The Science of Discworld II - The Globe tsod-2

by Terry Pratchett

  In the twenty-fifth Discworld novel The Truth, journalism comes to the Disc, in the form of William de Worde. His career begins with a monthly newsletter sent to various Discworld notables, usually for five dollars each month, but in the case of one foreigner for half a cartload of figs twice per year. He writes one letter, and pays Mr Cripslock the engraver in the Street of Cunning Artificers to turn it into a woodcut, from which he prints five copies. From these small beginnings emerges Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper, when de Worde's ability to sniff out a story is allied to the dwarves' discovery of movable type. It is rumoured that the dwarves have found a way to turn lead into gold -and since the type is made of lead, in a way they have.

  The main journalistic content of the novel is a circulation battle between de Worde's Ankh- Morpork Times, with its banner 'THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE', and the Ankh- Morpork Inquirer (THE NEWS YOU ONLY HEAR ABOUT). The Times is an upmarket broadsheet, running stories with headlines like 'Patrician Attacks Clerk With Knife (He had the knife, not the clerk)', and checking its facts before publishing them. The Inquirer is a tabloid, whose headlines are more of the 'ELVES STOLE MY HUSBAND' kind, and it saves money by making all the stories up. As a result, it can undercut its upmarket competitor when it comes to price, and the stories are much more interesting. Truth eventually prevails over cheap nonsense, however, and de Worde learns from his editor Sacharissa a fundamental principle of journalism:

  'Look at it like this,' said Sacharissa, starting a fresh page. 'Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes.'

  'Yes, but that's not very—'

  Sacharissa glanced up and flashed him a smile. 'Sometimes they're the same person,' she said.

  This time it was William who looked down, modestly.

  'You think that's really true?' he said.

  She shrugged. 'Really true? Who knows? This is a newspaper, isn't it? It just has to be true until tomorrow.'

  Lies-to-children, even the broadsheet newspaper sort, are mostly benign and helpful, and even when they are not, they are intended to be that way. They are constructed with the aim of opening a pathway that will eventually lead to more sophisticated lies-to-children, reflecting more of the complexities of reality. We teach science and art and history and economics by a series of carefully constructed lies. Stories, if you wish ... but then, we've already characterised a story as a lie.

  The science teacher explains the colours of the rainbow in terms of refraction, but slides over the shape of the rainbow and the way those colours are arranged. Which, when you come to think of it, are more puzzling, and more what we want to know about when we ask why rainbows look like they do. There's a lot more to the physics than a raindrop acting as a prism. Later, we may develop the next level of lie by showing the child the elegant geometry of light rays as they pass through a spherical raindrop, refracting, reflecting, and refracting back out again, with each colour of light focused along a slightly different angle. Later still, we explain that light does not consist of rays at all, but electromagnetic waves. By university, we are telling undergraduates that those waves aren't really waves at all, but tiny quantum wave-packets, photons. Except that the 'wave-packets' in the textbooks don't actually do the job ... And so on. All of our understanding of nature is like this; none of it is Ultimate Reality.

  27. LACK OF WILL

  The wizards were never quite certain where they were. It wasn't their history. History gets named afterwards: The Age of Enlightenment, the Depression. Which is not to say that people sometimes aren't depressed with all the enlightenment around them, or strangely elevated during otherwise grey times. Or periods are named after kings, as if the country was defined by whichever stony-faced cut-throat had schemed and knifed his way to the top, and as if people would say, 'Hooray, the reign of the House of Chichester - a time of deep division along religious lines and continuing conflict with Belgium -is now at an end and we can look forward to the time of the House of Luton, a period of expansion and the growth of learning! The ploughing of the big field is going to be a lot more interesting from now on!'

  The wizards had settled for calling the time they'd arrived 'D' and, now, they were back there, in some cases quite suntanned.

  They had commandeered Dee's library again.

