Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine (4 page)

“Phew!” said Joe, wiping his forehead, “You know, that was hard work—storing all that information in the machine. I didn't realize there was so much to know. Maybe it'd just be easier to do our homework every day.”

“I don't think so,” Danny said. “Sure, it was hard work. But now we're free forever.”

“Till next term,” Irene corrected him.

“Well, that's almost forever. The next step is to program tomorrow's assignment.”

He pushed back his chair and got up.

Joe said, “What's all this programming you're always talking about?”

“Wait a sec,” Danny said. “I'll just get some refreshments for us. We can use 'em. Irene, you get out tomorrow's homework.”

He went down the hall to the kitchen, while Irene arranged their notebooks on the desk and Joe stretched and yawned. Danny returned in a few moments with a plate of chocolate graham crackers and three bottles of Coca-Cola.

Irene said, “The biggest piece of homework we have for tomorrow is twenty problems in arithmetic.”

“That's easy,” said Danny.

He fed the end of a roll of typewriter paper into the electric typewriter and cleared the memory banks for action.

“Now,” he said. “Programming is telling the machine exactly what questions you want answered and how you want them answered. In order to do that right, you have to know just what sequences of operation you want the machine to go through.”

“Uh-huh.” Joe nodded. “What does that mean?”

“Look. Suppose you want to jump across a ditch—”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would I want to jump across a ditch?”

“Don't be silly. I'm just giving you a for-instance. All right, first you have to figure out how far it is across the ditch. Then you have to look in your memory to see how far you can jump. Then you have to compare the two to see if you can jump this ditch. Those steps are the operations your mind has to go through. The order in which you think of them is their sequence. See?”

“I guess so.”

“All right. If we want Minny to give us the right answers to an arithmetic problem, or a history question, we first have to analyze the operations the machine has to go through, and the order in which it does them. Then we put this down on a piece of paper together with the addresses of all the information or the parts of the machine that will be used to solve the problems. That's programming. ”

“I see.” Joe rubbed his nose soberly. “I think I understand that all right. But I still can't figure why I'd want to jump across a ditch. Why couldn't I just walk around it?”

“Oh, forget it,” Danny groaned. “Come on. Let's start the problems going.”

They first set up and fed into the machine the twenty arithmetic problems. Then the five questions that had to be answered on South American countries. And then the ten problems in English grammar. Danny pressed the START key. Lights began twinkling on the control panel. The machine settled down to a steady humming, and the three friends lolled back in their chairs and ate cookies.

“Gosh!” said Joe, sipping his Coca-Cola. “This is the life!”

“It sure is. We ought to put a sign on the door: ‘Happy Homework Hunting Ground,'” said Danny.

Irene peered over at the typewriter, which had just stopped rattling. The red light was on.

“There's your arithmetic, Joe,” she said. “Now I guess it'll start on social studies.”

“Good old Minny,” Joe chuckled.

“I'll write a poem in her honor.” Joe was known throughout the school for his poems. “You know, we ought to enter her in one of those TV quiz shows. We could make a fortune.”

“Um. I somehow have a feeling that Professor Bullfinch wouldn't like that,” Danny said, laughing.

“I'll bet he wouldn't,” said Irene. “By the way, what are we going to do when he gets home, Dan?”

Danny thoughtfully ate a cookie. “I'll have to ask his permission for us to go on using the machine. But maybe it'll be all right. Anyway,” he added, “what's the use of worrying about it now? We may as well enjoy Minny while we have her.”

The typewriter, which had been working away industriously, stopped, and the red light went on. “That's the first of the social studies pages,” Danny said. “It can be yours, Irene. I'll take the next one, and Joe can take the third.”

He pulled out the paper, and at once the typewriter began again.

“It's like magic,” Joe said. “A fairy godmother named Minny, who comes along and gives you a wish. So you wish that all your homework should be done for you. And presto! there it is.”

