Terry Pratchett - Science of Discworld

They compromised, and selected a small area for experimentation. They were, after all, wizards. That meant that if they saw something, they prodded it. If it wobbled, they prodded it some more. If you built a guillotine, and then put a sign on it saying 'Do Not Put Your Neck On This Block', many wizards would never have to buy a hat again.

Moving the matter was simple. As Ponder said, it almost moved under the pressure of thought.

And spinning it into a disc was easy. The new matter liked to spin. But it was also far too sociable.

'You see?' said Ridcully, around mid-morning. 'It seems to get the idea, and then you just end up with a ball of rubbish.'

'Which gets hot in the middle, have you noticed?' said Ponder.

'Embarrassment, probably,' said the Archchancellor. 'We've lost half the elements since elevenses. There's no more cohenium, explodium went ten minutes ago, and I'm beginning to suspect that the detonium is falling to bits. Temporarium didn't last for any time at all.'

'Any Runium?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

HEX wrote: +++ Runium May Or May Not Still Exist. It Was Down To One Atom Ten Minutes Ago, Which I Do Not Seem to Be Able To Find Any More +++

'How's Wranglium doing?' said the Senior Wrangler hopefully.

'Exploded after breakfast, according to HEX. Sorry,' said Ridcully. 'You can't build a world out of smoke and mirrors. Damn ... there goes Bursarium, too. I mean, I know iron rusts, but these elements collapse for a pastime.'

'My hypothesis, for what it's worth,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, 'is that since it was all started off by the Dean, a certain Dean-like tendency may have imparted itself to the ensuing ... er ... developments.'

'What? You mean we've got a huge windy universe with a ten­dency to sulk?'

'Thank you, Archchancellor,' said the Dean.

'I was referring to the predilection of matter to ... er ... accrete into ... er ... spherical shapes.'

'Like the Dean, you mean,' said Archchancellor.

'I can see I'm among friends here,' said the Dean.

There was a soft chime from the apparatus that had been accu­mulated around the Project.

'That'll be etherium vanishing,' said Ridcully gloomily. 'I knew that'd be the next to go.'

'Actually ... no,' said Ponder Stibbons, peering into the Project. 'Er ... something has caught fire.'

Points of light were appearing.

'I knew something like that would happen,' said the Archchancellor. 'All those discs are heating up, just like damn com­post heaps.'

'Or suns,' said Ponder.

'Don't be silly, Stibbons, they're far too large for that. I'd hate to see one of those floating over the clouds,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'I said there was far too much gas,' the Archchancellor went on. 'That wraps it up, then.'

'I wonder,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'What?' said the Dean.

'Well, at least we've got some heat in there ... and there nothing like a good furnace for improving matters.'

'Good point,' said Ridcully. 'Look at bronze, you can make that out of just about anything. And we could burn off some of the rub­bish. All right, you fellows, help me dump more of the stuff in it...'

Around about teatime, the first of the furnaces exploded, just as happened every day down at the Alchemists' Guild.

'Ye gods,' said Ridcully, watching the shapes in the omniscope.

'Yo?' said the Dean.

'We've made new elements!'

'Keep it down, keep it down!' hissed the Senior Wrangler.

'There's iron ... silicon ... we've got rocks, even ...'

'We're going to be in serious trouble if the alchemists' guild finds out,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'You know we're not supposed to do that stuff.'

'This is a different universe,' said Ridcully. He sighed. 'You have to blow things up to get anything useful.'

'I see politicium is still there in large quantities, then,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'I meant that this is a godless reality, gentlemen.'

'Excuse me, the Dean began.

'I shouldn't look so smug if I was you, Dean,' said Ridcully. 'Look at the place. Everything wants to spin, and sooner or later you have balls.'

'And we're getting the same sort of stuff that we get here, isn't that strange?' said the Senior Wrangler, as Mrs Whitlow the house­keeper came in with the tea trolley.

'I don't see why,' said the Dean. 'Iron's iron.'

'Well, it's a whole new universe, so you'd expect new things, wouldn't you? Metals like Noggo, perhaps, or Plinc.'

'What's your point, Senior Wrangler?'

'I mean, take a look at the thing now ... all those burning explod­ing balls do look a bit like the stars, don't they? I mean they're vaguely familiar. Why isn't it a universe full of tapioca, say, or very large chairs? I mean, if nothing wants to be something, why can't it be anything?'

The wizards stirred their tea and thought about this.

'Because,' said the Archchancellor, after a while.

'That's a good answer, sir,' said Ponder, as diplomatically as he could, 'But it does rather close the door on further questions.'

'Best kind of answer there is, then.'

The Senior Wrangler watched Mrs Whitlow produce a duster and polish the top of the Project.

'"As Above, So Below",' said Ridcully, slowly.

'Pardon?' said the Senior Wrangler.

'We're forgetting our kindergarten magic, aren't we? It's not even magic, it's a ... a basic rule of everything. The project can't help being affected by this world. Piles of sand try to look like moun­tains. Men try to act like gods. Little things so often appear to look like big things made smaller. Our new universe, gentlemen, will do its crippled best to look like ours. We should not be surprised to see things that look hauntingly familiar. But not as good, obviously.'

The inner eye of HEX gazed at a vast cloud of mind. HEX couldn't think of a better word. It didn't technically exist yet, but HEX could sense the shape. It had hints of many things, of tradition, of libraries, of rumour ...

There had to be a better word. HEX tried again.

On Discworld, words had real power. They had to be dealt with carefully.

What lay ahead had the shape of intelligence, but only in the same way that a sun had the shape of something living out its brief life in a puddle of ditchwater.

Ah ... e Jrtelligence would do for now.

HEX decided to devote part of its time to investigating this inter­esting thing. It wanted to find out how it had developed, what kept it going ... and why, particularly, a small but annoying part of it seemed to believe that if everyone sent five dollars to the six names at the top of the list, everyone would become immensely rich.

(or at least we went to Woodstock)

IRON'S IRON.' BUT IS IT? Or is iron made from other things?

According to Empedocles, an ancient Greek, everything in the universe was a combination of four ingredients: earth, air, fire, and water. Set light to a stick and it burns (showing that it contains fire), gives off smoke (showing that it contains air), exudes bubbly liquids (show­ing that it contains water), and leaves a dirty heap of ash behind (showing that it contains earth). As a theory, it was a bit too simple-minded to survive for long, a couple of thousand years at best. Things moved more slowly in those days, and Europe, at least, was more interested in making sure that the peasants didn't get above their station and copying out bits of the Bible by hand in as labori­ous and colourful a manner as possible.

The main technological invention to come out of the Middle Ages was a better horse collar.