois was right about traveling back in time. Thus far, scientists had been limited to traveling back to the 21st century as that had been the earliest recorded use of a time machine. But Verne was certain that if he carefully read all of Galois' writing, especially the political diatribes, that he would be able to determine when Galois had planned to catch himself coming backward in time. And maybe Verne could be caught in Galois' Permutator instead, thus opening a new frontier for science.
Verne LeBlanc had the sudden realization that Galois was wrong.
Everiste Galois was a genius whom many hailed as the father of modern algebra. He was also a political radical who died before he reached adulthood in a duel that some claim was orchestrated by the French government. If Verne was right, Galois was further ahead of the curve than anyone had thought.
The clues were there, but in the political writings, rather than the mathematical. LeBlanc was doing his thesis on mathematical genius in French history -- Galois, Fermat, and such -- and so he had developed a fluency in pre-millennial French to be able to read the writings of his subjects in their original language.
In Camembert's biography The Boy who Fathered Algebra, Verne had read about some of the peculiar artifacts found in Galois' study. A circular alloyed plate on the floor measuring exactly one meter in diameter with a corresponding parabolic mirror in the ceiling directly above it. That was not decoration or an oddity, Verne was certain. It was, rather, the framework of the first time machine.
But how would he have been able to control it? Verne pulled up the book on his tablet and searched the index. He knew it would be some sort of calendar device so started with the C's. Jackpot! There were two references to a mechanical calendar, one spanned four pages. He touched it with his finger and began reading.
About a third of the way through, he knew he was onto something. Camembert referred to the mechanical calendar as an "alarm calendar" because it had a dual display for both date and time, one which progressed at the rate of one second per second and another which was static and which sounded a chime when the two displays were in agreement. Verne was certain if you put that box into the field created by the plate and mirror and supplied a source of power, that Galois would have a working time machine. Camembert did not mention the presence or absence of a lightning rod on the Galois residence, but Verne was certain that is where the power would have come from.
So why didn't Galois realize what he had? The answer was in his last letters. He thought of his machine as a "permutator" and considered it a way to explore permutations of the future. However, the genius also knew that to return to the present would require his machine to be functioning to "receive" him. In some of his political writing, Galois spoke of time spans and how the permutations often took years to affect results. Thus he would first try to "return to today" at some point in the future.
But the duel had happened before he was able to perform that experiment with his apparatus.
The thought occurred to Verne that if he could find evidence of the machine being operational, it would be possible for someone to go back to 1832 France and possibly change the outcome.
Galois was right about traveling back in time. Thus far, scientists had been limited to traveling back to the 21st century as that had been the earliest recorded use of a time machine. But Verne was certain that if he carefully read all of Galois' writing, especially the political diatribes, that he would be able to determine when Galois had planned to catch himself coming backward in time. And maybe Verne could be caught in Galois' Permutator instead, thus opening a new frontier for science.