What can you say to a question like that? Larry ignored it, as though it was rhetorical. Actually, he smoked cigarettes in the privacy of his den, a habit which was on the proletarian side and not consistent with his status level.
He said, to get things under way, “Professor Voss,what is an intuitive scientist?”
The Professor exhaled blue smoke, shook out the old-time kitchen match with which he had lit up, and tossed the matchstick into an ashtray. “Intuitive scientist?”
“You once called Ernest Self a great intuitive scientist.”
“Oh, Self. Yes, indeed. What is he doing these days?”
Larry said, “That’s what I came to ask you about.”
The Professor was puzzled. “I’m afraid you came to the wrong place, Mr. Woolford. I haven’t seen Ernest Self for quite a time. Why?”
Larry said carefully, “Some of his researches seem to have taken him rather far afield. Actually, I know practically nothing about him. I wonder if you could fill me in a bit.”
Peter Voss looked at the ash on the end of his cigar. “I really don’t know the man that well. He lives across the park. Why don’t you—”
“He’s disappeared,” Larry saiu.
The Professor blinked. “I see,” he said. “And in view of the fact that you are a security officer, I assume under strange circumstances.” Larry Woolford said nothing to that and the Professor sank bank into his chair and pursed his lips. “I can’t really tell you much. I became interested in Self two or three years ago when gathering material for a paper on the inadequate manner in which our country rewards its inventors.”
Larry said, “I’ve heard about his suit against the government.”
The Professor became more animated. “Ha!” he snorted. “One example among many. Self is not alone. Our culture is such that the genius is smothered. The great contributors to our society are ignored, or worse.”
Larry Woolford was feeling his way. Now he said mildly, “I was under the impression that American free enterprise, or capitalism, if you will, gave the individual the best opportunity to prove himself and that if he had it on the ball he would get to the top, no matter what the obstacles.”
“Were you really?” the Professor said snappishly. “And did you know that Edison died a comparatively poor man with an estate somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred thousand dollars? An amount that might sound like a good deal to you or me, but, when you consider his contributions, shockingly little. Did you know that Eli Whitney realized little, if anything, from the cotton gin? Or that McCormack didn’t invent the reaper but gained it in a dubious court victory? Or take Robert Goddard, one of the best examples of modern times. He developed the basics of rocket technology—gyroscopic stabilizers, fuel pumps, self-cooling motors, landing devices. He died in 1945 leaving behind twenty-two volumes of records that proved priceless. What did he get out of his researches? Nothing. It was fifteen years later that his widow won her suit against the government for patent infringements.”
Larry held up a hand. “Really,” he said. “My interest is in Ernest Self.”
The Professor relaxed. “Sorry, Mr. Woolford, I’m afraid I get carried away on this subject. Self, to get back to your original question, is a great intuitive scientist. Unfortunately for him, society being what it is today, he fits into few grooves. Our educational system was little more than an irritation to him and consequently he holds no degrees. Needless to say, this interferred with his gaining employment with the universities and the large corporations which dominate our country’s research, not to mention governmental agencies.
“Ernest Self holds none of the status labels that count. The fact that he is a genius means nothing. He is supposedly qualified no more than to hold a janitor’s position in laboratories where his inferiors conduct experiments in fields where he is a dozenfold more capable than they. No one is interested in his genius, they want to know what status labels are pinned to him. Ernest Self has no respect for labels.”
Larry Woolford figured he was picking up background and didn’t change the subject. “Just what do you mean by an intuitive scientist?”
“It’s a term I have used loosely, I am afraid,” the Professor admitted. “Possibly a scientist who makes a breakthrough in his field, destroying formerly held positions—in Self’s case, without the math, without the accepted theories to back him. He finds something that works, possibly without knowing how or why, and by using unorthodox analytical techniques. An intuitive scientist, if I may use the term, is a thorn in the side of our theoretical physicists laden down with their burden of status labels but who are themselves short of the makings of a Leonardo, a Newton, a Galileo, or even a Nicholas Christofilos.”
“I’m afraid that last name escapes me,” Larry said.
“Similar to Self’s case and Robert Goddard’s,” Voss said, his voice bitter. “Although his story has a better ending. Christofilos invented the strong-focusing principle that made possible the multi-billion-volt particle accelerators currently so widely used in nuclear physics experimentation. However, he was nothing but a Greek electrical systems engineer and the supposed experts turned him down on the grounds that his math was faulty. It seems that he submitted the idea in straight-algebra terms instead of differential equations. He finally won through after patenting the discovery and rubbing their noses in it. Previously, none of the physics journals would publish his paper—he didn’t have the right status labels to impress them.”
Larry said, almost with amusement, “You seem to have quite a phobia against the status label, as you call it. However, I don’t see how as complicated a world as ours could get along without it.”
The Professor snorted his contempt of that opinion. “Tell me,” he said, “to which class do you consider yourself to belong? What social strata?”
Larry Woolford shrugged. “I suppose individuals in my bracket, with my education, and my job are usually thought of as being middle-middle class. Given luck, as I grow older possibly I’ll be able to work myself up to upper-middle class.”
The other snorted again. “And you have no feeling of revolt in having such a label hung on you? Consider this system for a moment. You have lower-lower, middle-lower, and upper lower. Then you have lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle. Then you have lower-upper, middle-upper, and finally we achieve to upper-upper class. Now tell me, when we get to that rarified category, who do we find? Do we find an Einstein, a Schweitzer, a Picasso; outstanding scientists, humanitarians, the great writers, artists and musicians of our day? Certainly not. We find ultra-wealthy playboys and girls, a former king and his duchess who eke out their income by accepting fees to attend parties. We find the international bum set, bearers of meaningless feudalistic titles, or we find millionaires and billionaires, who achieved their wealth by inheriting it. These are your upper-upper class!”
Larry laughed.
The professor snapped, “You think it funny? Let me give you another example of our status label culture. I have a friend whom I have known since childhood. I would estimate that Charles has an I.Q. of approximately 90, certainly no more. His family, however, took such necessary steps as were needed to get Charles through public school. No great matter these days, you’ll admit, although on occasion he needed a bit of tutoring to pass his grades. On graduation, they recognized that the really better schools might be a bit difficult for Charles so he was entered in a college with a good name but without—shall we say—the highest of scholastic ratings. Charles plodded along, had some more tutoring, probably had his thesis ghosted, and eventually graduated with his first degree. At that point an uncle died and left a rather strange will. He left Charles an indefinite amount of money to be used in furthering his education to any extent he wished to go. Charles, probably motivated by the desire to avoid obtaining a job and competing with his fellow man, managed to wrangle himself into a medical school and eventually even graduated. Since funds were still available, he continued his studies abroad, largely in Vienna.”
The Professor wound it up. “Eventually, he ran out of schools, or his uncle’s estate ran out—I don’t know which came first. At any rate, my friend Charles, laden down with status labels, is today practicing as a psychiatrist in this fair city of ours.”
Larry stared at him blankly.
The Professor said snappishly, “So any time you feel you need to have your brains unscrambled, you can go to his office and expend fifty dollars an hour or so. His reputation is of the highest.” The Professor grunted his contempt. “He doesn’t know the difference between an aspirin tablet and a Rorschach test.”
Larry Woolford stirred in his chair. “We seem to have gotten off the subject. What has all this got to do with Ernest Self?”
The Professor seemed angry. “I repeat, I’m afraid I get carried away on this subject. I’m in revolt against a culture based on the status label. It eliminates the need to judge a man on his merits. To judge a person by the clothes he wears, the amount of money he possesses, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, the
