Secret History: The Formerly Imponderable Fluid of Professor Bardstone
Greetings, gentle readers!
The past weeks have been very busy in the Department of Curiosities here at the Salem Institute Northwest, and between transferring our entire anthropodermic book collection to more thaumaturgically impenetrable quarters and a personal trip to Prague to catalog, package, and send back to the S.I.N. a famed and recently deceased Thuringian warlock's effects, I was not able to finish this report in a timely fashion.
I apologize for my tardiness, and crave your forgiveness.
In my few short months with the Salem Institute Northwest, I have handled 600,000-year-old yet undeniably human remains, shards of a diamond synthesized from the ashes of a nephilim, books of eldritch magic tattooed upon still-living skin, and the os penis of a fratricidal lycanthrope, and yet it is this item, to all outward appearances a simple chunk of igneous rock, that has most haunted me these past few weeks.
It is not a dramatic tale, fraught with terror and death. It is a quieter tale, very human and full of terrible ironies. I hope that you will soon understand just why it has captured my sympathy.
Curiously yours,
Lorelei Knightley-Someday
***
"Imponderable" fluid
Boston, Massachusetts, America
Manifested in 1882 by Reginald Bardstone
Only one of these items is an imponderable fluid.
And what, you ask, is an imponderable fluid?
Imponderables are imaginary or theoretical substances that are not discernible to science as it currently exists. They represent important landmarks in humanity's quest to understand the universe, each superseding each like mile markers as science replaces the obsolete with the fashionable.
Over the centuries, some of these have been thoroughly explained into nonexistence, while others have been defined, explored, and accepted - and stripped of their imponderable status. Despite these extinctions, new imponderables are imagined - almost imagined - as old ones are discredited.
Caloric potential and frigoric potential have been debunked and replaced by our modern understanding of combustion and thermodynamics, yet it is now laughable to think that electricity was once believed to be an imponderable - an intangible, self-repelling substance, neither gas nor liquid, which flowed from areas of great concentration to least.
Some of the most long-lasting and persistent imponderables have been replaced with ideas hardly less far-fetched and mysterious; the theory of phlogiston has been disproven, along with the existence of aether* - both luminiferous and gravitational. Modern science has replaced the quintessence of the outer spheres with dark matter and dark energy, both of which are excellent candidates for imponderable status.
"Imponderable," of course, does not mean that one literally cannot think about a thing. Even to name something as imponderable would force a true imponderable out of existence. "Imponderable" simply means that the substance is not fully understood. The word is a placeholder for the concept of total mystery, much as imponderable substances themselves are placeholders for all that exists in nature that we cannot understand.
Nevertheless, and somewhat ironically, belief in a truly imponderable substance has persisted. Scientists have sought it for centuries, believing that in such mysterious stuffs lie the keys to Creation itself.
One such scientist was Reginald Bardstone. He was a great student of the imponderable, and was likewise fascinated with teleportation and transmutation. He studied the theories of Manifestation - of thinking something into being - quite intently. He became convinced that the secrets of the universe itself were held within that nameless potential, that something which is nothing less than the imponderable itself. He was convinced that this potential could be manipulated and controlled.
Despite the fact that ideas are inherently hostile to the existence of the imponderable, he nevertheless had several. He believed that the unknowable element existed and that it pervaded all of creation, being present in the air and in fire and in the very matter of our bodies. He believed that it could be precipitated into a visible form, much the same way as visible salt crystals can be precipiatated from a transparent saline solution. The imperceptible could, he thought, be rendered perceptible in a high enough concentration. The obvious absurdity of this endeavor did not apparently trouble him, and he set about trying to prove his theory.
The environment would have to be as free of everything besides the imponderable as he could make it; free of air, free of humidity, free of sound waves. The containing vessel must also be kept out of sight, for anyone seeing it might wonder what was in it, thus rendering the substance ponderable once more.
He sealed a heavy glass vacuum jar, labeled it, and placed it into a specially-made soundproof safe concealed in the wall of his study. He placed a bookcase over it, and promptly tried to forget about it.
