up.”
The inauguration of the system of constant psychological observation had
greatly reduced the probability of acute danger resulting from a watch
engineer cracking up, but King was forced to admit that the system was not
a success; there had actually been a marked increase in psychoneuroses,
dating from that time.
“And that’s the picture, Dr. Lentz. It gets worse all the time. It’s
getting me now. The strain is telling on me; I can’t sleep, and I don’t
think my judgment is as good as it used to be — I have trouble making up my
mind, of coming to a decision. Do you think you can do anything for us?”
But Lentz had no immediate relief for his anxiety. “Not so fast,
superintendent,” he countered. “You have given me the background, but I
have no real data as yet. I must look around for a while, smell out the
situation for myself, talk to your engineers, perhaps have a few drinks
with them, and get acquainted. That is possible, is it not? Then in a few
days, maybe, we’ll know where we stand.”
King had no alternative but to agree.
“And it is well that your young men do not know what I am here for. Suppose
I am your old friend, a visiting physicist, eh?”
“Why, yes — of course. I can see to it that that idea gets around. But say
— ” King was reminded again of something that had bothered him from the
time Silard had first suggested Lentz’s name — “may I ask a personal
question?”
The merry eyes were undisturbed.
“Go ahead.”
“I can’t help but be surprised that one man should attain eminence in two
such widely differing fields as psychology and mathematics. And right now
I’m perfectly convinced of your ability to pass yourself off as a
physicist. I don’t understand it.”
The smile was more amused, without being in the least patronizing, nor
offensive. “Same subject,” he answered.
“Eh? How’s that — ”
“Or rather, both mathematical physics and psychology are branches of the
same subject, symbology. You are a specialist; it would not necessarily
come to your attention.”
“I still don’t follow you.”
“No? Man lives in a world of ideas. Any phenomenon is so complex that he
cannot possibly grasp the whole of it. He abstracts certain characteristics
of a given phenomenon as an idea, then represents that idea as a symbol, be
it a word or a mathematical sign. Human reaction is almost entirely
reaction to symbols, and only negligibly to phenomena. As a matter of
fact,” he continued, removing the cigarette holder from his mouth and
settling into his subject, “it can be demonstrated that the human mind can
think only in terms of symbols.
When we think, we let symbols operate on other symbols in certain, set
fashions — rules of logic, or rules of mathematics. If the symbols have
been abstracted so that they are structurally similar to the phenomena they
stand for, and if the symbol operations are similar in structure and order
to the operations of phenomena in the real world, we think sanely. If our
logic-mathematics, or our word-symbols, have been poorly chosen, we do not
think sanely.
“In mathematical physics you are concerned with making your symbology fit
physical phenomena. In psychiatry I am concerned with precisely the same
thing, except that I am more immediately concerned with the man who does
the thinking than with the phenomena he is thinking about. But the same
subject, always the same subject.”
‘We’re not getting anyplace, Gus.” Harper put down his slide rule and
frowned.
“Seems like it, Cal” Erickson grudgingly admitted. “Damn it, though —
there ought to be some reasonable way of tackling the problem. What do we
need? Some form of concentrated, controllable power for rocket fuel. What
have we got? Power galore in the bomb. There must be some way to bottle
that power, and serve it out when we need it — and the answer is someplace
in one of the radioactive series. I know it.” He stared glumly around the
laboratory as if expecting to find the answer written somewhere on the
lead-sheathed walls.
“Don’t be so down in the mouth about it. You’ve got me convinced there is