They're all geared to
let the various factors operate at the proper relative rate. With such a
machine, we can run off a graph of the tides for years ahead. Oh,
hell--it's a lot more complicated than that, but it takes the basic
facts and draws a picture of the results. We use electronic ones now,
but the results are the same."
"I understand," Sather Karf said. Dave doubted it, but he was happy to
be saved from struggling with a more detailed explanation. And maybe the
old man did understand some of it. He was no fool in his own subject,
certainly. Sather Karf pondered for a moment, and then nodded with
apparent satisfaction. "Your world was more advanced in understanding
than I had thought. This computer is a fine scientific instrument,
obeying natural law well. We have applied the same methods, though less
elaborately. But the basic magical principle of similarity is the
foundation of true science."
Dave started to protest, and then stopped, frowning. In a way, what the
other had said was true. Maybe there was some relation between science
and magic, after all; there might even be a meeting ground between the
laws of the two worlds he knew. Computers set up similar conditions,
with the idea that the results would apply to the original. Magic used
some symbolic part of a thing in manipulations that were to be effective
for the real thing. The essential difference was that science was
predictive and magic was effective--though the end results were often
the same.
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