The Infinite Man
Encyclopedia
The Infinite Man is a science fiction
novel written by Daniel F. Galouye
and published in April 1973 by Bantam Books
.
of continuous creation in the area within and surrounding an unnamed American Midwestern city, according to which, 125,000 "neoneutrons" (particles which decay into protons and neutron
s) should be called into existence in an Earth-sized volume in a twenty-four-hour period. The monitored area is an equilateral triangle with thickness of 50 feet (15.2 m) and an area of 300 square miles (777 km²) which should, by a proportional estimate, register twenty-one neoneutronic creation signatures in that same period.
Suddenly, not merely twenty-one, but millions of neoneutrons are called into existence in this monitoring area, fusing some of the sensor equipment. After replacing and refusing of the sensor elements, the locus of the phenomenon is traced to a rail-yard on the edge of the zone, and further, apparently emanating from a young drug-user and hobo, Milton Bradford.
Five years later, Milton Bradford (or, "Brad" to his inner circle) has gone from drug-using poverty to the pinnacle of corporate power as the Chairman of Progress and Development Enterprises (P&D), a real-estate and industrial conglomerate who functioned as an important partner during the days of the Genesis Project. P&D was formerly headed by Gerstal B. Hedgemore, who had committed suicide in apparent shame when Bradford was confirmed as his illegitimate heir, consequently leaving him his worldly and corporate fortunes in his will. For the first two years of this time Bradford, now flush with wealth and time to spend it, lives the dream - even so far as to create a self-satirical rock group, Hocker's Mock Rockers, which is a wild success, providing even more income for P&D Enterprises. Five years in, however, Bradford is attempting to grow into his new role as powerful Chairman of a wealthy and powerful company.
The reality is that P&D Enterprises, while a real company, is solely devoted to providing a safe and contented existence for Bradford. For, earlier on, psychological probing has revealed to Project Genesis' staff that the phenomenon that led them to Bradford is in fact the Creative Force that brought the Universe into being in the first place, and (while not immediately clear to the Project staff) the Creative Force has sought Bradford as a hiding place from a Universe that has become tiresomely overwhelmingly complex and the Destructive Force whom the Creative Force had originally brought into being a self-made opponent to stave off ennui. The Creative Force now seeks shelter amongst its favored beings. Hedgemore did not commit suicide, but willingly abdicated his top position and lives in cloistered seclusion within the P&D buildings, never meeting Bradford.
In making a soft life for Bradford, the staff of P&D Enterprises hopes to keep the Creative Force somnolent, assuming that if the Force woke and was forced out of hiding physical laws would change to the point that the Universe might be annihilated. For those five years they were largely successful, however over this time Bradford has begun to put scattered parts together ... while P&D's work was very through, it was not complete, and at least clue that Hedgemore had been sterile for years before Bradford's birth eventually surfaces.
Additionally, a cult worshipping Bradford has formed. Mixing elements of 1960s-style hippie
movement, Buddhism
, and rock and roll
, it holds Bradford as the Messiah, the "Inverse Vessel" - instead of the Universe containing him, he contains the Universe. The sect, calling itself the Church of Topological Transformation, and led by a former member of a committee charged with oversight of Project Genesis, apply this reversal to everything they do, from dressing backwards as well as inside-out to reversing their names - the leader of the sect, Montague, is styled Eugatnom Tehporp - "Prophet Montague", reversed.
Between the adoration of the cult, which its leader has increasing trouble restraining, and the staff of P&D, psychologically exhausted from years of maintaining the P&D fiction against the utter destruction of the Universe, the cracks in the cover story develop and widen, and the Creative Force arouses and begins to try to simplify the Universe in order to make it more manageable - though not uninhabitable for its chosen residents; from the original confirmatory nova of Proxima Centauri
and destruction of Pluto
, it deletes all quasar
s observable in the Universe; rationalizes pi
at the 323rd decimal; halves the speed of light
; and changes probability
so that outcomes bracketing the mean
become more likely than the mean itself. These revisions to physical reality typically happen after dreams; the quasars are seen in Bradford's dreams as "glowflies", as an example; and the halving of the speed of light is expressed as "half a sea". While these cause some upheaval in everyday life humanity still survives on Earth - until the final battle comes between the Creative Force, inhabiting Bradford, and the Destructive Force - who had, during all this time, been inhabiting and guiding Bradford's psychiatrist, Dr. Power, seeking to draw him out, and becoming his corporeal adversary in the end.
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...
novel written by Daniel F. Galouye
Daniel F. Galouye
Daniel Francis Galouye was an American science fiction writer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he contributed novelettes and short stories to various digest size science fiction magazines, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Louis G...
and published in April 1973 by Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
.
