PICKLOCK LANE OLYMPICS OF THE MIND

By EW Farnsworth
 
 

Meanwhile, Dr. Ibngort Prbzt and his wife Trudy Holloway were asked to design an extraordinary program to enrich the brains and spirits of the participants. Prbzt called this program his Olympics of the Mind, which was a coming out party for the latent gifts of the alien community, long suppressed while the public was made aware of the size of that community throughout the country.

The sheriff had cautioned people with tentacles to hold back rather than demonstrate their high IQs and associated proclivities. For example, in the early days, an alien might be identified by his or her ability to rattle off the value of pi to several hundred decimal places effortlessly. By restraining themselves to 3.1416, the aliens could avoid suspicion though computing products of pi and other numbers signalled savant status.

Now that even the tabloids acknowledged the presence of aliens with tentacles in esteemed positions in government, law and law enforcement, a campaign to justify their presence seemed appropriate. So the Olympics of the Mind, sponsored by the Organization for the Promotion of Space Medicine, became the mental counterpart to the exercise cages in the parks. The challenges were promoted as tracks, and no one was excluded from participating.

‘When are you going to give us an interview about your Olympics idea, Dr. Prbzt?’ Lance Crenshaw asked the philologist over a pint at the Cracked Bell pub. ‘I have heard everyone has been invited to compete, but the exercises seem impossible, at least to me.’

Ibngort gave a sidelong glance at Fatty before he answered the newshound’s question. The discussion in the hot tub at the sheriff’s tenement had addressed this issue the evening before. ‘I have no objection to your printing the essence of the program in your tabloid, Mr. Crenshaw. My only reservation is that you treat the issues behind the games with proper respect. In my judgment, the future of this nation depends directly on our development of quantitative skills across the generations.’

‘That’s the kind of information my readers have been begging for, Dr. Prbzt. If you can spare the time tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, we can meet here for the interview, and I can then meet my afternoon deadline.’

‘It’s a plan! I have been looking for a way to quash vile rumours while opening the public’s attitudes toward the analytical side. Also, I have no objection to your bringing your cartoonist, but try to restrain his wildest impulses. I don’t want your tabloid to become any more of a laughing stock than it already is. My wife will be accompanying me as we do everything as a team.’

Ibngort rose and departed before Lance could offer a rejoinder. His tabloid’s cartoonist was already sketching in anticipation of the interview. The sheriff only smiled as the prior encounters of his friend and the newspaperman had gone well beyond expectations.

Once the newspaper people had cleared out of the pub to do their business, Millstone went out the back way to the park. The skies were blue, punctuated by high white cirrus clouds. The people had with one mind poured into the open green area where children played on the lawn, tentacles stretched in their cage and workers strolled during their lunchtimes enjoying the butterfly paradise, the apiary and the purling stream.

‘Sheriff,’ an elderly woman said to gain his attention. ‘I offer my hearty congratulations on your upcoming marriage. I just want you to know I have supported you right from the start. Your heart is in the right place, so you are getting rewarded by winning the hand of one of the most talented and beautiful women of our time.’

‘Miss Gospel, it is good to hear your kind words. I could never have been successful without the good wishes of people like you. I will make it a point to see you get an invitation to my wedding where you can repeat your kind words to my wife. As I recall, you have two bright nephews and one exceedingly intelligent niece. How are they faring?’

‘It is timely you should ask just now, Sheriff. My nephews Colin and Ned are hoping to be accepted at the military school. As for my niece Alina, she is hoping to matriculate Oxford this fall in maths. I have done all that prayer can possibly do, and now fate must play a role. All three of my young relatives were born gifted with tentacles. I am not sure how to ask it, but is there any chance you could put in a good word for all three of them?’

Millstone arched his brow and considered the situation. Then he said, ‘Miss Gospel, I suggest your three relatives participate in the Olympics of the Mind. It is an important part of my wedding festivities, and very important figures will be paying special attention to the Olympians.’

‘How can my nephews and niece participate? It sounds so exclusive.’

‘The idea of the Olympics was that everyone can compete, regardless of age, background or academic record. The sign-up sheets are available on the bulletin board outside the Aquarium on Picklock Lane. Have your young ones sign up today. Then we shall see what comes.’

‘I knew you would have ideas for me, Sheriff. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

‘The first step is to become registered as participants. Then each must do well on the appointed day. If they do well, almost anything might happen. So good luck to all three. Let me know how things go for them.’

Miss Gospel strode off with a new spring in her step. Millstone supposed she was off to rush her relatives to the sign-up sheets. Having done his good deed for the day, the sheriff continued through the park to Picklock Lane and his tenement where he joined Dr. Prbzt in the hot tub where they immediately began discussing what the philologist would tell Crenshaw the tabloid reporter tomorrow morning in his interview.

Dr. Prbzt discussed his strategy with the sheriff until he felt tired and ready for quality sleep. After slumbering without interruption until morning, the professor and his wife ate a modest breakfast of oatmeal mush and hot coffee. They accompanied Sheriff Millstone to the Cracked Bell pub where the news hounds had already gathered. Anticipating enough material for a dozen stories.

Millstone noticed that the cartoonist had sketched a dozen studies to warm up. Crenshaw was leafing through handwritten notes to be sure his questions had the proper order. His competitor Straight sat on the edge of his chair, aiming his good ear at the interviewer and interviewee.

‘Dr. Prbzt and Mrs. Prbzt, Good Morning! My editor and readers thank you in advance for giving us the interview of the year—about the Olympics of the Mind.’

