Terry Pratchett - The Globe

'Time travel again?' said the Dean. The white circle appeared on the floor ... ... and on the sand, and vanished. The wizards looked around.

'All right, then,' said Ponder. 'So ... dry climate, evidence of agriculture, fields of crops, irrigation ditches, naked man turning a handle, man staring at us, man screaming and running away ...'

Rincewind stepped down into the ditch and inspected the pipe-like device the man had been turning.

'It's just a water-lifting screw,' he announced. 'I've seen a lot of them. You turn the handle, water is screwed out of the ditch, goes up the thread inside and spills out of the top. The screw makes a sort of line of travelling buckets inside the tube. There's nothing special about it. It's just basic ...

stuff.'

'Not psyence, then?' said Ridcully.

'You tell me, sir,' said Rincewind.

'Psyence is quite a difficult concept,' said Ponder. 'But I think perhaps tinkering with this thing to make it more efficient might be psyence?'

'Sounds like engineering,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'That's where you try and make it in different ways to see if any of them are better.'

'The Librarian did turn up one book, very grudgingly,' said Ponder, pulling it out of his pocket.

It was called Basic Science for Schools, pub.1920.

'They've spelt it wrong,' said Ridcully.

'And it's not very helpful,' said Ponder. 'There's quite a lot of what looks like alchemy. You know, mixing stuff up to see what happens.'

'Is that all it is, then?' said the Archchancellor, leafing through the book. 'Hold on, hold on.

Alchemy is, at bottom, all about the alchemist. His books tell him all the stuff he's got to do in order make things work - what to wear, when to wear it, that sort of thing. It's very personal.'

'And?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'Hark at this,' said Ridcully. 'There's no invocations, nothing to tell you what to wear or what phase of the moon it should be. Nothing important. It just says here "A clean beaker was taken.

To this was added 20 grammes" - whatever they are - "of copper sulphate" ...' He stopped.

'Well?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'Well, who did the taking? Who added the stuff? What's going on here?'

'Perhaps it's trying to say that it doesn't matter who does it?' said Ponder. He'd already glanced at the book, and felt that the perfectly ordinary ignorance he'd had just before opening it had been multiplied several times by page ten.

'Anyone can do it?' shouted Ridcully. 'Science is incredibly important but anyone can do it? And what's this?'

He held the book open for all to see, his finger pointing at an illustration. It showed a drawing of an eye, side on, to one side of the apparatus.

'Perhaps it's a God of Science?' Rincewind suggested. 'Watching to see who keeps taking things?'

'So ... science is done by anyone,' said Ridcully, 'and most of the equipment is stolen and it's all watched by a giant eyeball?'

As one wizard, they looked around, guiltily.

'There's just us,' said Ponder.

'Then this isn't science,' said Ridcully. 'No giant eyeball visible. Anyway, we can see it isn't science. It's just engineering. Any bright lad could have built it. It's obvious how it works.'

'How does it work?' said Rincewind.

'Very simply,' said Ridcully. The screw goes round and round and the water comes out here.'

'Hex?' said Ponder, and held out his hand. A large volume appeared in it. It was slim, full of colourful pictures, and entitled Great Moments in Science. It hadn't escaped his notice that when Hex or the Librarian wanted to explain something to the wizards they used a children's book.

He flicked through the passages. Big pictures, big writing.

'Ah,' he said. 'Archimedes invented this. He was a philosopher. He's also famous because one day, when he got into his bath, it overflowed. It says here this gave him an idea—'

'Buy a bigger bath?' said the Dean.

'Philosophers are always having ideas in the bath,' said Ridcully. 'All right, if we've got nothing else to go on ...'

'Gentlemen, please?' pleaded Ponder. 'Hex, take us to Archimedes. Oh, and give me a towel.'

'Nice place,' said the Dean, as the wizards sat on the sea wall, staring out at the wine-dark sea. 'I can feel the sea air doing me good. Anyone got more wine?'

It had been quite an interesting day. But, Ponder asked, had it been science? There was a pile of books beside him. Hex had been busy.

'Must have been science,' said Ridcully. 'King gave your man a problem. How to tell if the crown was all gold. He was thinking about it. Water sloshed out of bath. He leaped out, we handed him a towel, and then he worked out that ... what was it?'

'The apparent loss of weight of a body totally or partially immersed in a liquid is equal to the weight of the liquid it displaces,' said Ponder.

'Right. And he sees it doesn't just work with bodies, it works with crowns, too. A few tests, and bingo, science,' said Ridcully. 'Science is just working things out. And paying attention. And hoping there's someone around to dry you off.'

'I'm not ... exactly sure that's all there is to it,' said Ponder. 'I've been doing some reading and even people who do science don't seem clear about what it is. Look at Archimedes, for example.

Is a bright idea enough? Is it science if you just solve problems? Is that science, or what you get before you have science?'

'Your book of Great Moments calls him a scienter,' Ridcully pointed.

'Scientist,' Ponder corrected him. 'But I'm not sure about that, either. I mean, that sort of thing happens a lot. People always like to believe that what they're doing has been hallowed by history. Supposing men found out how to fly. They'd probably say "Early experimenters with man-powered flight included Gudrun the Idiot, who leaped off the clock tower in Pseudopolis after soaking his trousers in dew and gluing swan feathers to his shirt" when in fact he wasn't an early aviator—'

'—he was a late idiot?' said Rincewind.

'Exactly. It's like with wizards, Archchancellor. You can't just call yourself a wizard. Other wizards have to agree that you're a wizard.'

'So you can't have just one scientist, but you can have two?'

'It appears so, Archchancellor.'

Ridcully lit his pipe. 'Well, mildly entertaining though it is to watch philosophers having a bath, can we simply ask Hex to find us a scientist who is definitely a scientist and who is regarded by other scientists as a scientist? Then all we have to do is find out if what he's doing is any use to us. We don't want to be all day at this, Stibbons.'

'Yes, sir. Hex, we—'

They were in a cellar. It was quite large, which was just as well because several of the wizards fell over upon landing. When they had picked themselves up and all found the right hat, they saw

...

... something familiar.

'Mr Stibbons?' said Ridcully.

'I don't understand ...' muttered Ponder. But it really was an alchemical laboratory. It smelled like one. Moreover, it looked like one. There were the big heavy retorts, the crucibles, the fire ...

'We know what alchemists are, Mr Stibbons.'

'Yes, er, I'm sorry, sir, something seems to have gone wrong ...' Ponder held out his hand. 'Book, please, Hex.'

A small volume appeared.

'"Great Men Of Science No.2",' Ponder read. 'Er ... if I can just take a quick look inside, Archchancellor ...'

'I don't think that will be necessary,' said the Dean, who had picked up a manuscript that was on the table. 'Listen to this, gentlemen: "... The spirit of this earth is ye fire in wch Pontanus digests his feculent matter, the blood of infants in wch ye 0 & 2) bath themselves, the unclean green Lion wch, saith Ripley, is y* means of joyning ye tinctures of 0 and 3), the broth wch Medea poured on ye two serpents, the Venus by meditation of wch 0 vulgar and the $ of 7 eagles saith Philalethes must be decocted ..." yada yada yada.'