a Bothflench story

The last doublehour¹ of the island of Bothflanks

Professor Hnerliq pointed to the red lever and announced to the onlooking colleagues and invited church, government, and press representatives: "As soon as I activate this machine, everything within one (mollsubbaritone) ell from the center of the chronokinetic field exciter system will be moved one sixtieth of a doublesecond¹; into the past."

"Just one sixtieth of a doublesecond? We won't even notice that with a naked eye," one of the journalists wondered.

"Although the object will reappear in the place from which it disappeared, the Earth will rotate in the meantime, so the experimental object will disappear from this table, but it will reappear on that table roughly twenty² (mollsubbaritone) ells³ to the east," the professor explained.

"And what if there will be another object at the destination? As I can see, there is really something on that other table," was another question.

"That's exactly one of the goals of today's experiment. According to one hypothesis, the transfer is bidirectional and the two objects will be exchanged. But, according to my theory, the transfer is unidirectional and they will blend together. That's why one of the objects is copper brick and the other is a tin one.

"So you expect the result to be bronze?"

"That would be the case if the blending took place on a macroscopic level. But there is a possibility that the blending will be even more substantial and gold will be produced."

"Gold?"

"Yes, 29 + 50 = 79."

(Narrator's note: This is true, but 63 + 120 = 183, which is much less than 197. So even if the experiment result were truly gold, it would be mainly the unstable Au 183 gold, which would gradually disintegrate into Europium 151 and eight particles α.)

This drew the attention of the royal subcamerarius. He did not understand the meaning of those numbers, but the idea of ​​a source competing with Optaquan goldfields was tempting. "Then run it, Professor," he said eagerly.

The professor put his hand on the lever.

The door swung open. One of the assistant scientists rushed into the lab, waving his hand with several sheets of paper described by complex formulas.

"Hold on, Professor! I found you made one serious calculation error!"

Faces expressing scorn turned to him. Some insignificant student dares to correct Professor Hnerliq himself!

But it was too late anyway, the professor's hand had just completed its movement. The machine roared—and there was no visible change.

Meanwhile, the student walked over to the machine and stared at it with a somewhat frightened look.

After a moment of silence, the professor turned to the student: "You seem to be right after all. The machine doesn't work."

"But no, professor, it works," the student said slowly. "Except for that one mistake, everything else is perfectly fine. The significant is perfectly accurate, but the mistake is in the sexagesimal order."

"In the order of magnitude? Are you saying that the machine is sixty times less powerful? That the active area had the radius only one (barley) grain³ instead of one (mollsubbaritone) ell?"

"No, unfortunately the opposite is true, the machine is much more powerful than we expected."

"More powerful?" The professor thought about it. "A radius of one plethron³? Have we moved the whole building one doublesecond back to the past, thus one half of a longitudinal minute to the east?" Then he turned his head toward the window. The outlook has not changed. "Nonsense!"

"Unfortunately, it's not just one order," the student said.

"Two orders? A radius of one (nautical) mile³? The entire campus two minutes into the past, half a degree to the east?"

"Three."

"Three? Sixty miles? The whole island?"

"It's not an island anymore. We're two hours in the past now, 30 degrees to the east, somewhere in the middle of the continent."

 
(And how it continued? Maybe like this:)
 

The professor thought again briefly, then blurted out, "So we're two hours in the past. Take a military plane, and hopefully you'll be able to cover those 1,170 miles in time."

"I've just tried that, and as you know, I unfortunately arrived a few seconds late."

 
(First published Fri, 11 Sep 2020 11:09:00 +0200 in Conlang mail-list.)
 

Notes

(1) Alike the Mesopotamians, the Bothflench scientists divided the day cycle into 12 parts (Sumerian da-na, Akkadian bêru). So their units of time are twice as long as our units based on 24 hours per day.

(2) The center of Bothflanks lies at 49°30′ of north latitude, and this parallel is shorter than the equator at a ratio of cos (49.5°) = 0.65…, so that while one half of latitudinal second is 30 (mollsubbaritone) ells, one half the longitudinal second is only 19½ of a (mollsubbaritone) ell.

(3) Bothflench units of length:

other Bothflench stories