Plot
A research project, Project Genesis, searches for evidences confirming the Steady State TheorySteady State theory
In cosmology, the Steady State theory is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory...
of continuous creation in the area within and surrounding an unnamed American Midwestern city, according to which, 125,000 "neoneutrons" (particles which decay into protons and neutron
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of...
s) should be called into existence in an Earth-sized volume in a twenty-four-hour period. The monitored area is an equilateral triangle with thickness of 50 feet (15.2 m) and an area of 300 square miles (777 km²) which should, by a proportional estimate, register twenty-one neoneutronic creation signatures in that same period.
Suddenly, not merely twenty-one, but millions of neoneutrons are called into existence in this monitoring area, fusing some of the sensor equipment. After replacing and refusing of the sensor elements, the locus of the phenomenon is traced to a rail-yard on the edge of the zone, and further, apparently emanating from a young drug-user and hobo, Milton Bradford.
Five years later, Milton Bradford (or, "Brad" to his inner circle) has gone from drug-using poverty to the pinnacle of corporate power as the Chairman of Progress and Development Enterprises (P&D), a real-estate and industrial conglomerate who functioned as an important partner during the days of the Genesis Project. P&D was formerly headed by Gerstal B. Hedgemore, who had committed suicide in apparent shame when Bradford was confirmed as his illegitimate heir, consequently leaving him his worldly and corporate fortunes in his will. For the first two years of this time Bradford, now flush with wealth and time to spend it, lives the dream - even so far as to create a self-satirical rock group, Hocker's Mock Rockers, which is a wild success, providing even more income for P&D Enterprises. Five years in, however, Bradford is attempting to grow into his new role as powerful Chairman of a wealthy and powerful company.
The reality is that P&D Enterprises, while a real company, is solely devoted to providing a safe and contented existence for Bradford. For, earlier on, psychological probing has revealed to Project Genesis' staff that the phenomenon that led them to Bradford is in fact the Creative Force that brought the Universe into being in the first place, and (while not immediately clear to the Project staff) the Creative Force has sought Bradford as a hiding place from a Universe that has become tiresomely overwhelmingly complex and the Destructive Force whom the Creative Force had originally brought into being a self-made opponent to stave off ennui. The Creative Force now seeks shelter amongst its favored beings. Hedgemore did not commit suicide, but willingly abdicated his top position and lives in cloistered seclusion within the P&D buildings, never meeting Bradford.
In making a soft life for Bradford, the staff of P&D Enterprises hopes to keep the Creative Force somnolent, assuming that if the Force woke and was forced out of hiding physical laws would change to the point that the Universe might be annihilated. For those five years they were largely successful, however over this time Bradford has begun to put scattered parts together ... while P&D's work was very through, it was not complete, and at least clue that Hedgemore had been sterile for years before Bradford's birth eventually surfaces.
Additionally, a cult worshipping Bradford has formed. Mixing elements of 1960s-style hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, it holds Bradford as the Messiah, the "Inverse Vessel" - instead of the Universe containing him, he contains the Universe. The sect, calling itself the Church of Topological Transformation, and led by a former member of a committee charged with oversight of Project Genesis, apply this reversal to everything they do, from dressing backwards as well as inside-out to reversing their names - the leader of the sect, Montague, is styled Eugatnom Tehporp - "Prophet Montague", reversed.
Between the adoration of the cult, which its leader has increasing trouble restraining, and the staff of P&D, psychologically exhausted from years of maintaining the P&D fiction against the utter destruction of the Universe, the cracks in the cover story develop and widen, and the Creative Force arouses and begins to try to simplify the Universe in order to make it more manageable - though not uninhabitable for its chosen residents; from the original confirmatory nova of Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star about 4.2 light-years distant in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, and is the nearest known star to the Sun, although it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye...
and destruction of Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
, it deletes all quasar
Quasar
A quasi-stellar radio source is a very energetic and distant active galactic nucleus. Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than...
s observable in the Universe; rationalizes pi
Pi
' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...
at the 323rd decimal; halves the speed of light
Speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...
; and changes probability
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
so that outcomes bracketing the mean
Mean
In statistics, mean has two related meanings:* the arithmetic mean .* the expected value of a random variable, which is also called the population mean....
become more likely than the mean itself. These revisions to physical reality typically happen after dreams; the quasars are seen in Bradford's dreams as "glowflies", as an example; and the halving of the speed of light is expressed as "half a sea". While these cause some upheaval in everyday life humanity still survives on Earth - until the final battle comes between the Creative Force, inhabiting Bradford, and the Destructive Force - who had, during all this time, been inhabiting and guiding Bradford's psychiatrist, Dr. Power, seeking to draw him out, and becoming his corporeal adversary in the end.
See also
- List of science fiction novels
- Mind transfer in fictionMind transfer in fictionMind uploading, mind transfer or whole brain emulation is the theoretically possible use of the brain as a computer and of thoughts as software. It is a common theme in science fiction.- Early and particularly important examples :...
- SuperhumanSuperhumanSuperhuman can mean an improved human, for example, by genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or as what humans might evolve into, in the near or distant future...