Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine (2 page)

Danny gaped at her. “What?”

“You see, my mother talked to your mother this morning, and I found out all about you. I thought it would be a good way to get to meet you. I think a scientist should leave as little as possible to chance… don't you?”

Speechless, Danny nodded.

And Joe, following them down the stairs, shook his head and muttered to himself, “I take it back again. Women! Nothing but trouble.”

CHAPTER THREE

Snitcher

In the week that followed, Irene found that Danny's judgment about the school had been correct. There was a good deal of homework, but Miss Arnold was a good teacher. She liked the boys and girls she taught, and she had many exciting ideas that made the classroom work fun. Irene quickly made several friends and became quite popular. The only thing that disturbed her was the way Eddie Philips, who sat in the row on her left, kept staring at her.

Eddie was a stocky, broad-shouldered boy with a heavy face and thin, blond hair. From the time Irene first took her seat, Eddie stared at her, and this made her so nervous that for a day or two she could not pay full attention to the teacher.

On Friday, during the science period, he was staring at her when Miss Arnold called on him to answer a quite simple question. Eddie got up and stammered foolishly, and it was only the bell that saved him. After school, as Irene was starting for home, he came up to her.

“Hello,” he said, “Can I—can I carry your books for you?”

“No, thank you,” said Irene. “I'm perfectly capable of carrying my own books.”

“Oh. Well, can I walk you home?”

“I can't stop you from walking in any direction you like,” Irene tightened her lips, and then added, “Just as I can't stop you from staring at me so much in school.”

“I wasn't staring. Just looking hard.”

“Try looking soft, then. And mind your own business, and maybe you'll be able to answer Miss Arnold's questions.”

Eddie flushed. “Aw, I know that science stuff cold.”

“Really? You didn't seem to know it today.”

“That's because I was thinking of—of somebody.”

Just then Danny and Joe came up. Danny said, “Hi, Irene. Let me take your books.”

“Oh, thank you, Danny,” Irene said primly, handing them to him.

“What are you looking at, Snitcher?” Danny said to Eddie. “See something funny?”

“Yeah. Very funny,” said Eddie, staring belligerently at Danny. Scowling, he turned away. “And maybe I'll have the last laugh,” he added, over his shoulder, and left them.

“Why did you call him ‘Snitcher'?” Irene asked, as they began walking.

“Because that's what he is,” Danny replied. “He's always telling on kids—not so much because he wants to get something for himself. Just out of meanness.”

“Well, whatever he is, I wish he'd stop staring at me in class. He makes me nervous.”

Joe was walking on Irene's other side, gloomily muttering to himself. He stopped long enough to say, “He thinks you're pretty. Ha!”

“Oh, so that's what it was.” Irene could not help smiling.

Danny saw her smile. “Gosh, don't tell me you like him,” he said. “That creep!”

“I can like anyone I want to,” Irene retorted. “I like all sorts of people—I even like Joe.”

Joe blinked at this. Irene paid no attention to him, but went on, tossing her pony-tail, “So there, Danny Dunn.”

Danny began to look a little hurt. She peered at him with such a merry grin, however, that he cheered up at once.

“Come on over to my house,” he said. “Mom made some ginger cookies this morning.”

But when they entered the pleasant house of Professor Bullfinch, all thoughts of cookies were at once forgotten, for the place looked as though a miniature tornado had struck it. Clothing was strewn about the living-room floor, papers and notebooks covered the dining-room table, and a trail of odds and ends littered the staircase. As they looked in astonishment, Professor Bullfinch came bustling from the laboratory. He was a short, plump man with a round bald head. He wore thick-framed glasses, behind which his calm eyes twinkled. At the moment, his forehead was wrinkled and he looked disturbed.

“I know I put it somewhere!” he exclaimed. “Danny, my boy. Where on earth is my pipe?”

“You're holding it in your hand, Professor.”

“I am? Why, so I am. Thank you, Dan. I knew I could depend on you.”

