{"product_id":"2940013706408","title":"The Ray of Displacement and other stories","description":"\"We should have to reach the Infinite\u003cbr\u003eto arrive at the Impossible.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIT would interest none but students should I recite the circumstances\u003cbr\u003eof the discovery. Prosecuting my usual researches, I seemed rather to\u003cbr\u003ehave stumbled on this tremendous thing than to have evolved it from\u003cbr\u003eformulæ.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, you already know that all molecules, all atoms, are\u003cbr\u003eseparated from each other by spaces perhaps as great, when compared\u003cbr\u003erelatively, as those which separate the members of the stellar\u003cbr\u003euniverse. And when by my Y-ray I could so far increase these spaces\u003cbr\u003ethat I could pass one solid body through another, owing to the\u003cbr\u003ediffering situation of their atoms, I felt no disembodied spirit had\u003cbr\u003ewider, freer range than I. Until my discovery was made public my power\u003cbr\u003eover the material universe was practically unlimited.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLe Sage's theory concerning ultra-mundane corpuscles was rejected\u003cbr\u003ebecause corpuscles could not pass through solids. But here were\u003cbr\u003ecorpuscles passing through solids. As I proceeded, I found that at the\u003cbr\u003edisplacement of one one-billionth of a centimeter the object capable\u003cbr\u003eof passing through another was still visible, owing to the refraction\u003cbr\u003eof the air, and had the power of communicating its polarization; and\u003cbr\u003ethat at two one-billionths the object became invisible, but that at\u003cbr\u003eeither displacement the subject, if a person, could see into the\u003cbr\u003epresent plane; and all movement and direction were voluntary. I\u003cbr\u003efurther found my Y-ray could so polarize a substance that its touch in\u003cbr\u003eturn temporarily polarized anything with which it came in contact, a\u003cbr\u003enegative current moving atoms to the left, and a positive to the right\u003cbr\u003eof the present plane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy first experience with this new principle would have made a less\u003cbr\u003edetermined man drop the affair. Brant had been by way of dropping into\u003cbr\u003emy office and laboratory when in town. As I afterwards recalled, he\u003cbr\u003eshowed a signal interest in certain toxicological experiments. \"Man\u003cbr\u003ealive!\" I had said to him once, \"let those crystals alone! A single\u003cbr\u003eone of them will send you where you never see the sun!\" I was\u003cbr\u003euncertain if he brushed one off the slab. He did not return for some\u003cbr\u003emonths. His wife, as I heard afterwards, had a long and baffling\u003cbr\u003eillness in the meantime, divorcing him on her recovery; and he had\u003cbr\u003eremained out of sight, at last leaving his native place for the great\u003cbr\u003ecity. He had come in now, plausibly to ask my opinion of a stone--a\u003cbr\u003ediamond of unusual size and water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI put the stone on a glass shelf in the next room while looking for\u003cbr\u003ethe slide. You can imagine my sensation when that diamond, with\u003cbr\u003esomething like a flash of shadow, so intense and swift it was, burst\u003cbr\u003einto a hundred rays of blackness and subsided--a pile of carbon! I had\u003cbr\u003eforgotten that the shelf happened to be negatively polarized,\u003cbr\u003econsequently everything it touched sharing its polarization, and that\u003cbr\u003ein pursuing my experiment I had polarized myself also, but with the\u003cbr\u003eopposite current; thus the atoms of my fingers passing through the\u003cbr\u003espaces of the atoms of the stone already polarized, separated them\u003cbr\u003enegatively so far that they suffered disintegration and returned to\u003cbr\u003ethe normal. \"Good heavens! What has happened!\" I cried before I\u003cbr\u003ethought. In a moment he was in the rear room and bending with me over\u003cbr\u003ethe carbon. \"Well,\" he said straightening himself directly, \"you gave\u003cbr\u003eme a pretty fright. I thought for a moment that was my diamond.\"","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47174494454000,"sku":"2940013706408","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013706408_p0.jpg?v=1763584796","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013706408","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}