In Larry's office, upstairs, he is working, as usual, with his computer talking to him. Now he has one of Steve's computer touch interface pads on the desk near him. He accesses Hal Adams' computer simulation movie. The touch-pad springs to life. Larry touches the pad, tentatively, trying to understand what is going on in the impressions on its surface.

The video plays back on his computer monitor and the forms are mirrored with substantial depth on the surface of the touch-pad.

Larry reaches back to his keyboard, re-playing the animation. Then he is back to the touch-pad, following the movement of the shapes with his fingers. He is searching the images.

Then, back to the keyboard. Typing furiously, he calls up graphs of related mathematics. Back to the touch pad, he is poring over the images with his fingers.

Then back to the keyboard, Larry re-runs the first animation. Back to the touch-pad, he is feeling the images as the animation plays through. The feeling is indescribable. He feels not merely the contours of the image, but it is a sensation of going into the mathematics, enveloping it with his senses.

On Larry's face, there is that joy of understanding in visualization his colleagues have been talking about all this time.

Copyright 2000 Stewart Dickson and Rebecka Dickson