Mrs. Dunn came into the hall with an armful of clothes. “Hello, kids,” she said. “The cookies are on the kitchen table. Mr. Bullfinch, here are your shirts, all ironed. For goodness' sake, now, don't throw them into your suitcase carelessly. You aren't usually so absent-minded. Just don't get excited.”

“No, Mrs. Dunn. I won't.”

“I'm going to put your papers in the briefcase.”

“Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Dunn.” The Professor mopped his face thoughtlessly with one of the clean shirts. “I'll try to sort them out on the train.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Dunn. “Look at those stairs.”

“Eh? What's wrong with them?”

“There's nothing wrong with the stairs—except that no one can get past your toothbrush and your comb and your razor and these socks… Will we ever get you together?”

“What's happening?” Danny asked. “Where are you going?”

“To Washington,” answered the Professor. “I just received a wire from my old friend, Dr. Grimes. He has arranged a series of meetings which he wants me to attend with the representatives of several national bureaus. We are going to discuss work on a nonstop, round-the-world weather rocket, with particular attention to using my new computer.

“And that reminds me,” he added. “I want you to come into the lab with me, Dan. There's something very important I have to tell you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Meet Miniac

Professor Bullfinch's laboratory was a long, low structure at the rear of the house, reached by a short hallway. It was crowded and cluttered with equipment, but at one end a large space was clear. Here, there was a curved desk on which were a typewriter and a microphone. A high panel at the back of the desk was filled with tiny light bulbs. There were a number of flat, square buttons, each with a colored panel above it. And beyond the desk was an oblong, gray metal cabinet, about the size of a large sideboard, with heavy electric cables leading to it.

“Danny,” said the Professor gravely, dropping his shirts on a chair, “I have decided to give you a big job. I'm sure you can do it. I'm going to leave Miniac in your care.”

“What?” cried Joe. “You're going to leave a maniac in his care? He's not old enough.”

“Miniac, Joe,” Danny said. “It's the Professor's new computer.” He pointed to the desk and cabinet. “The first midget giant brain.”

Professor Bullfinch blinked, mildly. “Midget giant?” he said. “That's a little confusing, Dan. Let's just say it's the world's smallest automatic computer.”

“And you call it Miniac?” Irene asked, with interest.

“Short for ‘miniature automatic computer,'” Danny explained. “Gosh! it's exciting. The Professor finished work on it yesterday. You know, scientists have been trying to make these electronic brains smaller. The Professor has invented a new type of tiny switch and a narrower magnetic tape. Those made it possible for him to build a computer as small as this.”

“It doesn't look so small,” Joe remarked.

“Dr. Aiken's Mark I computer, at Harvard, the first of the so-called giant brains, filled a whole room,” said the Professor.

Joe was eyeing the machine in fascination. “So that's one of those mechanical brains,” he said. “Is it thinking now?”

“No, Joe,” said the Professor. “It only thinks when we ask it questions.”

“You mean you can talk to it?”

“Yes, that is one of my improvements. You speak into the microphone, there on the desk, and it types its answers on this electric typewriter.”

“Kind of spooky, isn't it?” said Joe, in awe. “I wonder what would happen if you sang into the microphone? Would it type do-re-mi?”

“That's a very interesting idea,” said the Professor. “Perhaps we'll try it when I get home. Meantime—uh—you can be rehearsing.”

“Professor,” Irene said shyly, “could we—could we ask it a question? Just to see how it works?”

Professor Bullfinch stroked his chin. “I don't see why not. Of course, Danny knows its general operation—he has seen me working on it for more than a year.”

“Go ahead, Irene,” Danny said. “You try. Ask it one of our homework problems.”

The Professor snapped a couple of switches. From the cabinet, a steady soft humming came. Several colored lights went on.

“Talk into the microphone, Irene,” he said. “Speak slowly and clearly so that Miniac can understand you and translate your words into electrical impulses.”

