continued…

Then, one day a completely astounding result occurred.

A colleague of the professor’s stopped by the lab. We were in between subjects and the two professors discussed the project’s progress. The colleague suggested that the professor employ the use of a sub-atomic energy-to-mass-ratio spectrometer. The unit was set up in the lab, along with all the other equipment. The very next subject tested produced the astonishing result.
The new equipment setup showed clearly that the subject’s brain was putting out more energy than was possible according to the mass of his brain.

More subjects, male and female, old and young, low to high intelligence were tested subsequently as a confirmation of this result. Everyone of the subjects tested produced this same unbelievable finding.

Finally, the next day, I showed up early wondering if the energy-to-mass-ratio spectrometer was calibrated correctly. Not to my surprise, I found it was off by quite a bit. I was getting ready to re-calibrate the unit when Professor Lasdyknasd showed up. I told him what I had discovered and said that it was probably why yesterday’s subjects recorded such ridiculous results. Then, I told him that I was getting ready to calibrate the machine correctly.

He became immediately enraged and told me I was fired and to leave the university premises at once and never return under any circumstances. I was shocked.

At first, I thought perhaps the professor was mad that I had attempted to work on such an important and expensive piece of university equipment. I guessed that he would want a more qualified technician to work on the unit, or that he might want to do it himself.

However, I have since learned, discreetly, that the machine was never re-calibrated. Surely, the professor was intelligent enough the know the unit was out of whack. After all, he was an important, well-respected scientist with a great deal of prestige. I was filled with terror as the truth slowly occurred to me: the professor didn’t want the machine to produce correct results.

Somehow, he got other scientists to go along with the idea that the incorrect settings on the machine were in fact the correct settings. All similiar units were re-aligned to fit the professor’s settings. The world of physics, celestial and sub-atomic mechanics was turned upside down in a matter of weeks. Consequentially, the impact was enormous on the world of philosophy and psychology and, in due course, on the world at large.