Semmant Read Online Free PDF Page A

least, the program was flawless. Almost flawless. Almost.

Chapter 4
    To create him, I went a long way, straying and stumbling, but never losing my sense of direction. After leaving the School, I landed in the sleepy town of Sheffield, where I quickly convinced the administration of my aptitude for the exact sciences. They transferred me to Manchester, to a good place with old traditions. Camaraderie reigned there, not the noxious arrogance of Oxford or Cambridge. Everything was beautiful, lavish, and comfortable. Wherever you looked, you were greeted with the smiling faces of young students from good families. This was an ideal university setting, but for me it became unbearably dull.
    That’s why I was always being pushed to the periphery. I did not fit in with the ones I was supposed to – rather, I had a preference for the underground. Instead of bustling faculty parties, I frequented suspicious bars where I would get drunk, often severely, with shady characters from the outskirts of town. Sometimes I would hook up with seasoned hoodlums and get into fights with football fans. I spent a couple of nights in lock-up. I smoked grass with guitar players from the local scene and orderlies from the city morgue. Not that I found them very interesting – I was just looking for release from the garish despair of the conventional, the common. I feared it – subconsciously – and fled from it at full speed. In place of well-mannered co-eds from campus, I wound up with pimply emo chicks. One of them even bestowed a nasty little disease on me. That left an impression; after that, I gave girls a wide berth for a while.
    I could be rough, and I could be irascible. My inner instability, which later manifested itself, was already rearing its head then. One time, in the dormitory, I lashed out screaming at the concierge – that gave him a real fright. Later, during a tennis match, I jumped over the net to pick a fight with my opponent right on the court. This incident became widely known, and I was barred from the university team. But it did not get out of hand, and I remained in good graces. Besides, I had no equal in terms of my academics.
    Pretty soon, several department chairs all had me in their sights. One professor was able to ensnare me with serious science – the world of particles and quantum fields. It seemed to me my future was predetermined, and I liked it a lot. Theoreticians comprised a special caste: the problems they faced were truly on a grand scale.
    My professor loved to repeat, “We are putting a challenge out for God himself!” That was really how it was too. The question of higher powers was being decided right in our notebooks. The properties of the universe determined all answers. Anisotropy or symmetry, accident or intelligent design… Looking at things that way disciplined my mind. Though, I must admit, almost all of us were a little mystical at heart.
    I joined in with the community and enjoyed its spirit. Microphysics, at first glance a fantasy world, proved to be the most real of disciplines. The clarity of its predictions was beyond compare. Much of it was downright bewitching, especially the greatest of freedoms: existing in all points at once – until a detector slams its trap shut. Besides, any attempt to peer inside would inevitably destroy the magic – I saw a great deal of meaning in this. I envisioned a strictly guarded secret: it is impossible to get an answer unless you make your presence felt. A passion for cognizance awoke within me, followed by a passion for accomplishment. I tried my hand, in complete seriousness, at the main problem: the collapse of the wave function, the disappearance of all – and every possible – freedom. I remembered round-shouldered Bradley and my badge with the acacia branch. “One thing leads to another,” I told myself. “The connection is obvious. I’m on the right path.”
    Then the time for my diploma came, and everything changed, abruptly and