The Three-Body Problem (5 page)

‘Ah, now here is an interesting thing,’ Mr Morrison told us. ‘Dirichlet told a mysterious friend that he had solved a fundamental problem, and thereupon immediately died, nearly thirty years ago, leaving no clue as to his method. How thoughtless of him.’

‘Could we not identify the friend?’ I began hopefully.

‘Oh, actually, he has been identified; indeed, he has identified himself, and quite arrogantly at that. It is the German mathematician Kronecker, a great rival of Weierstrass. He claims that what Dirichlet told him is
ill-represented in this paragraph. But for all that he says, he clearly has no idea or no clear memory of what Dirichlet’s method might have been. He is more likely to be protesting out of anger that he was not included in the commission. Now come the three other problems set for the competition, but they are less interesting.’

‘For those in the know,’ Mr Morrison told us, ‘this Henri Poincaré is considered sure to win the competition. He is a kind of genius, and all of his work is exactly round about the questions proposed above, all four of them, really; he might try his hand at whichever he pleases. He is much admired in Sweden, look – he has published two articles in this very volume. He was formerly a student of Hermite, the commissioner from Paris.’ And he turned some pages, and showed me the first mathematical article in the volume, written in French by this very H. Poincaré, and whose title was precisely ‘On a theorem of Mr Fuchs’, before concluding his translation of the announcement.

‘The 1st of June, why that is in just three months!’ remarked Emily. ‘Are you submitting a memoir to the competition, Uncle Charles?’

‘I? Why no, absolutely not,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know next to nothing about the questions posed here. There are not many people in England nowadays who would be capable of seriously solving them, although if there are any at all, they would be right here in Cambridge.’

‘Really? Do you know them? Are they doing it?’ she asked.

‘No one has actually declared that he is setting about it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But you know, that doesn’t prove much, does it? After all, it’s quite imaginable that a person might keep the whole thing silent, to avoid embarrassment in case of failure, and yet submit a secret manuscript nonetheless.’

‘And if someone were doing it secretly, who could it be?’

‘Strike me pink if that isn’t exactly what Akers was thinking of doing,’ he said suddenly. ‘Why yes, wasn’t my friend Weatherburn telling us that Akers had said he had found a solution on the night before he died? The poor fellow, what hard luck for him – perhaps he was finally on the brink of the fame and recognition he always dreamt of.’

‘Did he, poor man? And why didn’t he get it?’

‘Oh, Akers was a good mathematician, he had a good, swift brain, but he lacked something which could have made him really great. He didn’t have a fundamental grasp of the larger nature of things. It was as though you put him in front of a puzzle, Emily, and he would grasp two pieces and try to put them together, and if they didn’t fit, he would try another and yet another, very quickly and with a sharp eye, so that eventually he would put quite a number together, and yet somehow he would have no idea of what the picture puzzle was actually showing. It’s difficult to explain.’

‘But do you think he might have found a solution to the first problem anyway?’

‘Why not? Perhaps it was there for anyone to see, and just needed a sudden, blinding vision to find it. Perhaps he found it by dint of “deep and persevering work”, or even by doing the kind of “long and complicated calculations” he was not supposed to need! Unless he wrote something down, we shall never know now; why it’s just as bad as Dirichlet.’

‘But he did write something,’ I observed. ‘He had a paper with a formula in his breast pocket, and he even told Mr Weatherburn that he had written a rough manuscript!’

‘Oh! Has anybody searched through the papers he left in
his rooms?’ Emily squeaked, jumping up and down eagerly.

‘Oh yes, naturally, his notes and papers have been gone through carefully and inspected and organised, by the police, and also by mathematicians, I should think. Nobody appears to have found anything like a manuscript containing a complete solution to the n-body problem – if they had, we would certainly know about it by now.’

‘Perhaps he already sent it in?’

‘Unlikely, if he told Weatherburn the day before his death that it was just a rough manuscript – and he would have had plenty of time before the 1st of June to better it.’

‘If only we had the breast-pocket paper he showed Mr Weatherburn,’ I put in, ‘surely it would help!’

He looked at me musingly. ‘You are right, really, Miss Duncan. Imagine – what you are saying might actually turn out to be very important! The personal effects he had on him at his death are probably still in the police station, as his death is still being investigated. I wonder if they have found that paper; I wonder if anybody has been to ask. I shall go down to the station tomorrow and enquire about it myself.’