  'Stage One seemed to have worked quite well, gentlemen,' said Ponder Stibbons. 'The world is certainly a lot more colourful. We do seem to have, er, assisted the elves in the evolution of what I might venture to call Homo narrans, or "Storytelling Man".'

  'There's still religious wars,' said the Dean. 'And still the heads on spikes.'

  'Yes, but for more interesting reasons,' said Ponder. 'That's humans for you, sir. Imagination is imagination. It gets used for everything. Wonderful art and really dreadful instruments of torture.

  What was that country where the Lecturer in Recent Runes got food poisoning?'

  'Italy, I think,' said Rincewind. 'The rest of us had the pasta.'

  'Well, it's full of churches and wars and horrors and some of the most amazing art. Better than we've got at home. We can be proud of that, gentlemen.'

  'But when we showed them the book the Librarian found in L-space, of Great Works of Art with the full colour pictures ...' mumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if he had something on his mind but wasn't certain how to phrase it.

  'Yes?' said Ridcully.

  '... well, it wasn't actually cheating, was it?'

  'Of course not,' said Ridcully. 'They must have painted them somewhere. Some other dimension.

  Something quantum. A parallel eventuality or something with that sort of a name. But that doesn't matter. It all goes round and round and it comes out here.'

  'But I think we said too much to that big chap with the bald head,' said the Dean. 'The artist, remember? Could've been the double of Leonard of Quirm? Beard, good singing voice? You shouldn't have told him about the flying machine that Leonard built.'

  'Oh, he was scribbling so much stuff no one'll take any notice,' said Ridcully. Anyway, who'll remember an artist who can't get a simple smile right? The point is, gentlemen, that the fantastic imagination and the, er, practical imagination go hand in hand. One leads to the other. Can't separate them with a big lever. Before you can make something, you have to picture it in your head.'

  'But the elves are still here,' said the Lecture in Recent Runes. 'All we've done is do their work even better! I don't see the point!'

  Ah, that's Stage Two,' said Ponder. 'Rincewind?'

  'What?'

  'You're going to talk about Stage Two. Remember? You told us you wanted to get the world to the right stage?'

  'I didn't know I had to make a presentation!'

  'You mean you don't have any slides? No paperwork at all?'

  'Paperwork slows me down,' said Rincewind. 'But it's obvious, isn't it? We say Seeing is Believing ... and I thought about that, and it's not really true. We don't believe in chairs. Chairs are just things that exist.'

  'So?' said Ridcully.

  'We don't believe in things we can see. We believe in things that we can't see.'

  'And?'

  'And I've been checking this world against L-space and I think we've made it the one where humans survive,' said Rincewind. 'Because now they can picture gods and monsters. And when you can picture them, you don't need to believe in them any more.'

  After a long silence the Chair of Indefinite Studies said, 'Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how many huge cathedrals they've been building on this continent? Big, big buildings full of wonderful craftsmanship? And those painters we talked to have been very keen on religious paintings ...'

  'And your point is ... ?' said Ridcully.

  'It's just that this has been happening at the same time as people have been really taking an interest in how the world works. They're asking more questions. How? and Why? and questions like that,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'They're acting like Phocian but without going mad. Rincewind seems to be suggesting that we're
killing off the gods of this place.'

  The wizards looked at him.

  'Er,' he went on, 'if you think a god is huge and powerful and everywhere, then it's natural to be god-fearing. But if someone comes along and paints that god as a big bearded chap in the sky, it's not going to be long before people say, don't be silly, there can't be a big bearded man on a cloud somewhere, let's go and invent Logic.'

  'Can't there be gods here?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'We've got a mountaintop full of

  'em at home.'

  'We've never detected deitygen in this universe,' said Ponder thoughtfully.

  'But it's said to be generated by intelligent creatures, just like cows generate marsh gas,' said Ridcully.

  'In a universe based on magic, certainly,' said Ponder. 'This one is just based on bent space.'

  'Well, there's been lots of wars, lots of deaths and I'd bet there's lots of believers,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, now looking extremely uncomfortable. 'When thousands die for a god, you get a god. If someone is prepared to die for a god, you get a god.'

