The 4-D Doodler

The 4-D Doodler, by Graph
Waldeyer

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Title: The 4-D Doodler
Author: Graph Waldeyer
Release Date: August 3, 2007 [EBook #22227]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE 4-D
DOODLER ***

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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Comet, July 1941. Extensive research
did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this

publication was renewed.
[Illustration: The Professor's head, suspended above the body, glared
about. The mouth moved rapidly--]

The 4-D DOODLER

by GRAPH WALDEYER
* * * * *

"Do you believe, Professor Gault, that this four dimensional plane
contains life--intelligent life?"
At the question, Gault laughed shortly. "You have been reading
pseudo-science, Dr. Pillbot," he twitted. "I realize that as a psychiatrist,
you are interested in minds, in living beings, rather than in dimensional
planes. But I fear you will find no minds to study in the fourth
dimension. There aren't any there!"
Professor Gault paused, peered from beneath bushy white brows out
over the laboratory. To his near sighted eyes the blurred figure of
Harper, his young assistant, seemed busily at work over his
mathematical charts. Gault hoped sourly that the young man was
actually working and not just drawing more of his absurd, senseless
designs amidst the mathematical computations....
"Your proof," Dr. Pillbot broke into his thoughts insistently, "is purely
negative, Professor! How can you know there are no beings in the
fourth dimension, unless you actually enter this realm, to see for
yourself?"
Professor Gault stared at the fat, puffy face of his visitor, and snorted
loudly.

"I am afraid, Pillbot, you do not comprehend the impossibility of such a
passage. We can not possibly break from the confines of our three
dimensional world. Here, let me explain by a simple illustration."
Gault took up a book, held it so that a shadow fell onto the surface of
the desk.
"That shadow," he said, "is two dimensional, has length and breadth,
but no thickness. Now in order to enter the third dimension, our plane,
the shadow would have to bulge out in some way, into the dimension of
thickness an obvious impossibility. Similarly, we can not enter the
fourth dimension. Do you see?"
"No!" retorted Pillbot with some heat. "In the first place, we are not
two dimensional shadows, and--why, what is the matter?"
Professor Gault's lanky form had stiffened, his near sighted eyes
glaring out over the laboratory to the rear of Pillbot. The psychiatrist
wheeled around, followed his host's gaze.
It was Harper. That young man's antics drew an amazed grunt from
Pillbot. He was describing peculiar motions in the air with his pencil.
Circles, whorls, angles, abrupt jabs forward. He bent over the paper on
the desk, made a few sweeps of the pencil, then the pencil rose again
into the air to describe more erratic motions. Harper himself seemed in
a trance.
Suddenly Pillbot gave a stifled gasp. It seemed to him that Harper's arm
vanished at the elbow as it stabbed forward, then reappeared. Once
again the phenomenon happened.
Pillbot blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes. It must have been illusion, he
decided. It was too ... unlikely....
"Harper!" Gault's voice was like the snapping of a steel trap.
Startled, Harper came to with a jerk. Seeing he was being watched, he
flushed redly, then bent over his charts again. An apologetic murmur

floated from his desk.
"What was he doing?" Pillbot asked puzzledly.
"Doodling!" Gault spat out the word disgustedly.
"Doodling?" echoed the psychiatrist. "Why that is a slang term we use
in psychiatry, to describe the absent-minded scrawls and designs people
make while their attention is elsewhere occupied. An overflow of the
unconscious mind, we call it. Many famous people are 'doodlers.' Their
doodles often are a sign of special ability--"
"Exactly!" snapped Gault. "It shows a special ability to waste time.
And Harper has become worse since I hired him to do some of my
mathematical work. Some influence in this laboratory--I blush to
confess--seems to bring it on. 'Four dimensional doodling' we call it,
because, as you saw, he doesn't confine it to the surface of the paper!"
Pillbot looked startled. "By jove," he cried. "I believe you've hit on
something new to psychiatry. This young man may have some
unknown faculty of mind--an instinctive perception of the fourth
dimension. Just as some people have an unerring