While he never, that anyone has been able to determine, checked the contents of the safe, after several years he apparently became convinced that even the casual curiosity of others regarding his work was interfering with the precipitation of the imponderable.
To avoid the question "What are you working on?" he retired from scientific work, only to discover an equally loaded question: "Why did you retire?" He could give no answer, and even to his wife he said only that his work was done, that he wanted no more to do with science. He barred all scientific discussion in his presence, and devoted himself to the arts. Painting and poetry became his new work. He was resoundingly terrible, but he spoke of very little else. He spent much of his savings traveling with his family, and spent very little time at home, even in his latter years.
It was an idyllic life in many ways, but he was not happy. The experiment caused him considerable emotional strain, even after his retirement. He could not speak to colleagues about his project (who would doubtless have thought him mad in any case). He could not write about it in his journals, which contain no reference to the experiment or his thoughts on it. His ever more eccentric behavior alienated many friends, and occupied his peers with gossip; his old work was almost completely forgotten. His final project remained a total secret, even from his wife and children.
We do not know how successful he was at forgetting the imponderable. He may have succeeded for years at a time, but they were years that could be undone in a moment by the most fleeting of thoughts.
Even on his deathbed he made no explicit mention of his greatest experiment. Nearing his final hour, he become agitated and begged his wife to bring him a book he said had fallen behind the bookcase. He must have known she would find the safe, perhaps hoped she would look inside and, because she did not expect to see it, would finally apprehend the imponderable.
She obediently went to fetch the book, but was too late. Mr. Bardstone breathed his last. At that exact moment, she heard a loud crack from behind the bookcase. Further investigation revealed the plastered-up alcove and its mysterious contents. The sealed jar labeled "imponderable fluid" had split quite in two, and a curious rock now sat among the shards.
His wife was a scientist herself, and immediately understood that something extraordinary had occurred. The rock was removed for further testing and has been the subject of much debate ever since. Science cannot explain it. A small chip was removed for in-depth testing by the British Museum in the early 1930s, and the rock itself was positively identified as obsidian with quartz and iron inclusions, yet this obviously cannot be so. It is doubtful that the volcanic conditions necessary for the formation of obsidian were to be found in Bardstone's study.
This particular imponderable is unique in that, while it is clearly not imponderable, it was brought into existence by not pondering it. In fact, it came into creation at the very moment the only person who had known about its nonexistence departed this life.
The fact that it has remained in a stable state for such a long time has caused many to doubt that it is a true imponderable. Some believe that Mrs. Bardstone faked the event, lying about it to gain esteem among her peers or, more charitably, to provide some closure to her husband's sad and restless quest for a thing he must have known he would never himself behold.
Some assert that since matter cannot be created from nothing, it must have come from somewhere, and that the only thing that needs to be explained is how and why the object appeared where it did.
Others state that Bardstone was correct in his theory and that it coalesced from an undetectable but very real quantum substance, and that its form is ultimately irrelevant for it was imponderable at one time.
At last this question can be partially resolved.
Ms. Bardstone was most certainly not a liar. A psychometric examination of this rock revealed a disturbing lack of history. Even a rock freshly-hewn from its bed and with no human associations gives an impression of age, of time, of the forces of nature that formed it and surrounded it. This rock reveals much about the years since its formation, but on the years prior to 1882, it is completely silent. I can only compare it to the deadness of modern plastics.
The whole tale is a bizarre thing, a sort of parable of reification-in-reverse, of the power of the mind to create a thing not by behaving as though it were real, but by not thinking about it at all. In the end, the most important thing about it is not its formerly imponderable status, but the moment it ceased to be imponderable.
Like humanity itself, its origins are surrounded in mystery and the true cause of its genesis is unknowable. It stands seventy-two millmeters high, a monument to the tremendous power of human imagination and willpower.
We are deeply grateful to the Bardstone estate for the opportunity to examine this exceptional item.
* The non-existence of which, it must be noted, did not prevent Captain Rogue of the Phlogiston Daredevil from venturing forth into the Aetherium.
