The Science of Discworld II Read Free

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    +++ I did that. I still maintain a watch on Roundworld. And I have been developing interesting procedures. It is now quite easy for me to reproduce an artefact in the real world +++
    â€˜Why didn’t you tell us the Archchancellor needed help?’ sighed Ponder.
    +++ They were having such fun trying to send the bottle +++
    â€˜Can’t you just bring them out, then?’
    +++ Yes +++
    â€˜In that case—’
    â€˜Hold on,’ said Rincewind, remembering the blue beerbottle and the spelling mistakes. ‘Can you bring them out alive? ’
    Hex seemed affronted.
    +++ Certainly. With a probability of 94.37 per cent +++
    â€˜Not great odds,’ said Ponder, ‘But perhaps—’
    â€˜Hold on again,’ said Rincewind, still thinking about that bottle. ‘Humans aren’t bottles. How about alive, with fully functioning brains and all organs and limbs in the right place?’
    Unusually, Hex paused before replying.
    +++ There will be unavoidable minor changes +++
    â€˜How minor, exactly.’
    +++ I cannot guarantee reacquiring more than one of every organ+++
    There was a long, chilly silence from the wizards.
    +++ Is this a problem? +++
    â€˜Maybe there’s another way?’ said Rincewind.
    â€˜What makes you think that?’
    â€˜The note asks for the Librarian.’
    In the heat of the night, magic moved on silent feet.
    One horizon was red with the setting sun. This world went around a central star. The elves did not know this and, if they had done, it would not have bothered them. They never bothered with detail of that kind. The universe had given rise to life in many strange places, but the elves were not interested in that, either.
    This world had created lots of life. Up until now, none of it had ever had what the elves considered to be potential. But this time, there was definite promise.
    Of course, it had iron, too. The elves hated iron. But this time, the rewards were worth the risk. This time …
    One of them signalled. The prey was close at hand. And now they saw it, clustered in the trees around a clearing, dark blobs against thesunset.
    The elves assembled. And then, at a pitch so strange that it entered the brain without the need to use the ears, they began to sing.
    1 And in this short statement may be seen the very essence of wizardly.
    2 This one was apparently the result of a curse some 1,200 years ago by a dying Archchancellor, which sounded very much like ‘May you always teach fretwork!’
    3 Lord Vetinari, the Patrician and supreme ruler of the city, took proper food labelling very seriously. Unfortunately, he sought the advice of the wizards of Unseen University on this one, and posed the question thusly: ‘Can you, taking into account multi-dimensional phase space, meta-statistical anomaly and the laws of probability, guarantee that anything with absolute certainty contains no nuts at all?’ After several days, they had to conclude that the answer was ‘no’. Lord Vetinari refused to accept ‘Probably does not contain nuts’ because he considered it unhelpful.

TWO
THE UMPTY-UMPTH ELEMENT
    D ISCWORLD RUNS ON MAGIC , Roundworld runs on rules, and even though magic needs rules and some people think rules are magical, they are quite different things. At least, in the absence of wizardly interference. This was the main scientific message of our last book, The Science of Discworld . There we charted the history of the universe from the Big Bang through to the creation of the Earth and the evolution of a not especially promising species of ape. The story ended with a final fast-forward to the collapse of the space elevator by which a mysterious race (which could not possibly have been those apes, who were only interested in sex and mucking about) had escaped from the planet. They had left the Earth because a planet is altogether too dangerous a place to live, and had headed out into the galaxy in search