Infinity's Shore

“What’s the problem?”

The Niss showed spiky irritation.

“My difficulty is that all the algorithms used by Uriel are of Terran origin.”

Gillian nodded.

“Naturally. Her math books came from the so-called Great Printing, when human learning flooded this world, most of it in the form of precontact texts. A mirror image of what Galactic society did to Earth. On Jijo, we were the ones to unleash an overpowering wealth of knowledge, engulfing prior beliefs.”

Hence also Gillian’s recent, weird experience — debating the literary merits of Jules Verne with a pair of distinctly unhuman youngsters named “Alvin” and “Huck,” whose personalities had little in common with the stodgy Galactic norm.

The Niss agreed, bowing its tornado of laced lines.

“You grasp my difficulty, Doctor. Despite Tymbrimi sympathy toward Earthlings, my makers were uplifted as Galactic citizens, with a shared tradition. While details of my programming are exceptional, I was designed according to proven principles, after eons of Galactic experience refining digital computers. These precepts clash with Terran superstitions—”

Gillian coughed behind her hand. The Niss bowed.

“Forgive. I meant to say, Terran lore.”

“Can you give an example?”

“I can. Consider the contrast between the word/concepts discrete and continuous.

“According to Galactic science, anything and everything can be accomplished by using arithmetic. By counting and dividing, using integers and rational fractions. Sophisticated arithmetic algorithms enable us to understand the behavior of a star, for instance, by partitioning it into ever-smaller pieces, modeling those pieces in a simple fashion, then recombining the parts. That is the digital way.”

“It must call for vast amounts of memory and raw computing power.”

“True, but these are cheaply provided, enough for any task you might require.

“Now look back at precontact human wolflings. Your race spent many centuries as semicivilized beings, mentally ready to ask sophisticated questions, but completely lacking access to transistors, quantum switches, or binary processing. Until your great savants, Turing and Von Neumann, finally expressed the power of digital computers, generations of mathematicians had to cope by using pencil and paper.

“The result? A mix of the brilliant and the inane. Abstract differential analysis and cabalistic numerology. Algebra, astrology, and geometrical topology. Much of this amalgam was based on patently absurd concepts, such as continuity, or aptly named irrational numbering, or the astonishing notion that there are layered infinities of the divisibly small.”

Gillian sighed an old frustration.

“Earth’s best minds tried to explain our math, soon after contact. Again and again we showed it was self-consistent. That it worked.”

“Yet it accomplished nothing that could not be outmatched in moments by calculating engines like myself. Galactic seers dismissed all the clever equations as trickery and shortcuts, or else the abstract ravings of savages.”

She acceded with a nod.

“This happened once before, you know. In Earth’s twentieth century, after the Second World War, the victors quickly split into opposing camps. Those experts you mentioned — Turing and von Whoever — they worked in the west, helping set off our own digital revolution.

“Meanwhile, the east was ruled by a single dictator, I think his name was Steel.”

“Accessing the Britannica … You mean ‘Stalin’? Yes, I see the connection. Until his death, Stalin obstructed Russo-Soviet science for ideological reasons. He banished work on genetics because it contradicted notions of communist perfectibility. Moreover, he quashed work on computers, calling them ‘decadent.’ Even after his passing, many in the east held that calculation was crude, inelegant … only good for quick approximations. For truth, one needed pure mathematics.”

“So that’s why many practitioners in the Old Math still come from Russia.” Gillian chuckled. “It sounds like yet another inverted image of what happened to Earth, after contact.”

The Niss pondered this for a moment.

“What are you implying, Doctor? That Stalin was partly right? That you Terrans were right? That you were onto something the rest of the universe has missed?”

“It seems unlikely, eh? And yet, isn’t that slim possibility the very reason why your makers assigned you to this ship?”

Again, the meshed lines whirled.

“Point well taken, Dr. Baskin.”

Gillian stood up to start moving her body through a series of stretching exercises. The brief sleep period had helped. Still, there were a hundred problems to address.

“Look,” she asked the Niss Machine. “Is there some point where all this is heading? Haven’t you a clue what problem Uriel is trying to solve?”

She gestured toward the recorded image of pulleys, leather straps, and spinning disks.

“In a word, Doctor? No.