Technical Error
Encyclopedia
"Technical Error" is a science fiction
short story
by Arthur C. Clarke
. It was published in 1950 under the title "The Reversed Man" and appeared again in Clarke's collection of short stories Reach for Tomorrow
, in 1956.
has been erected. The worker Richard Nelson is inverted laterally, when there occurs a gigantic short-curcuit, in the facility. Nelson is now suddenly wearing his wedding ring on the left instead on the right hand, and written texts appear mirror-inverted, to him; even some coins and a little technical diary in one of his pockets are inverted. Nelson begins to starve; normal food does not nourish him properly, any more, because of its spatial structure. The chemist Prof. Vandenburg develops mirror-inverted parallels
of as many substances needed by Nelson as possible.
Ralph Hughes, chief physicist of the power station, traces the incident back to Nelson having gone through a fourth spatial dimension
, somehow, and shakes off the arguments of the scientifically interested secretary McPherson, who digs deeper around the fact that Einstein had found the fourth dimension being time. The board of directors induces Nelson to partake in an effort to re-invert him. It would cost a considerable sum of money every day to keep him alive, and nobody knows if one could, at all, really provide him with all of the substances he is in need of. One prepares to re-enact the short-circuit as exactly as one is able to, though there remain some very disquieting open questions, mainly regarding at which voltage the circuit should be closed. Nelson first simply disappears, in the second short-circuit. It only comes to Hughes's mind in the early hours of the next morning, when the generator is already being put back into the place where Nelson has disappeared, in a hurry to supply enough current during the matitudinal peak of consumption, what has very probably happened to Nelson, this time. Nelson's assitant has mentioned that there did not seem to be any person in the generator to him, immediately after the original accident. Hughes infers from this that Nelson must have disappeared, for a few seconds, already then, and could re-materialize in the midst of the running generator, at any time, now, once more. He does not manage to intervene, at the power station, via telephone, any more; in the distance, just above the site of the station, there is already rising into the sky a gigantic fountain of debris.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
. It was published in 1950 under the title "The Reversed Man" and appeared again in Clarke's collection of short stories Reach for Tomorrow
Reach for Tomorrow
Reach for Tomorrow is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. The stories all originally appeared in a number of different publications.-Contents:...
, in 1956.
Plot summary
For the first time, a power station using the phenomenon of superconductivitySuperconductivity
Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance occurring in certain materials below a characteristic temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum...
has been erected. The worker Richard Nelson is inverted laterally, when there occurs a gigantic short-curcuit, in the facility. Nelson is now suddenly wearing his wedding ring on the left instead on the right hand, and written texts appear mirror-inverted, to him; even some coins and a little technical diary in one of his pockets are inverted. Nelson begins to starve; normal food does not nourish him properly, any more, because of its spatial structure. The chemist Prof. Vandenburg develops mirror-inverted parallels
Enantiomer
In chemistry, an enantiomer is one of two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other that are non-superposable , much as one's left and right hands are the same except for opposite orientation. It can be clearly understood if you try to place your hands one over the other without...
of as many substances needed by Nelson as possible.
Ralph Hughes, chief physicist of the power station, traces the incident back to Nelson having gone through a fourth spatial dimension
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
, somehow, and shakes off the arguments of the scientifically interested secretary McPherson, who digs deeper around the fact that Einstein had found the fourth dimension being time. The board of directors induces Nelson to partake in an effort to re-invert him. It would cost a considerable sum of money every day to keep him alive, and nobody knows if one could, at all, really provide him with all of the substances he is in need of. One prepares to re-enact the short-circuit as exactly as one is able to, though there remain some very disquieting open questions, mainly regarding at which voltage the circuit should be closed. Nelson first simply disappears, in the second short-circuit. It only comes to Hughes's mind in the early hours of the next morning, when the generator is already being put back into the place where Nelson has disappeared, in a hurry to supply enough current during the matitudinal peak of consumption, what has very probably happened to Nelson, this time. Nelson's assitant has mentioned that there did not seem to be any person in the generator to him, immediately after the original accident. Hughes infers from this that Nelson must have disappeared, for a few seconds, already then, and could re-materialize in the midst of the running generator, at any time, now, once more. He does not manage to intervene, at the power station, via telephone, any more; in the distance, just above the site of the station, there is already rising into the sky a gigantic fountain of debris.