The past weeks have been very busy in the Department of Curiosities here at the Salem Institute Northwest, and between transferring our entire anthropodermic book collection to more thaumaturgically impenetrable quarters and a personal trip to Prague to catalog, package, and send back to the S.I.N. a famed and recently deceased Thuringian warlock's effects, I was not able to finish this report in a timely fashion.
I apologize for my tardiness, and crave your forgiveness.
In my few short months with the Salem Institute Northwest, I have handled 600,000-year-old yet undeniably human remains, shards of a diamond synthesized from the ashes of a nephilim, books of eldritch magic tattooed upon still-living skin, and the os penis of a fratricidal lycanthrope, and yet it is this item, to all outward appearances a simple chunk of igneous rock, that has most haunted me these past few weeks.
It is not a dramatic tale, fraught with terror and death. It is a quieter tale, very human and full of terrible ironies. I hope that you will soon understand just why it has captured my sympathy.
Curiously yours,
Lorelei Knightley-Someday
***
"Imponderable" fluid
Boston, Massachusetts, America
Manifested in 1882 by Reginald Bardstone
Only one of these items is an imponderable fluid.
And what, you ask, is an imponderable fluid?
Imponderables are imaginary or theoretical substances that are not discernible to science as it currently exists. They represent important landmarks in humanity's quest to understand the universe, each superseding each like mile markers as science replaces the obsolete with the fashionable.
Over the centuries, some of these have been thoroughly explained into nonexistence, while others have been defined, explored, and accepted - and stripped of their imponderable status. Despite these extinctions, new imponderables are imagined - almost imagined - as old ones are discredited.
Caloric potential and frigoric potential have been debunked and replaced by our modern understanding of combustion and thermodynamics, yet it is now laughable to think that electricity was once believed to be an imponderable - an intangible, self-repelling substance, neither gas nor liquid, which flowed from areas of great concentration to least.
Some of the most long-lasting and persistent imponderables have been replaced with ideas hardly less far-fetched and mysterious; the theory of phlogiston has been disproven, along with the existence of aether* - both luminiferous and gravitational. Modern science has replaced the quintessence of the outer spheres with dark matter and dark energy, both of which are excellent candidates for imponderable status.
"Imponderable," of course, does not mean that one literally cannot think about a thing. Even to name something as imponderable would force a true imponderable out of existence. "Imponderable" simply means that the substance is not fully understood. The word is a placeholder for the concept of total mystery, much as imponderable substances themselves are placeholders for all that exists in nature that we cannot understand.
Nevertheless, and somewhat ironically, belief in a truly imponderable substance has persisted. Scientists have sought it for centuries, believing that in such mysterious stuffs lie the keys to Creation itself.
One such scientist was Reginald Bardstone. He was a great student of the imponderable, and was likewise fascinated with teleportation and transmutation. He studied the theories of Manifestation - of thinking something into being - quite intently. He became convinced that the secrets of the universe itself were held within that nameless potential, that something which is nothing less than the imponderable itself. He was convinced that this potential could be manipulated and controlled.
Despite the fact that ideas are inherently hostile to the existence of the imponderable, he nevertheless had several. He believed that the unknowable element existed and that it pervaded all of creation, being present in the air and in fire and in the very matter of our bodies. He believed that it could be precipitated into a visible form, much the same way as visible salt crystals can be precipiatated from a transparent saline solution. The imperceptible could, he thought, be rendered perceptible in a high enough concentration. The obvious absurdity of this endeavor did not apparently trouble him, and he set about trying to prove his theory.
The environment would have to be as free of everything besides the imponderable as he could make it; free of air, free of humidity, free of sound waves. The containing vessel must also be kept out of sight, for anyone seeing it might wonder what was in it, thus rendering the substance ponderable once more.
He sealed a heavy glass vacuum jar, labeled it, and placed it into a specially-made soundproof safe concealed in the wall of his study. He placed a bookcase over it, and promptly tried to forget about it.