‘Oh, how
exciting
,’ cried Emily. ‘Imagine if you find it – then you could solve the problem and win the prize, and you could give the medal to Miss Duncan as a gift.’

‘Emily!’ Mr Morrison was quite shocked. ‘One doesn’t
steal
other people’s ideas.’

‘Really? Can ideas be stolen?’ she responded in surprise.

‘Oh yes, ideas are more valuable than property for a mathematician. He would far prefer to lose his money or belongings than his ideas.’

‘Well, but here it would be from a man who’s dead!’

‘You may steal from a man’s memory, Emily,’ he answered. He looked intensely serious, and I felt deeply impressed. I will not soon forget how he spoke.

For men like these, ideas seem greater, more real, more meaningful, more desirable, than all the treasures which have made men dream since the beginning of time. It is a moving thing.

I send a great many kisses to everyone,

Your loving

Vanessa

Dear Dora,

The delight at receiving, finally, a long letter from you almost outweighed my feelings at your sad news. So Mr Edwards is leaving for India. No wonder after he learnt it, he hesitated for so long to come and see you. It must have been difficult for him to face the necessity of giving you news that he knew must grieve you. And thus, he himself is reluctant to go, and disappointed in himself for not having succeeded more brilliantly in his studies, thereby leaving only this option open to himself. Oh, Dora … many ladies marry civil servants and join them in India. It is quite frequent, so you must not think that everything is necessarily over. But I understand that you could not even think of such a thing now, when you still know him so little. You would have needed a long courtship, as anyone would, and now you will have only letters. Surely
you will soon be one of the most written-to creatures in the country! And you will have his leaves to look forward to. I dearly hope that you will find that knowing what happened, however sad, is far better than not knowing, and your taste for life will return with the springtime.

I was very much hoping, I must confess, to have some exciting news to be able to continue my mathematical tale; I awaited the results of Mr Morrison’s visit to the police with great interest. But alas, Emily has told me that he returned empty-handed, as all of Mr Akers’ personal effects have already been transferred to his closest kin, who is a woman living somewhere on the Continent. The police showed Mr Morrison a list, and it seems that not only was there a paper in his pockets, but even a great many bits of paper, all covered with mathematical scribbling, as well as the usual assortment of keys, coins, diary and so on. At any rate, it is all gone now.

Emily also showed me a newspaper clipping from a few days ago, which her uncle gave her; I had not seen it.

So, so! This may explain the absence of any manuscript solving the n-body problem. As for the famous bit of paper, either it has been sent off to his next of kin, or else he may have simply thrown it away … or else … the gruesome thought cannot be avoided … perhaps the very selfsame person who struck the dreadful blow then slipped his hand slyly into the dead man’s pocket, searching there …

Oh, Dora, what am I saying? It sounds as though – instead of a mere thief – the murderer could be a
mathematician
, killing in order to
steal the idea
? That very idea which Mr Morrison spoke of as being
more valuable than money or belongings
?

What a terrible train of thought! And yet, the more I consider it, the more I feel that it must be so. He was killed in his rooms at the university. Why should a stranger have made his way there? Oh dear. I wish I could speak to someone about this. Next Thursday I return to tea at Emily’s. Perhaps Mr Morrison will step upstairs. Dare I ask him what he thinks? But what if it should be
he
? No, this is ridiculous. I
must
stop!

I leave you quite nervously,

Vanessa

Dearest Dora,

My mind continues filled with a confusion of mathematicians and murderers. On Monday, I returned to Mrs Burke-Jones’s house together with Emily and Miss Forsyth after the afternoon lessons were over. For several days, I had somehow succeeded in keeping these thoughts at bay, and concerning myself with my work, and long walks at dusk as the days become longer. I cannot tell you how lovely the town is when the darkness is just beginning to settle over it. Without erasing any the beauties of the medieval colleges, it merely eliminates those little things which etch out the details of modern life; shop signs become illegible in the gloaming, and all fashions look the same. Of all the lovely colleges, it is King’s which seems the most beautiful to me at dusk. The college buildings themselves are hidden behind a screen of stonework lace, the upper border of which stands out black against the deepening sky. One can perceive the garden through the decorated arched openings; the screen is in fact purely unnecessary, a fairy-like folly. We walked past it on our way, and could almost imagine that it sheltered princesses, and knights in shining armour, rather than hordes of black-gowned students labouring over equations and dates …