James Confirms that I Was Right
The Black Void - Episode 261
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James seems even more perplexed by my second unnatural outburst. Did
something happen to my personality when I crossed the void? I don't know.
I'll have to find out.
James looks at the book in my hands, though I don't know whether he actually believes me or whether he's just doing it out of courtesy. After a few seconds of what must be mental rearrangement he speaks. "Yes, it seems that they are, Miss..." I feel like even more of an idiot now. I asked him if he found me attractive before I even introduced myself to him. Attempting to keep from blushing, I stammer "I'm Holly." I am going to exercise more self-control over my vocal cords from now on. If he wants my last name he can ask for it. "Well, Holly, it looks like you're right. At least the title is an anagram, and I suspect that if I knew how to spell 'Hofstadter' the author would be too. Hmm...I never noticed that before; not that I read the one you're looking for. I wonder what the book's about." I sit down at a nearby table and open the book to the index, in search of Tumbolia. I find a few mentions of it and open the book to the first place the term occurs, on page 161, the first page in Chapter 10, which is titled "Mythical Errant Billionth". I read aloud so James can hear, though softly, of course--after all, this is a library. "It has been long hypothesized that in the real world there is an errant billionth floating around. That is, if you were to compute anything to nine decimal places, there is a good chance that the number in that last decimal place would be wrong. Hence the name, the mythical errant billionth. No one precisely knows the origin of this phenomenon. "Some have hypothesized that it is the work of evil, demonic forces of chaos... (I gloss over this paragraph; it says nothing of Tumbolia) Others say that it comes from a place on the imaginary axis called Tumbolia. Things like billionths and specks of dust, which are normally too small to appear to the conscious mind, are said to spontaneously appear from this place. Other things, like socks, are said to travel along a one-way path to this place, explaining the inevitable loss of socks from a dryer. "Because of the lack of credible evidence for the existence of such a place, most mathematicians have dismissed believers in this theory as raving lunatics." I'm fairly sure that none of this was in the original book that I wanted.
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unknown adventurer
12/3/2004 11:39:35 PM
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