While he never, that anyone has been able to determine, checked the contents of the safe, after several years he apparently became convinced that even the casual curiosity of others regarding his work was interfering with the precipitation of the imponderable.
To avoid the question "What are you working on?" he retired from scientific work, only to discover an equally loaded question: "Why did you retire?" He could give no answer, and even to his wife he said only that his work was done, that he wanted no more to do with science. He barred all scientific discussion in his presence, and devoted himself to the arts. Painting and poetry became his new work. He was resoundingly terrible, but he spoke of very little else. He spent much of his savings traveling with his family, and spent very little time at home, even in his latter years.
It was an idyllic life in many ways, but he was not happy. The experiment caused him considerable emotional strain, even after his retirement. He could not speak to colleagues about his project (who would doubtless have thought him mad in any case). He could not write about it in his journals, which contain no reference to the experiment or his thoughts on it. His ever more eccentric behavior alienated many friends, and occupied his peers with gossip; his old work was almost completely forgotten. His final project remained a total secret, even from his wife and children.
We do not know how successful he was at forgetting the imponderable. He may have succeeded for years at a time, but they were years that could be undone in a moment by the most fleeting of thoughts.
Even on his deathbed he made no explicit mention of his greatest experiment. Nearing his final hour, he become agitated and begged his wife to bring him a book he said had fallen behind the bookcase. He must have known she would find the safe, perhaps hoped she would look inside and, because she did not expect to see it, would finally apprehend the imponderable.
She obediently went to fetch the book, but was too late. Mr. Bardstone breathed his last. At that exact moment, she heard a loud crack from behind the bookcase. Further investigation revealed the plastered-up alcove and its mysterious contents. The sealed jar labeled "imponderable fluid" had split quite in two, and a curious rock now sat among the shards.
His wife was a scientist herself, and immediately understood that something extraordinary had occurred. The rock was removed for further testing and has been the subject of much debate ever since. Science cannot explain it. A small chip was removed for in-depth testing by the British Museum in the early 1930s, and the rock itself was positively identified as obsidian with quartz and iron inclusions, yet this obviously cannot be so. It is doubtful that the volcanic conditions necessary for the formation of obsidian were to be found in Bardstone's study.
This particular imponderable is unique in that, while it is clearly not imponderable, it was brought into existence by not pondering it. In fact, it came into creation at the very moment the only person who had known about its nonexistence departed this life.
The fact that it has remained in a stable state for such a long time has caused many to doubt that it is a true imponderable. Some believe that Mrs. Bardstone faked the event, lying about it to gain esteem among her peers or, more charitably, to provide some closure to her husband's sad and restless quest for a thing he must have known he would never himself behold.
Some assert that since matter cannot be created from nothing, it must have come from somewhere, and that the only thing that needs to be explained is how and why the object appeared where it did.
Others state that Bardstone was correct in his theory and that it coalesced from an undetectable but very real quantum substance, and that its form is ultimately irrelevant for it was imponderable at one time.
At last this question can be partially resolved.
Ms. Bardstone was most certainly not a liar. A psychometric examination of this rock revealed a disturbing lack of history. Even a rock freshly-hewn from its bed and with no human associations gives an impression of age, of time, of the forces of nature that formed it and surrounded it. This rock reveals much about the years since its formation, but on the years prior to 1882, it is completely silent. I can only compare it to the deadness of modern plastics.
The whole tale is a bizarre thing, a sort of parable of reification-in-reverse, of the power of the mind to create a thing not by behaving as though it were real, but by not thinking about it at all. In the end, the most important thing about it is not its formerly imponderable status, but the moment it ceased to be imponderable.
Like humanity itself, its origins are surrounded in mystery and the true cause of its genesis is unknowable. It stands seventy-two millmeters high, a monument to the tremendous power of human imagination and willpower.
We are deeply grateful to the Bardstone estate for the opportunity to examine this exceptional item.
* The non-existence of which, it must be noted, did not prevent Captain Rogue of the Phlogiston Daredevil from venturing forth into the Aetherium.