A Doubter's Almanac Read Online Free PDF Page B

was well aware that he needed to distract himself.
    —
    T HAT SEMESTER HE was taking algebraic geometry, Lie groups, and special topics in number theory. Six problem sets per week, each calculation illustrated, each solution rederived for accuracy. Again: distractions. He was also teaching two sections of undergraduate calculus. And all the while, the carefully angled quatrant stood alongside the door of his apartment, steadily emerging from its parts. Turning back to his desk with its piles of student quizzes to mark, he imagined himself in a world where the workings of the heavens remained a mystery, a world in which observation alone might propel forward the lot of man.

    This astral machine was going to lead him to a discovery. That’s what he told himself. Not directly, but along an obliquity. The sun’s otherwise imperceptible climb across the equinoxes. His daily, progressive readings on the notched scales. The enterprise touching him, unexpectedly, with a remembered calm. This would free him.
    Alone in a city that ran like an unclean river outside his window, he found, for the first time in his life, that he desired friendship. This, too, might free his thinking.
    —
    “W ELL?” B ORLAND SAID, offering the decanter.
    “Okay, sure.”
    A bright November afternoon. In the distance, a pale-blue Frisbee rose above the frame of the window, hovered like a flying saucer, and descended into shouts.
    Borland filled a glass with sherry and slid it across the desk, then cast his glance where Milo had been looking. The Frisbee showed itself again. “An imperfect set of parabolic coordinates,” he said. “More aerodynamics than quadratics. Still, one of the benefits of the view.”
    “Along with the Dopplerized shouts,” said Milo.
    Borland chuckled, leaning back with his glass. He seemed to be enjoying the conversation. “Christian Doppler was a mathematician more than a physicist,” he said. “Son of a bricklayer, you know.”
    “Is that right?”
    His eyes found Milo’s. “Yes, it’s right.”
    Something had soured the man.
    “I just meant I didn’t know that about him.”
    “Doppler’s work wasn’t particularly impressive,” Borland said flatly. “Not compared to his reputation.”
    “I don’t know much of his history.”
    “Evidently.”
    “But I’d like to. I’d like to read more of it.”
    “Nature never lies,” Borland said, leaning forward to refill his glass. “That’s what history tells us.”

    “I see.”
    “Men lie.”
    “Okay.” Milo sipped the sherry. It puckered his cheeks.
    “Do you know Lars Hongren, the number theoretician?”
    Milo searched his memory. “I might.”
    “You might ?”
    “Remind me.”
    Borland leveled his eyes. “Never pretend to knowledge, Andret. Never do it. Learning is to be hungered for, not treated as currency.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Have you heard of Hongren then?”
    “No.”
    “Of course you haven’t. Lars Hongren was the most brilliant student we’d ever seen here. That’s who he was. That’s it, and that’s all.” He took a drink. “He was working on a new approach to the Catalan-Mersenne problem.”
    “The double Mersennes are all primes,” Andret offered.
    Borland waved him away with his hand. “He was closing in on a solution. Extremely talented young man. His dissertation was drumming up plenty of excitement. I’d phoned Stanford and Princeton about him. And then?”
    Milo met his professor’s gaze. “Yes?”
    “And then, I discovered what he’d been doing.”
    Milo waited.
    “Even recalling it disgusts me.” Borland closed his eyes. “I trusted the man at his word. Without checking on him. Suffice it to say that now Lars Hongren works in a bank somewhere, stapling together loans.”
    The old man opened his eyes and let a silence settle.
    “A sad story,” Milo finally offered.
    “An important story. Lars Hongren stole his research, young man. He stole it. He lied to all of us. If you ask me, it should be a