Trudy Prbzt answered Crenshaw with a salvo of her own, ‘My husband’s program will be a landmark. I understand he made it clear to you yesterday this is more than a local competition. It will set the tone for a national upgrade in our maths and sciences. The games will allow the authorities to sift and winnow the best and brightest minds without respect to inessentials. So we expect you to struggle for accuracy in your reporting. The stakes are high, and we hope you are up to your task.’

‘Thank you for those words of caution, Mrs. Prbzt. I will start the interview by asking the good doctor whether his opinion of the import of the games is similar to yours.’

‘My wife and I have both complementary and concurrent views, Mr. Crenshaw. Either of us speaks as one with the other. As for the games, everyone is invited to sign up and participate.’

‘I have examined the sign-up sheets at the Aquarium, and all the wording on the documents accord with your statement about egalitarianism. I noticed one particular lane devoted to the Pythagorean Theorem. Will you elaborate on that, please?’

‘As you probably know, modern research has located the so-called Pythagorean theorem in Akkadian texts predating the Greek mathematician by thousands of years. Nowhere in the descriptive materials is the sum-of-squares theorem labelled as having anything essential to do with Pythagoras. Exercises appertaining to the sum-of-squares therefore only happen to relate. Modern uses of the theorem include the large squares employed in cryptography.’

‘Thank you for that clarification, Professor. Another lane is devoted to the value of pi, which has never been calculated entirely but has exhibited no identified pattern. Will you discuss that, please?’

‘That old chestnut has defied mathematicians as long as maths have informed the sciences. The worst such example of simplification is the attempted legislation of pi as equivalent to 3.0. Fortunately, today we have been saved by the computer, which calculates values of pi close enough for most engineering work. In the Olympics our purpose is to identify those who can calculate—without computer assistance—values in excess of one hundred decimal places.’

‘Surely, Dr. Prbzt, such mental contortions cannot have much practical value.’

‘To the contrary, Mr. Crenshaw. They provide a ready exercise to separate pretenders from genuine quants. As for utility, we need only look at musical applications. Some of us believe twelve-tone compositions must be revisited with this in mind. Wind chimes likewise have new transformations. That, of course, opens the vista leading to sound underwater detection, but that line is closed because it is classified Most Secret.’

‘Let’s get back to what I can report to my readers. From what you are saying, the Olympics of the Mind will help identify geniuses among the general populace.’

‘We certainly hope it will do exactly that. At the root of problem solving is something quantitative. Of course, qualitative aspects enter the picture, but we have never been good at saying how that works.’

‘Having read names on the sign-up sheets at the Aquarium, I detected some who have never been identified as having special mental powers.’

‘Mr. Crenshaw, isn’t it possible that some people are sleepers—that is, their gifts have not yet been discovered.’

‘Possible, but not likely, is how I would have phrased it.’

‘Let me put the case in terms your readers can understand: it is possible there are lurking talents which, if identified and cultivated, might save the Earth and everyone on it from dangers we have not yet identified. Which would you prefer—to die knowing those people were not given a chance to do what they were intended to do? Or to die knowing those same people were engaged by society to do what they do best and failed anyway?’

Crenshaw looked at his cartoonist and shook his head. ‘Dr. Prbzt, you have a way of making me see things that I could never achieve on my own.’

‘I submit we are now at the root of the word education—being led from ignorance to something else. Consider how the people we identify are going to feel once they become aware they have gifts they never recognized before.’

Now the cartoonist was drawing like a bat, his hands everywhere at once as he crafted his images.

‘My husband on his Indonesia expedition was a textbook case in recognition and discovery. He identified several young people who were driven insane because they were gifted yet unacknowledged by their communities.’

‘Well, Mrs. Prbzt, how do you and your husband think you are going to handle similar situations here in this country?’
Dr. Prbzt touched his wife’s arm gently and stood up. She followed his lead, and the two walked out of the pub. When Crenshaw and Straight attempted to rise and walk with them, Sheriff Millstone shook his head and motioned them to sit down.

‘I think you have plenty to digest for this day, Mr. Crenshaw and Mr. Straight. If you have any further questions, you may address them to me.’

‘I have another question, Sheriff. I noticed several names on the sign-up sheets of children under five years old. Do you really think children that young can give results such as you are looking for?’

‘Mr. Straight, some of those exceedingly young Olympians have shown their gifts from birth. Why should we prohibit them from competing when their early identification might preclude their being constrained by those who do not have the means of understanding them?’

The cartoonist completed his drawings while the news hounds got into a prolonged argument about the morality of meritorious selection of the truly gifted. The sheriff noticed jealousy had entered the discussions; some of the reporters admitted feeling inferior to the Olympians and one even stated that mathematicians were freaks of nature and maths were the incarnation of the Devil.

Sheriff Millstone met the Prbzts at his hot tub where they recapitulated the interview to anticipate the shape of tomorrow morning’s tabloid stories. Once Fatty told them what the newsmen said after the Prbzts left his table, they were confused and more than a little disappointed.

Ibngort said, ‘I am more convinced than ever that we must identify early and steadfastly protect our precious intellectual assets. The son of the PM’s amanuensis is a case in point. At eighteen months of age, he is already showing signs of genius far in advance of all known measurements.’

Fatty looked his friend in the eyes and said, ‘Today I requested that Miss Gospel sign up her two nephews and one niece as Olympians. I have been watching those bright, young people for many years at a distance. If they are not properly cultivated, an enormous loss will come to this nation. Still, the nephews will be employed by the military and the niece will enter our intelligence services. Even so, they must be protected against their narrow-minded and jealous colleagues.’

Dr. Pickford, who had just joined them in the hot tub and overheard the sheriff’s musing about protection, said, ‘I am sure if we pool our brains together we can arrive at a set of solutions to preserve rather than to waste the gifts these young people have. After all, we four managed to survive against similar opposition, didn’t we?’