“I understand.” Irene stepped close to the desk—or console, as it was called. “It seems strange to ask questions of a machine, doesn't it?” With a slightly nervous quaver in her voice, she said into the microphone, “Um…John buys 20 yards of silk for thirty dollars. How much would 918 yards of silk cost him?”

The Professor pressed one of the flat keys. There was a brief pause. Several tiny lights blinked, then a green light flashed on, and the typewriter began to click as if a ghostly hand were striking the keys.

“$1,377.00,” it wrote. And after a second or two, it added, “And worth it.”

Joe blinked. “Hey! How does the machine know that?”

“Well,” said Professor Bullfinch, “the computer has several different sections. There's the communications console, this desk through which the operator can talk to the machine and the machine can answer. Then there's an arithmetic unit that can work out sums, and a unit that can do comparisons and logical problems. And there's a memory unit in which all its information is stored. It has hundreds of tables and facts in its memory banks. Each fact is stored as an electrical pattern on magnetic tape, so altogether they take up very little room. The machine can look into its memory and tell you whether the price is right.”

Irene breathed a long sigh. “It's—it's fantastic, like science fiction,” she said. “A machine that can work all sorts of problems, give you answers to anything you want to know! It's kind of Superman!”

The Professor shook his head. “No, my dear,” he said. “It is only a kind of supertool. Everything in this machine is inside the human head, in the much smaller space of the human brain. Just think of it—all the hundreds of thousands of switches, core memory planes, miles of wire, tubes—all that's in that big case and in this console—are all huge and awkward compared to the delicate, tiny cells of the human brain which is capable of doing as much as, or more than, the best of these machines. It's the human brain which can produce a mechanical brain like this one.

“The computer can reason,” he went on. “It can do sums and give information and draw logical conclusions, but it can't create anything. It could give you all the words that rhyme with moon, for instance, but it couldn't put them together into a poem.”

“Ha! I feel better,” Joe said. “People still have something the machine hasn't got.”

“That's right. It's a wonderful, complex tool, but it has no mind. It doesn't know it exists.”

Danny had been bending over the console, peering at it. Now he said, “Look, Professor! The red light is on. That means something's wrong, doesn't it? I'll turn off the power—”

He reached for the switch marked POWER OFF. Before he could touch it, the Professor caught his hand. “Danny,” he said, “there you go again, jumping to conclusions. You must not be so headstrong. Now, think again.”

Danny blushed. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Now I remember. That red light means the typewriter has finished writing. It's the other, larger red light at the top that means electrical trouble.”

“Exactly. Remember, my boy—a scientist takes nothing for granted.”

“I will remember. I'm sorry, Professor. I was just excited—like you were a while ago. I wasn't thinking.”

Professor Bullfinch rested his hands on the boy's shoulders. “I trust you, Dan,” he said. “But you must not forget that this is not a toy. It's an electronic brain, a complicated instrument.”

Danny nodded. “What do you want me to do?” he asked humbly.

“You can finish feeding all these tables and data into it. Ill leave the material right here on the console. You can service the machine every morning; you know how to do that. And if you come across interesting material in the weekly Science News Letter, or Scientific American, you can feed it into the machine. You have the code tables—”

“Yes, Professor.”

Irene put in, “Professor Bullfinch, I'm very interested in science. You know, my father, Dr. Miller, has taught me a great deal. Do you think perhaps I could—well, help Danny, once in a while, if he doesn't mind?*'

“I don't mind,” Danny said.

“Of course you can, my dear.” Professor Bullfinch smiled at the girl. “You may be a good influence on him.” Then he turned to Danny and put an arm around the boy. “I know you'll be careful.”

“I will, Professor. Honest.”

“But—hum!—I know you have a habit of jumping right into things and thinking about them afterward. I want you to promise me one thing, and one thing only, Dan.”

“Sure, Professor. What is it?”

“I don't think I can change you into a person who is less headstrong. But I want you to promise me that whenever you get one of your sudden, exciting, and interesting ideas for an experiment—”

“Yes?”

“I want you to count up to a million by thousands.”

“Gosh!” said Joe. “That'll take him an hour.”