The Big Bounce Read online

  THE BIG BOUNCE

  by

  WALTER S. TEVIS

  _Seeing it in action, anybody would quaver inalarm: What hath Farnsworth overwrought?_

  Illustrated by Johnson

  "Let me show you something," Farnsworth said. He set his near-emptydrink--a Bacardi martini--on the mantel and waddled out of the roomtoward the basement.

  I sat in my big leather chair, feeling very peaceful with the world,watching the fire. Whatever Farnsworth would have to show to-nightwould be far more entertaining than watching T.V.--my custom on otherevenings. Farnsworth, with his four labs in the house and his verytricky mind, never failed to provide my best night of the week.

  When he returned, after a moment, he had with him a small box, aboutthree inches square. He held this carefully in one hand and stood bythe fireplace dramatically--or as dramatically as a very small, veryfat man with pink cheeks can stand by a fireplace of the sort thatseems to demand a big man with tweeds, pipe and, perhaps, a saberwound.

  Anyway, he held the box dramatically and he said, "Last week, I wasplaying around in the chem lab, trying to make a new kind of rubbereraser. Did quite well with the other drafting equipment, you know,especially the dimensional curve and the photosensitive ink. Well, Iapproached the job by trying for a material that would absorb graphitewithout abrading paper."

  I was a little disappointed with this; it sounded pretty tame. But Isaid, "How did it come out?"

  * * * * *

  He screwed his pudgy face up thoughtfully. "Synthesized the material,all right, and it seems to work, but the interesting thing is that ithas a certain--ah--secondary property that would make it quite awkwardto use. Interesting property, though. Unique, I am inclined tobelieve."

  This began to sound more like it. "And what property is that?" Ipoured myself a shot of straight rum from the bottle sitting on thetable beside me. I did not like straight rum, but I preferred it toFarnsworth's rather imaginative cocktails.

  "I'll show you, John," he said. He opened the box and I could see thatit was packed with some kind of batting. He fished in this andwithdrew a gray ball about the size of a golfball and set the box onthe mantel.

  "And that's the--eraser?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said. Then he squatted down, held the ball about a half-inchfrom the floor, dropped it.

  It bounced, naturally enough. Then it bounced again. And again. Onlythis was not natural, for on the second bounce the ball went higher inthe air than on the first, and on the third bounce higher still. Aftera half minute, my eyes were bugging out and the little ball wasbouncing four feet in the air and going higher each time.

  I grabbed my glass. "What the hell!" I said.

  Farnsworth caught the ball in a pudgy hand and held it. He was smilinga little sheepishly. "Interesting effect, isn't it?"

  "Now wait a minute," I said, beginning to think about it. "What's thegimmick? What kind of motor do you have in that thing?"

  His eyes were wide and a little hurt. "No gimmick, John. None at all.Just a very peculiar molecular structure."

  "Structure!" I said. "Bouncing balls just don't pick up energy out ofnowhere, I don't care how their molecules are put together. And youdon't get energy out without putting energy in."

  "Oh," he said, "that's the really interesting thing. Of course you'reright; energy _does_ go into the ball. Here, I'll show you."

  He let the ball drop again and it began bouncing, higher and higher,until it was hitting the ceiling. Farnsworth reached out to catch it,but he fumbled and the thing glanced off his hand, hit the mantelpieceand zipped across the room. It banged into the far wall, richocheted,banked off three other walls, picking up speed all the time.

  When it whizzed by me like a rifle bullet, I began to get worried, butit hit against one of the heavy draperies by the window and thisdamped its motion enough so that it fell to the floor.

  * * * * *

  It started bouncing again immediately, but Farnsworth scrambled acrossthe room and grabbed it. He was perspiring a little and he beganinstantly to transfer the ball from one hand to another and back againas if it were hot.

  "Here," he said, and handed it to me.

  I almost dropped it.

  "It's like a ball of ice!" I said. "Have you been keeping it in therefrigerator?"

  "No. As a matter of fact, it was at room temperature a few minutesago."

  "Now wait a minute," I said. "I only teach physics in high school, butI know better than that. Moving around in warm air doesn't makeanything cold except by evaporation."

  "Well, there's your input and output, John," he said. "The ball lostheat and took on motion. Simple conversion."

  My jaw must have dropped to my waist. "Do you mean that that littlething is converting heat to kinetic energy?"

  "Apparently."

  "But that's impossible!"

  He was beginning to smile thoughtfully. The ball was not as cold nowas it had been and I was holding it in my lap.

  "A steam engine does it," he said, "and a steam turbine. Of course,they're not very efficient."

  "They work mechanically, too, and only because water expands when itturns to steam."

  "This seems to do it differently," he said, sipping thoughtfully athis dark-brown martini. "I don't know exactly how--maybe somethingpiezo-electric about the way its molecules slide about. I ran sometests--measured its impact energy in foot pounds and compared thatwith the heat loss in BTUs. Seemed to be about 98 per cent efficient,as close as I could tell. Apparently it converts heat into bounce verywell. Interesting, isn't it?"

  "_Interesting?_" I almost came flying out of my chair. My mind wasbeginning to spin like crazy. "If you're not pulling my leg with thisthing, Farnsworth, you've got something by the tail there that's justa little bit bigger than the discovery of fire."

  He blushed modestly. "I'd rather thought that myself," he admitted.

  "Good Lord, look at the heat that's available!" I said, getting reallyexcited now.

  * * * * *

  Farnsworth was still smiling, very pleased with himself. "I supposeyou could put this thing in a box, with convection fins, and let itbounce around inside--"

  "I'm way ahead of you," I said. "But that wouldn't work. All yourkinetic energy would go right back to heat, on impact--and eventuallythat little ball would build up enough speed to blast its way throughany box you could build."

  "Then how would you work it?"

  "Well," I said, choking down the rest of my rum, "you'd seal the ballin a big steel cylinder, attach the cylinder to a crankshaft andflywheel, give the thing a shake to start the ball bouncing back andforth, and let it run like a gasoline engine or something. It wouldget all the heat it needed from the air in a normal room. Mount theapparatus in your house and it would pump your water, operate agenerator and keep you cool at the same time!"

  I sat down again, shakily, and began pouring myself another drink.

  Farnsworth had taken the ball from me and was carefully putting itback in its padded box. He was visibly showing excitement, too; Icould see that his cheeks were ruddier and his eyes even brighter thannormal. "But what if you want the cooling and don't have any work tobe done?"

  "Simple," I said. "You just let the machine turn a flywheel or liftweights and drop them, or something like that, outside your house. Youhave an air intake inside. And if, in the winter, you don't want tolose heat, you just mount the thing in an outside building, attach itto your generator and use the power to do whatever you want--heat yourhouse, say. There's plenty of heat in the outside air even inDecember."

  "John," said Farnsworth, "you are very ingenious. It might work."

  "Of course it'll work." Pictures were beginni
ng to light up in myhead. "And don't you realize that this is the answer to the solarpower problem? Why, mirrors and selenium are, at best, ten per centefficient! Think of big pumping stations on the Sahara! All that heat,all that need for power, for irrigation!" I paused a moment foreffect. "Farnsworth, this can change the very shape of the Earth!"

  Farnsworth seemed to be lost in thought. Finally he looked at mestrangely and said, "Perhaps we had better try to build a model."

  * * * * *

  I was so excited by the thing that I couldn't sleep that night. I keptdreaming of power stations,