Saturday, November 12, 2005
Maturity and Responsibility
Four Sided Triangle (1952) is about two young British men who invent a Matter Duplicator. The idea is, if you can change matter into energy, as when you burn a piece of wood or detonate an atomic bomb, then you should be able to reverse the process and turn energy into matter. And they have a good point, I think. After all, if E = mc2 (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) then it only takes a little algebra to show that m = E/c2 (mass equals Energy divided by the speed of light squared). Thank you Mr. Einstein. And while that little algebra may require a giant leap, still it leads to a huge success in the film.
With a Matter Duplicator you can make an exact copy of anything you want. The implications of this are mind-boggling and enough, perhaps, to motivate me to try my hand at inventing one. Who wouldn’t want one of these contraptions? You could duplicate money, for example, and be a millionaire in a matter of days, if not hours. Of course, wouldn’t that be counterfeiting? Maybe. Well, you could duplicate diamonds and gold. Yeah, but where are you going to get the diamonds and gold, and where are you going to sell them, and wouldn’t that wreak havoc on the world markets, and couldn’t you get in trouble? Yeah, I guess so. You know a major difference between being an adult and being a child? As an adult I see more problems inherent in a dream like this than I did as a child. In some ways that’s regrettable.
The two guys in the movie have altruistic ideas for putting their invention to use. They want to duplicate things like radium (useful in hospitals at the time), rare medicines, and even great works of art, which they would then distribute to the disadvantaged, art-deprived people of the world. How nice. All this goes along well enough until one of the guys has the brilliant idea that he wants to make a duplicate of his partner’s wife, one that he can keep for himself. (Hence the title, Four Sided Triangle: i.e., two guys plus two versions of the same woman.) Needless to say, such an idea is fraught with problems. A more mature, more stable mind would realize this and avoid it. The guy in the story doesn’t, and has to pay the price.
I guess one point is, don’t give a guy with emotional and psychological problems the keys to the lab. Of course the conventional wisdom is that there is a fine line between genius and madness. Must we accept the latter in order to have the former? I don’t think so. Besides, the guy in the story is aided and abetted by several other people. So the creation of monsters and the ensuing tragedy is often a collaborative act. If we don’t help, they won’t get made. But that doesn’t mean we can just sit around doing nothing either. That’s often tantamount to providing aid. No, we must display knowledge and courage. We must first know what is going on and then have the courage to speak when we feel something is wrong. As private citizens this may be the best way for us to join the struggle against the monsters.
2001
With a Matter Duplicator you can make an exact copy of anything you want. The implications of this are mind-boggling and enough, perhaps, to motivate me to try my hand at inventing one. Who wouldn’t want one of these contraptions? You could duplicate money, for example, and be a millionaire in a matter of days, if not hours. Of course, wouldn’t that be counterfeiting? Maybe. Well, you could duplicate diamonds and gold. Yeah, but where are you going to get the diamonds and gold, and where are you going to sell them, and wouldn’t that wreak havoc on the world markets, and couldn’t you get in trouble? Yeah, I guess so. You know a major difference between being an adult and being a child? As an adult I see more problems inherent in a dream like this than I did as a child. In some ways that’s regrettable.
The two guys in the movie have altruistic ideas for putting their invention to use. They want to duplicate things like radium (useful in hospitals at the time), rare medicines, and even great works of art, which they would then distribute to the disadvantaged, art-deprived people of the world. How nice. All this goes along well enough until one of the guys has the brilliant idea that he wants to make a duplicate of his partner’s wife, one that he can keep for himself. (Hence the title, Four Sided Triangle: i.e., two guys plus two versions of the same woman.) Needless to say, such an idea is fraught with problems. A more mature, more stable mind would realize this and avoid it. The guy in the story doesn’t, and has to pay the price.
I guess one point is, don’t give a guy with emotional and psychological problems the keys to the lab. Of course the conventional wisdom is that there is a fine line between genius and madness. Must we accept the latter in order to have the former? I don’t think so. Besides, the guy in the story is aided and abetted by several other people. So the creation of monsters and the ensuing tragedy is often a collaborative act. If we don’t help, they won’t get made. But that doesn’t mean we can just sit around doing nothing either. That’s often tantamount to providing aid. No, we must display knowledge and courage. We must first know what is going on and then have the courage to speak when we feel something is wrong. As private citizens this may be the best way for us to join the struggle against the monsters.
2001
