Читать книгу Maxwell's Demon онлайн

53 страница из 77

‘Tom, do you know what a raccoon trap is?’

‘I – no, I can’t say that I do.’

‘It’s really quite clever,’ she said, eyes still on the photo and the letter. ‘You start with a small cage, really small, say, as big as a teapot. Then you fasten the cage to the ground and you put something shiny inside it.’

‘Something shiny?’

‘It doesn’t matter what – something with glitter, a crystal, a diamond, if you want. All that matters is that the shiny thing is too big to pull out through the bars of the cage.’

Sophie flicked a glance up at me.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘And when it’s all set up, you go home, leave it there. And then along comes the raccoon. He sees the shiny thing and tries pulling it out through the bars. He tries and tries, because raccoons love shiny things, apparently, but he can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to give up either; he can’t physically let go of the treasure he’s found, so he just stays there, holding onto it. Even when you come back with a sack in the morning and he wants to run away, he can’t make himself let go of the thing because it’s too shiny and wonderful and intriguing.’