Free His Master's Voice by Stanislaw Lem Page B

frequently encounters the sentiment that in mathematics all that is needed is "naked ability," because the lack of it there cannot be hidden; while in other disciplines connections, favoritism, fashion, and—most of all—the absence of that indisputability of proof which is supposed to characterize mathematics, cause a career to be the resultant vector of talents and conditions that are nonscientific. In vain have I tried to explain to such enviers that, alas, in our mathematical paradise things are not ideal. Cantor's beautifully classical theory of plurality was for many years ignored, and for quite unmathematical reasons.
    But every man, it seems, must envy another. I regretted that I was weak in information theory, because in that sphere, and especially in the realm of algorithms governed by recursive functions, phenomenal discoveries were in the air. Classical logic, along with Boole's algebra, the midwives of information theory, were from the beginning burdened with a combinatorial inflexibility. Thus the mathematical tools borrowed from those domains never worked well. They are, to my taste, unwieldy, ugly, awkward; though they yield results, they do it in a graceless way. I thought that I would be better able to study the subject by accepting Compton's offer. Because it was precisely about this region of the mathematical front line that I would be speaking at New Hampshire. It sounds odd, perhaps, that I intended to learn through lecturing, but this had happened to me more than once before. My thinking always goes best when a link forms between me and an active and critical audience. Also, one can sit and read esoteric works, but for lectures it is imperative to prepare oneself, and this I did, so I cannot say who profited more from them, I or my students.
    The weather that summer was good, but too hot, even out in the fields, which became dreadfully parched. I am particularly fond of grass. It is thanks to grass that we exist; only after that vegetation revolution that covered the continents with green could life establish itself on them in its zoological varieties. But I do not claim that this fondness of mine derives only from evolutionary considerations.
    August was at its height when one day there appeared a herald of change—in the person of Dr. Michael Grotius, who brought me a letter from Yvor Baloyne as well us a secret communication delivered orally.
    It was on the second floor of an old, pseudo-Gothic building of dark brick, with a pointed roof half-concealed by reddening vines, in my rather poorly ventilated room (the old walls contained no ducts for air conditioning), that I received the news—from a small, quiet young man as delicate as Chinese porcelain and wearing a little black crescent beard—that an announcement had reached Earth, but whether good or not, no one yet knew, for despite more than twelve months of effort, they had not succeeded in deciphering it.
    Though Grotius did not say so, and though in the letter of my friend I found no mention of it, I understood that here was research under very high protection—or, if you prefer, supervision. How else could a thing of such importance not have been leaked to the press or other media channels? It was obvious that experts of the first order were engaged in keeping the lid on tight.
    Grotius, his youth notwithstanding, showed himself to be an accomplished fox. Since it was not certain that I would agree to participate in the Project, he could tell me nothing concrete. He had to appeal to my vanity, to emphasize that twenty-five hundred people had chosen—out of all the remaining four billion—me as their potential savior; but even here Grotius knew moderation and did not lay it on too thick.
    Most believe that there is no flattery that the object of the flattery will not swallow. If that is a rule, I am an exception to it, because I have never valued praise. One can praise—to put it this way—only from the top down, not from the bottom