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From: hester@uci-icse
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Asimov and scientific revenge (from BTTF time travel discussion)
Message-ID: <3391@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 16:39:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3391
Posted: Thu Aug 22 16:39:32 1985
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Jim Hester 

The title of Asimov's short story dealing with two men, a gravity
nullifier, and a billiard ball as a murder weapon was "The Billiard
Ball", and was printed in two collections of Asimov's short stories:
"The Best of Isaac Asimov" and the more famous "Asimov's Mysteries".

Minor correction:  The 'slow guy' was the scientist (a theoritician),
and came up with the mathematics for describing gravity.  The 'quick
one' was just a good field engineer who had become rich implementing
the slow guy's ideas.  He was no scientist.  In fact, he had no
understanding of the machine he built.  It never occurred to him to
wonder about the ultra-violet light that the null-G field emitted
(caused by air wandering into the field, coming out at lightspeed, and
burning in the surrounding air), explaining it to the crowd simply as a
side-effect of the field.  The slow theoretician managed to quickly
deduce the cause of the light and used it to give the flashy engineer
what he had coming, using the engineer's own non-understood machine as
the weapon.