  'At home, yes. But does that work here?' said Ponder.

  The wizards sat in silence for a while.

  'Are we going to get into any sort of religious trouble for this?' said the Dean.

  'None of us has been struck by lightning yet,' said Ridcully.

  'True, true. I just wish there was a less, er, permanent test,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

  'Er ... the dominant religion on this continent seems to be a family concern, somewhat similar to Old Omnianism.'

  'Big on smiting?'

  'Not lately. It's gone very quiet vis-a-vis heavenly fire, widespread flooding and transmutation into food additives,' said the Chair.

  'Don't tell me,' said Ridcully. 'A public appearance, some simple moral precepts, and then apparent silence? Apart, that is, for millions of people arguing what "Do not steal" and "Don't Commit Murder" actually mean?'

  'That's right.'

  'Just like Omnianism, then,' said the Archchancellor glumly. 'Noisy religion, silent god. We must tread carefully, gentlemen.'

  'But I did point out that there is no perceptible trace whatsoever of any deities of any kind anywhere in this universe!' said Ponder.

  'Yes, very puzzling,' said Ridcully. 'Nevertheless, we have no magical powers here and it pays to be careful.'

  Ponder opened his mouth. He wanted to say: We know everything about this place! We've watched it happen! It's all balls, spinning in curves. It's matter bending space and space moving matter. Everything here is the result of a few simple rules! That's all! It's all just a matter of rules! It's all ... logical.

  He wanted it to be logical. Discworld wasn't logical. Some things happened on the whim of gods, some things happened because it was a good idea at the time, some things happened out of sheer randomness. But there was no logic -at least, no logic that Ponder approved of. He'd gone to the little town called Athens that Rincewind had talked about, in a sheet borrowed from Doctor Dee, and listened to men not entirely unlike the philosophers of Ephebe talking about logic, and it had made him want to burst into tears. They didn't have to live in place where things changed on a whim.

  Everything ticked and tocked and turned for them like a great big machine. There were rules.

  Things stayed the same. The same reliable stars came up every night. Planets didn't disappear because they've wandered too close to a flipper and been flicked far away from the sun.

  No trouble, no complications. A few simple rules, a handful of elements ... it was all so easy.

  Admittedly, he found it a little hard to work out exactly how you got from a few simple rules to, say, the sheen on mother-of-pearl or the common porcupine, but he was sure that you did. He wanted, intensely, to believe in a world where logic worked. It was a matter of faith.

  He envied those philosophers. They nodded to their gods and then, by degrees, destroyed them.

  And now he sighed.

  'We've done the best we can,' he said. 'Your plan, Rincewind?'

  Rincewind stared at the glass sphere that was the current abode of Hex.

  'Hex, is this world ready for the William Shakespeare of whom we spoke?'

  'It is.'

  'And he exists?'

  'No. Two of his grandparents did not meet. His mother was never born.'

  In his hollow voice, Hex recounted the sad history, in detail. The wizards took notes.

  'Right,' said Ridcully, rubbing his hands together when Hex finished. 'This at least is a simple problem. We shall need a length of string, a leather ball of some kind, and a large bunch of flowers ...'

  Later, Rincewind stared at the glass sphere that was the current abode of Hex.

  'Hex, now is this world ready for the William Shakespeare of whom we spoke?'

  'It is.'

  'And he exists?'

  'Violet Shakespeare exists. She married Josiah Slink at the age of sixteen. No plays have been written, but there have been eight children of which five have survived. Her time is fully occupied.'

  The wizards exchanged glances.

  'Perhaps if we offered to babysit?' said Rincewind.

  'Too many problems,' said Ridcully firmly. 'Still it's a change to have an easy one for once. We will need the probable date of conception, a stepladder and a gallon of black paint.'

  Rincewind stared at the glass sphere that was the current abode of Hex.

  'Hex, is this world ready for the William Shakespeare of whom we spoke?'

  'It is.'

