The Third Policeman (1967)

On audiobook. Wierd and wonderful ( )

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
-Rita Mae Brown

The phrase practically screams common sense, does it not? And yet endurance, perseverance, and stubborn tenacity are all valued qualities in the face of a seemingly unobtainable goal. Personally, what immediately comes to mind are the trials and tribulations of scientists in countless laboratories scattered across the globe. Proclaiming a hypothesis, designing an experiment to match it, and then conducting it over and over and over again, enough to gain enough data points to exclude both systematic and random error, avoidable and unavoidable biasing of the results. Three is the magic number required to measure just how wrong the data could possibly be, but more is always encouraged, just in case a monstrous outlier rears its head due to some unforeseen amount of chaos.

And if that experiment proves faulty, scientific training demands a do-over. Correct the hypothesis a touch, adjust the variables a smidgen, re-calibrate the chemicals and fine-tune the machinery, then repeat the process countless times more. On and on and on, as one of the blessings of the scientific method is that conclusions can always be questioned, answers can always be tested ad infinitum, and theories that have lasted for millenia can have their sterling reputations cracked like an egg during the space of a single hour.

Now, what does this have to do with The Third Policeman? Well, the previous two paragraphs in essence described a major plot point, the "twist" if you will of the entire narrative, as well as an action that multiple characters take part in throughout the course of the story. More importantly, there are a surprising amount of passages that are grounded firmly in the 'insanity' that science is.

Human existence de Selby has defined as 'a succession of static experiences each infinitely brief'...From this premise he discounts the reality or truth of any progression or seriallism in life, denies that time can pass as such in the accepted sense and attributes to hallucinations the commonly experienced sensation of progression as, for instance, in journeying from one place to another or even 'living'....The illusion of progression he attributes to the inability of the human brain - 'as at present developed' - to appreciate the reality of these separate 'rests', preferring to group many millions of them together and calling the result motion...

Some of you may be familiar with the concept of integration in mathematics. For those who are not, imagine a line on a graph. Make it as curved and chaotic as you please. Now, imagine finding an equation to calculate the area underneath that line for however far it shoots out into infinity, bounded only by the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) axes that the line originates from. The accepted process is to imagine an infinitely narrow slice of that area, then add up as many of the slices as necessary. Realistically speaking, this is impossible. Mathematically, this is one of the fundamental bases of calculus, and is one of if not the most useful calculation skill to have under one's belt for engineering.

The parallels between seeming insanity and hard science don't stop there.

'How big is all this place?'
'It is no size at all,' the Sergeant explained, 'because there is no difference anywhere in it and we have no conception of the extent of its unchanging coequality.'

In engineering problems involving lines, shapes, and volumes, it is a very popular method to extend one or more of the axes of the shape out to infinity, thereby reducing seeming differences to insignificant in the grand scale of things, and ridding one of the necessity of calculation for that particular part. You would not believe how much easier this makes calculation, although it is true that these infinitely long, infinitely wide, and infinitely large objects have a very major issue:They lacked an essential property of all known objects...Simply their appearance, if even that word is not inadmissible, was not understood by the eye and was in any event indescribable.

Regardless, the calculations always work out.

Another scientific curiosity, albeit a bit more grounded in fact than the previous.
'Some people,' he said, 'call it energy but the right name is omnium because there is far more than energy in the inside of it, whatever it is. Omnium is the essential inherent interior essence which is hidden inside the root of the kernel of everything at it is always the same.'
I nodded wisely.
'It never changes. But it shows itself in a million ways and it always comes in waves. now take the case of the light on the mangle.'
'Take it,' I said.
'Light is the same omnium on a short wave but if it comes on a longer wave it is in the form of noise, or sound. With my own patents I can stretch a ray out until it becomes sound...But ominium is the business-end of everything. If you could find the right wave that results in a tree, you could make a small fortune out of timber for export.'

Light is both a particle and a wave, waves that have a much higher frequency than sound waves. Every object in the physical world has what is called a 'resonant frequency', most popularly illustrated by an opera singer breaking a glass with their voice. At that point, the frequency of the noise matches the vibrational frequency of the multitudes of atomic bonds within the structure, causing it to absorb energy and eventually break apart. Whether this process can ever be reversed and form physical objects from vibrations is a fascinating question indeed.

And finally, the amazing properties of water.
[de Selby] praises the equilbrium of water, its circumambiencey, equiponderance and equitableness, and declares that water, 'if not abused' can achieve 'absolute superiority'...In Bassett's view the water was treated in the patent water-box and diluted to a degree that made it invisible - in the guise of water, at all events - to the untutored watchers at the sewer.

If you ever find yourself working with bioengineers, you'll run across drug delivery problems. Not only do they involve integration and shapes that break the laws of reality, they involve liquids of all densities, viscosities, and diffusion constants. Unless you're dealing with water or something that has been 'infinitely diluted' in water, essentially easing calculations by being deemed 'perfect' in its insignificant interactions. In other words, you can ignore it. The only problem with de Selby's approach is attempting to demonstrate these mathematical tricks in real life, resulting in a household usage of 9,000 gallons of water in one day, none of which was observed to ever leave the house. Again, realistically incomprehensible. But scientifically sound.

I could go on about the myriad reality-defying ways the book illustrates that in actuality are necessary for successful scientific reasoning. But I think that you have all had enough lessons in mathematics/physics/general engineering for one day. Rest assured, this is not all that the book has going for it. There are many passages of dry wit that had me flat out giggling, as well as wonderfully unconventional metaphors that raised the reality the words described to a unusual, yet beautiful art. You'll even find scathing critiques of society and profound existential meanderings within these pages.

However, what stuck with me the most were the uncanny similarities between the strange logic that the book operated on and the science of the real world. Not all of the book's weirdness is reflected in sound science, but science itself has its own cases of crackpot theories and misinformed conclusions. Ultimately, to discover the truth, scientists delve into these realms, these hells if you will, of supreme weirdness and nonsensical assumptions, bring back bits and pieces for the rest of humanity to benefit from, and then dive back for more. It's a wonder that more of them don't go mad from the effort. ( )

Pay attention now. In order to enjoy this book, you must mix equal parts of:

Kafka

Borges

Douglas Adams

LSD

Stir carefully. If your head hurts, put it down for a while and take an aspirin. Other than that, it's brilliant. Just brilliant. ( )

Hilarious and absurd and surreal and beautifully strange. Great writing, great characters, great setting. I was disappointed to find that I didn't understand everything and it had to be explained in an author's note at the end. ( )

According to the "Atomic Theory", I am 80% couch. ( )