Danny snickered. “When you come right down to it, Joe, it isn't any more magic than a million other things all around us. I mean, in fairy tales the prince is always getting magic sandals that let him fly through the air, or magic eyeglasses that let him look through walls, or a magic servant who can show him what's happening a hundred miles away… well, we've got 'em all, nowadays: X rays, airplanes, television—”

“Yes, but this is a different kind of magic. A machine that thinks.”

“There are thinking machines all over this house—everybody's house,” Danny replied. “For instance, refrigerators that know how to keep themselves at the right temperature, and defrost themselves when it's necessary. Or machines that count and add, just like Minny does—the speedometer on your bike, for instance.”

“Yes, and ovens that know how to keep themselves hot and turn themselves off when the food's cooked,” Irene put in. “Or record players that feel the size of a record, put the needle on in the right place, and stop when the record's over.”

“They're all machines that can think in one way or another,” said Danny. “Take a thermostat, for instance, like that one.”

He pointed to a dial with numbers on it, on the side of the console. Joe reached out to it, saying, “You mean this gadget?”

“Hey, don't touch it!” Danny cried.

“What's the matter? Is it poisonous?”

“Worse than that. The Professor's new switches have to be kept at a certain temperature—98.6°F.—to work properly. As long as that dial is set at that temperature, the machine works. If, for some reason, the inside of the case got too warm, the rising heat would expand a piece of metal inside the thermostat. That would start the refrigerator motor and cool things off. When the temperature was just right, again, the motor would shut off.”

Joe inspected the dial. “Gee, what would happen if it didn't work?”

“It's impossible for it not to work,” Danny said. “You can tell by looking at it if it's set properly. And I guess good old Minny could tell us if something wasn't right.”

“You keep talking about the computer as if it was alive,” Irene said. “It's just a machine.”

“So's a ship just a machine,” said Danny. “But sailors always call their ships ‘she.' Minny's so smart that—well, gosh, sometimes I feel she really is alive.”

The typewriter stopped, then clicked a few times again.

“You see?” Danny said. “She heard me, and she's impatient to get finished.”

All three laughed. Danny reached over lazily and pulled the second copy of the social studies homework out of the typewriter.

“Man!” Joe sighed, tipping up his Coca-Cola bottle to get the last drops. “This is the way to do your homework. This is heaven!”

“You said it,” Dan agreed. “Does that make us angels?”

They all laughed, but they might not have been so happy if they had seen the two scarcely angelic faces that peeped in at them through one of the laboratory windows that faced a thick clump of lilac.

They were Eddie Philips and George Bessel. Eddie was grinning wickedly. And George, ducking down so he would not be seen, said in a soft voice:

“Boy, wait till Miss Arnold hears about this!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Is It Fair?”

At about five o'clock the very next afternoon, the doorbell of the Professor's house rang. Mrs. Dunn, who was in the midst of telephoning a list of parents about a coming Parent-Teachers meeting, looked up in annoyance.

“Danny!” she called. “Will you answer the door, please?”

Danny was performing a very interesting experiment. He was mixing together all the chemicals in his chemistry set that began with “S,” just to see what would happen. However he put his important research aside and ran downstairs to open the door.

Miss Arnold stood on the steps. Her lips were pressed tight together, and there was a dangerous look in her eyes.

“Oh, hullo, Miss Arnold,” said Danny. “I guess you want to see my mother.”

“Yes, Dan, I do.”

“About the P.T.A., I suppose?”

“No. About the H.O.M.E.W.O.R.K.”

Danny gulped. “Oh,” he said, in a very small voice.

He led the way into the living room. His mother, who had recognized Miss Arnold's voice, came out to greet the teacher.

“Why, Miss Arnold,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I'm afraid it's not so pleasant,” said Miss Arnold, shaking hands. “I have something serious that I must speak to you about.”

“Do sit down.” Mrs. Dunn motioned her to a chair. “Danny, why don't you run up to your room—”

“No, I'd rather have him stay. What I have to say concerns him.”

