Behold me--I am a Line, the longest in Lineland, over six inches of Space --"
"Of Length," I ventured to suggest. "Fool," said he, "Space is Length.
Interrupt me again, and I have done."
I apologized; but he continued scornfully, "Since you are impervious
to argument, you shall hear with your ears how by means of my two voices
I reveal my shape to my Wives, who are at this moment six thousand miles
seventy yards two feet eight inches away, the one to the North,
the other to the South. Listen, I call to them."
He chirruped, and then complacently continued: "My wives at this
moment receiving the sound of one of my voice, closely followed
by the other, and perceiving that the latter reaches them after an interval
in which sound can traverse 6.457 inches, infer that one of my mouths
is 6.457 inches further from them than the other, and accordingly know
my shape to be 6.457 inches. But you will of course understand that
my wives do not make this calculation every time they hear my two voices.
They made it, once for all, before we were married. But they COULD
make it at any time. And in the same way I can estimate the shape
of any of my Male subjects by the sense of sound.
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