  'And he exists?'

  'He was born, but died at the age of 18 months. Details follow.

  The wizards listened. Ridcully looked thoughtful for a moment.

  'This will require some strong disinfectant,' he said. 'And a lot of carbolic soap.'

  Rincewind stared at the glass sphere that was the current abode of Hex.

  'Hex, is this world ready for the William Shakespeare of whom we spoke?'

  'It is.'

  'And he exists?'

  'No. He was born, successfully survived several childhood illnesses, but was shot dead one night while poaching game at the age of thirteen. Details follow.

  'Another easy one,' said Ridcully, standing up. 'We shall need ... let me see ... some drab clothing, a dark lantern and a very large cosh ..."

  Rincewind stared at the glass sphere that was the current abode of Hex.

  'Hex, is this world ready for the William Shakespeare of whom we spoke? Please?'

  'It is.'

  'And he exists?'

  'Yes.'

  The wizards tried not to look hopeful. There had been too many false dawns in the last week.

  'Alive?' said Rincewind. 'Male? Sane? Not in the Americas? Not struck by a meteorite? Not left incapacitated by a hake during an unusual fall of fish? Or killed in a duel?'

  'No. At this moment he is in the tavern that you gentlemen frequent.'

  'Does he have all his arms and legs?'

  'Yes,' said Hex. And ... Rincewind?'

  Yes?'

  As one of two unexpected collateral events to this latest interference, the potato has been brought to these shores.'

  'Hot damn!'

  'And Arthur J. Nightingale is a ploughman and never learned to write.'

  'Near miss there,' said Ridcully.

  28. WORLDS OF IF

  The wizards have devised a secret weapon in their battle against the elves for the soul of Roundworld, and they are busily re-engineering history to make sure that their weapon gets invented. The weapon is one Will Shakespeare -Arthur J. Nightingale just can't hack it. And they're proceeding by trial and error, with a lot of both. Nonetheless, they gradually persuade the flow of history to converge, step by step, towards their desired outcome.

  Black paint? You may know this superstitious practice, but if not: painting the kitchen ceiling black is supposed to guarantee a boy[69]. The wizards will try anything. To begin with. And if it doesn't work, they'll try somethin
g else, until eventually they get somewhere.

  Why is it unreasonable to expect them to succeed in one go, but reasonable to expect them to achieve their objective by repeated refinements?

  History is like that.

  There is a dynamic to history, but we find out what that dynamic is only as the events concerned unfold. That's why we can put a name to historical periods only after they've happened. That's why the history monks on Discworld have to wander the Disc making sure that historical events that ought to happen do happen. They are the guardians of narrativium and they spread it around dispassionately to ensure that the whole world obeys its storyline. The history monks come into their own in Thief of Time. Using great spinning cylinders called Procrastinators, they borrow time from where it is not needed and repay it where it is: According to the Second Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, Wen the Eternally Surprised sawed the first procrastinator from a trunk of a wamwam tree, carved certain symbols on it, fitted it with a bronze spindle, and summoned the apprentice, Clodpool.

  'Ah, very nice, master,' said Clodpool. 'A prayer wheel, yes?'

  'No, this is nothing like as complex,' said Wen. 'It merely stores and moves time.'

  'That simple, eh?'

  'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. He gave it a half-turn with his hand.

  'Ah, very nice, master,' said Clodpool. A prayer wheel, yes?'

  'No, this is nothing like as complex,' said Wen. 'It merely, stores and moves time.'

  'That simple, eh?'

  'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. He moved it a little less this time.

  That simple, eh?'

  'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. This time he twisted it gently to and fro.

  That si-si-si That simple-pie, eh eheh simple, eh?' said Clodpool.

  'And I have tested it,' said Wen.

  On Roundworld we don't have history monks -or, at least, we've never caught anyone playing that role, but could we ever do so? -but we do have a kind of historical narrativium. We have a saying that 'history repeats itself -the first time as comedy, the second time as tragedy', because the one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.