AB's information, be it a product of weak student humour or not,
is important because it shows there's someone else who's used the
same word Nabokov did. Perhaps we can learn from him how he discovered or
invented the word.
* Brian Boyd: Gennady Kramer, who's translating my
Nabokov's Ada into Russian, wonders what to make of "orgitrons" in "organs and
orgitrons," ADA 539... Can anyone see anything specific?;
A.Bouazza: "...The Felix, Student Newspaper of
Imperial College...:our Roy EXCLUSIVELY reveals the existence of the smallest
particle in the Universe: the orgitron....";
Stan Kelly-Bootle: It should be stressed that AB’s
cited definition is pure student humour (and rather weak humour, to boot!), and
of little help in deciding what VN meant, if anything, by orgitron! The phrase
‘smallest existing particle in the Universe’is extremely misleading, as are
references to being able to ‘see’ it...Strictly, assigning zero to an electron’s
radius simply reflects our inability to detect lengths below approx 10^-18
m..."
JM: Alexey, you translated "Ada or Ardor" to
the Russian, did you not? What words did you use for "organs and orgitrons"?;
A.Sklyarenko: organy i orgitrony..