Neal Stephenson - Anathem

“The Reverse Delta,” Criscan said. “It has the topology of a river delta, but the arrows run backwards, hence the name. The Reverse Delta is most easily summed up by saying that it combines the properties of the Freight Train and Firing Squad topologies.”

“Got it,” I said, after a moment’s thought—for Criscan, I sensed, was testing me. “It’s got Analog Protism—many gradations of Protanness—and it’s got the idea, from the Firing Squad, that different cnoöns might have nothing to do with one another—might come from altogether different Theoric Worlds.”

Criscan did not respond one way or the other, since he was busy with his stick again. “The Strider,” he proclaimed.

“Strider? In what way does it stride?” I asked.

“It’s named after a kind of tree—a tropical species that connects to the ground through multiple root systems. As you can see, it is similar to a Reverse Delta topology. The only difference is that the Strider contains more than one inhabited cosmos. You’ll note I changed the name.”

“Yes. Up until now, it’s always ended with arrows going to the Arbran Causal Domain. But here you are assuming a polycosmic scheme—multiple inhabited cosmi, causally disconnected from one another.”

“That’s right. Causally disconnected, but—and this is important—non-causally correlated in that they share knowledge of the same cnoöns. The inhabitants of these other cosmi receive the Hylaean Flow from the same sources as ours. As a result they could, for example, have the Adrakhonic Theorem for the same reason we do.

“And this finally leads us to the Wick.”

“The Wick is a fully generalized DAG,” Criscan said. “The Hylaean Flow moves through it from left to right—from more Protan to less Protan worlds—but here we are taking Analog Protism to its logical extreme in that no distinction is drawn between types of worlds.”

“I see ours there,” I said, pointing to the one labeled “Arbran Causal Domain.”

“Yes,” Criscan said, “I did that just to distinguish it from the others. But it’s no different in principle or in kind from any of the other cosmi in this diagram; here, all worlds are potentially habitable cosmi that would look similar to the one that we live in.”

“Okay, so you have completely dispensed with the idea that there might be a special HTW full of pure ideas,” I said.

Criscan shrugged. “Perhaps there’s something like that somewhere, way off to the left, but you’re basically right. This is a network of cosmi like ours. And there is one thing about it that is not shown on any of the other topologies I’ve drawn, which is—”

“I think I see it,” I said, and tapped my toe on the “Arbran Causal Domain” box. “In the Wick, we are shown as a source of the Hylaean Flow for other worlds.”

“Exactly,” Criscan said. “The Wick introduces the notion that our world might, in effect, be the HTW of some other world.”

“Or might be seen that way,” Lio corrected him, “if there was no one in that world, yet, who had thought up the idea of Complex Protism.”

“Yes,” said Criscan, a little surprised to hear such a good point from someone he had written off as a tiresome clown.

“It makes you wonder about the Cousins,” I said, thinking back to a wild notion that Arsibalt had raised last night: that the Cousins might have come, not just from another solar system, but from another cosmos.

“Yes,” Criscan said, “it makes you wonder about the Cousins.”

ANATHEM COULD NOT HAVEbeen written had the following not come first:

the Millennium Clock project being carried out by Danny Hillis and his collaborators at the Long Now Foundation, including Stewart Brand and Alexander Rose.

a philosophical lineage that can be traced from Thales through Plato, Leibniz, Kant, Godel, and Husserl.

the Orion project of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The author is, therefore, indebted to many more people than can comfortably be listed on a traditional acknowledgments page. The premise of the story, as well as the simple fact that it is a work of fiction, rule out the use of footnotes. This is unfortunate in a way, since many readers will presumably wish to know where the ideas being discussed by the characters actually originated, and how to learn more about them. Accordingly, detailed acknowledgments, complete with links to other resources, may be found at www.nealstephenson.com/anathemacknowledgments.

About the Author

NEAL STEPHENSONis the author of seven previous novels. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

www.nealstephenson.com

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The System of the World

The Confusion

Quicksilver

Cryptonomicon

The Diamond Age

Snow Crash

Zodiac

Credits

Jacket design by Ervin Serrano

Jacket photographs by Yolande De Korte/Dave Wall @ Arcangel Images

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ANATHEM. Copyright © 2008 by Neal Stephenson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader August 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-170131-3

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* See Calca 1.

* See Calca 2.

* See Calca 3.