“Oh, dear. I hope he hasn't done anything wrong?”

“I'm not sure, Mrs. Dunn.” Miss Arnold leaned forward. “I have reason to believe that Danny is letting a machine do his homework for him.”

There was a long silence.

Then Mrs. Dunn said, in a worried tone, “Miss Arnold, you've been working too hard.”

“What?”

“I've felt it for some time. That class is really too large for one teacher to handle. You ought to take a vacation.”

Miss Arnold's mouth fell open.

“I'm going to speak to the Board,” Mrs. Dunn went on, but Danny interrupted.

“She's right, Mom. I have been using a machine to do my homework.”

Mrs. Dunn looked at her son with bewilderment.

“The Professor's computer,” Danny explained.

“I don't understand. How can the computer do your homework?”

“Well, first we fed all the information from our school books into it…”

“By ‘we' he means Joe Pearson and Irene Miller,” Miss Arnold said. “But I know very well that they'd never have thought of it themselves. You know, Mrs. Dunn, I like Danny enormously, and he does very well in school, but you must admit he has a—well, an active imagination.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Dunn, dryly. “I've known him longer than you have. Go on, Dan.”

“Well, then we analyze the problems we have for homework, and we program them, and we let the machine solve them and type them out for us.”

“But that isn't fair, Danny,” Miss Arnold burst out.

“Why not?” he asked, in surprise.

“Why not? Why, because—well, what would you think of a boy who got his father to do all his homework for him?”

“I'd think he was a pretty smart kid to be able to talk his father into something like that.”

“No doubt. But that isn't what I mean. You'd think he wasn't quite honest, and you know it. And he wouldn't be doing himself a bit of good.”

“Well,” said Danny, slowly, “in a case like that, maybe not.”

“I should think not,” Miss Arnold said, triumphantly. “You know that that boy wouldn't learn a thing. He'd never get through high school. And he certainly wouldn't have a chance for college. The purpose of homework is to teach you how to study, and to give you a real, sound understanding of the subjects I'm trying to teach you.”

“She's right, Dan,” Mrs. Dunn said. “Don't you think so?”

“Well, sure, Mom. But I know these subjects. Gosh, I have to know them so I can program the machine to do them.”

“But—then I don't understand. What's the advantage of the machine doing them for you, if you already know them?”

“It's faster. Once we've set them up and fed in the questions, Minny can turn them out in a couple of minutes for all three of us.”

“Minny?”

“That's what we call the machine. Short for Miniac.”

“I see,” said Miss Arnold. “But it still isn't fair—”

“Why not?” Danny protested. “Sure it's fair. Look, I know how to do long division. So why should I spend an hour doing fifty long-division examples, when Minny can do them in a minute? Gee, nobody does arithmetic the long way any more—nobody! Grocers use adding machines, and so do banks. Everybody uses tools to make his work easier. Why, we don't use inkwells and quill pens in school any more, Miss Arnold. We use fountain pens. Those are tools to make our work easier.”

“But you can't compare a fountain pen to an electronic brain.”

“Sure you can. It's just another kind of tool. Lots of kids do their homework on typewriters. In high school and college they teach kids to do some of their homework on slide rules. And scientists use all kinds of computers as tools for their work. So why pick on us? We're just—just going along with the times.”

Miss Arnold said nothing for perhaps a minute. Then she said, slowly, “Danny, I must admit you've got a serious point. I won't force you to stop using the computer. But I'm asking you for your own good not to use it. Children learn through practice. You'll have to take my word for it that it would be better for you to do your homework the old-fashioned way.”

Danny set his jaw. “If you want me to be old-fashioned,” he said, “I'd better not study modern science. I ought to go back to the old-fashioned idea that the world is flat. I ought to forget about the atomic theory.”

“Danny,” his mother put in, “please remember that you're talking to your teacher.”