
Part 1
A brilliant but delightfully eccentric scientist has grown tired of the endless clash between East and West. Convinced that the only way to end the feud is to literally split the planet in two, he drafts a bold plan and vanishes from his institute, leaving his bewildered colleagues to wonder what he’ll attempt next. As the United Nations convenes, the world watches the professor step onto the global stage, ready to unveil a solution that sounds as outrageous as it is meticulously engineered.
The story balances witty dialogue with tense speculation, following the frantic scramble of officials, journalists, and friends who try to anticipate the consequences of a literal divide. While the stakes are monumental, Milton’s quirky inventions—like a match that only lights on soap—hint at a mind that turns the absurd into the plausible. Listeners will be drawn into a speculative arena where idealism, humor, and the limits of human ingenuity collide.
Language
en
Duration
~21 minutes (20K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Columbia Publications, Inc., 1950.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2023-03-26
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
A Golden Age science fiction writer with an engineer’s eye for detail, he built stories around communications systems, problem-solving, and life in space. He is especially remembered for the Venus Equilateral tales, which helped give mid-century magazine SF some of its brisk, technical charm.
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