THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
Copyright (c) 1980 Robert A. Heinlein
All rights reserved
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Excerpt from Chapter VI:
"... Does the word tesseract mean anything to you?"
"My high school geometry teacher showed us how to
construct them-- projections-- with modeling wax and toothpicks. Fun. I
found other four-dimensional figures that were easy to project. And a
number of ways to project them."
"Sharpie, you must have had an exceptional geometry
teacher."
"In an exceptional geometry class. Don't faint,
Zebbie, but I was grouped with what they called 'overachievers' after
it became 'undemocratic' to call them 'gifted children.'"
"Be durned! Why do you always behave like a
fritterhead?"
"Why don't you ever look beneath the surface, young
man! I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only
way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn't mean I don't
read and can't think...."
.... "Attention, class.
The two prongs of the caltrop painted blue represent our
three-dimensional space of experience. The third prong painted yellow
is the t-time we are used to. The red fourth prong simulates both
Tau-time and Teh-time, the unexplored time dimensions necessary to
Jake's theory. Sharpie, we have condensed six dimensions into four,
then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that
apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can
think of some way to project six dimensions into three-- you seem to be
smart at such projections."
I closed my eyes and thought hard. "Zebbie, I don't
think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it."
"It can be done, my dearest," answered my dearest, "but
it is unsatisfactory. Even with a display computer with capacity to
subtract one or more dimensions at a time. A superhypertesseract-- a to
the sixth power-- has too many lines and corners and planes and solids
and hypersolids for the eye to grasp. Cause the computer to subtract
dimensions and what you have left is what you already knew. I fear it
is an innate incapacity of visual conception in the human brain."
"I think Pop is right," agreed Deety. "I worked hard on
that program. I don't think the late great Dr. Marvin Minsky could have
done it better in flat projection. Holovision? I don't know. I would
like to try if I ever get my hands on a computer with holovideo display
and the capacity to add, subtract, and rotate six coordinates."
"But why six dimensions?" I asked. "Why not five? Or even
four, since you speak of rotating them interchangeably."
"Jake?" said Zeb.
My darling looked fussed. "It bothered me that a
space-time continuum seemed to require three space dimensions but only
one time dimension. Granted that the universe is what it is,
nevertheless nature is filled with symmetries. Even after the
destruction of the parity principle, scientists kept finding new ones.
Philosophers stay wedded to symmetry-- but I don't count philosophers."
"Of course not," agreed Zeb. "No philosopher allows his
opinions to be swayed by facts-- he would be kicked out of his guild.
Theologians, the lot of them."
"I concur. Hilda my darling, after I found a way to
experiment, it turned out that six dimensions existed. Possibly
more-- but I see no way to reach them."
"Let me see," I said. "If I understood earlier, each
dimension can be swapped for any other."
"By ninety-degree rotation, yes."
"Wouldn't that be the combinations taken four at a
time out of a set of six? How many is that?"
"Fifteen," Zebbie answered.
"Goodness! Fifteen whole universes? And we use only one?"
"No, no, my darling! That would be ninety-degree
rotations of one Euclidean universe. But our universe, or universes,
has been known to be non-Euclidean at least since 1919. Or 1886 if you
prefer. I stipulate that cosmology is an imperfect discipline,
nevertheless, for considerations that I cannot state in nonmathematical
terms, I was forced to assume a curved space of positive radius-- that is to say, a
closed space. That makes the universes possibly accessible to use
either by rotation or by translation this number." My husband rapidly
wrote three sixes.
"Six sixty-six," I said wonderingly. "The Number of the
Beast."
"Eh? Oh! The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. But I
scrawled it sloppily. You took it that I wrote this: "666" But what I
intended to write was this:
666 ~ Six raised to its sixth power, and the result
in turn raised to its sixth power. That number is this:" 1.03144 + X
10~~ "--or written in full:"
10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056 "--or more than ten million
sextillion universes in our group."
What can one say to that? Jacob went on, "Those universes
are our nextdoor neighbors, one rotation or one translation away. But
if one includes combinations of rotation and translation-- think of a
hyperplane slicing through superhypercontinua not at the point of
here-now-- the total becomes indenumerable. Not infinity-- infinity has
no
meaning. Uncountable. Not subject to manipulation by mathematics thus
far invented. Accessible to continua craft but no known way to count
them."
"Pop--"
"Yes, Deety?"
"Maybe Aunt Hilda hit on something. Agnostic as you are,
you nevertheless keep the Bible around as history and poetry and myth."
"Who said I was agnostic, my daughter?"
"Sorry, sir. I long ago reached that conclusion because
you won't talk about it. Wrong of me. Lack of data never justifies a conclusion. But this key number-one-point-oh-three-one-four-four-plus times ten to its twenty-eighth power-- perhaps that is the 'Number of the Beast."
"What do you mean, Deety?"
"That Revelation isn't history, it's not good poetry, and
it's not myth. There must have been some reason for a large number of
learned men to include it-- while chucking out several dozen gospels.
Why not make a first hypothesis with Occam's Razor and read it as what
it purports to be? Prophecy."
"Hmm. The shelves under the stairs, next to Shakespeare.
The King James version, never mind the other three."
Deety was back in a moment with a well-worn black
book-- which surprised me. I read the Bible for my own reasons but it
never occurred to me that Jacob would. We always marry strangers.
"Here," said Deety. "Chapter thirteen, verse eighteen:
'Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six."
"That can't be read as exponents, Deety."
"But this is a translation, Pop. Wasn't the original in
Greek? I don't remember when exponents were invented but the Greek
mathematicians of that time certainly understood powers. Suppose the
original read 'Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!'-- and those scholars, who weren't
mathematicians, mistranslated it as six hundred and sixty-six?"
"Uh.. . moondrift, Daughter."
"Who taught me that the world is not only stranger than
we imagine but stranger than we can imagine? Who has already taken me
into two universes that are not this one. . . and brought me safely
home?"
Table of contents and opening sentences for the Fawcett paperback
reissue edition of Heinlein's Number of the Beast, Sept.
12, 1986, 512 pages, ISBN 0449130703:
Contents
PART ONE
The Mandarin's Butterfly
I "-- it is better to marry than
to burn."
--Saul of Tarsus page 11
II "This Universe never did make
sense--" 16
III "--Professor Moriarty isn't fooled--" 20
IV Because two things equal to the same
thing are never equal to each other. 34
V "--a wedding ring is not a ring in my
nose--" 39
VI Are men and women one race? 42
VII "Avete, Alieni, nos morituri vos
spernimus!" 57
VIII "Let us all preserve our illusions--" 66
IX Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws. 72
X "--and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon'!" 86
XI "-citizens must protect
themselves." 95
XII "They might fumigate this planet and take it." 103
XIII Being too close to a fireball can worry a man-- 116
XIV "Quit worrying and enjoy the ride." 124
XV "We'll hit so hard we'll hardly notice
it." 131
XVI --a maiden knight, eager to break a
lance-- 133
XVII The world wobbled-- 139
XVIII "-the whole world is alive." 152
PART TWO
The Butterfly's Mandarin
XIX Something is gained in
translation-- 163
XX --right theory, wrong universe.
169
XXI --three seconds is a long
time-- 180
XXII "'From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs.'" 192
XXIII "The farce is over." 207
XXIV Captains aren't supposed to cry. 217
XXV "--leave bad enough alone!" 231
XXVI The Keys to the City 243
XXVII "Are you open to a bribe?" 256
XXVIII "He's too fat." 275
XXIX "--we place no faith in princes."
283
XXX "Different physical laws, a different topology." 307
XXXI "--the first ghosts ever to search for
an obstetrician." 319
XXXII "Where Cat is, is civilization." 326
XXXIII "--'solipsism' is a buzz word." 334
XXXIV "--all my dreams do come true!"
347
XXXV "It's a disturbing idea--" 353
XXXVI "Pipe down and do your job." 356
XXXVII The First Law of Biology 363
XXXVIII "--under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid--" 369
PART THREE
Death and Resurrection
XXXIX Random Numbers 389
XL "Is there a mathematician
in the house?" 393
XLI "A cat can be caught in almost any trap once-" 404
XLII "You're a figment of
imagination." 415
XLIII To Pull a Hat Out of a Rabbit-- 422
XLIV "--where do we get the corpse?" 437
XLV A Stitch in Time 449
XLVI "I'm gifted with second sight." 454
XLVII "There are no tomorrows." 461
L 'Envoi
XLVIII Rev. XXII: 13 page 481
I "-- it is better to marry than to burn."
-- Saul of Tarsus
"He's a Mad Scientist and I'm his Beautiful
Daughter."
That's what she said: the oldest cliché in
pulp fiction....