Chapter 11, The Thinkers Summary

Kelvin cannot sleep, worrying about the experiment, but he reassures Rheya that it's a desperate but futile attempt to communicate with the ocean. He takes sleeping pills and the next morning goes to record an EKG of his conscious mind to broadcast to the ocean. Sartorius makes a pompous speech, asking Kelvin to focus on the brilliant scientific history of mankind, but when the EKG machine is on, Kelvin finds his mind wandering. He thinks of Rheya, and then he thinks of Giese, the father of Solarist studies. The image of Giese is somehow related to the image of Kelvin's own father.

When the EKG is over, Kelvin tells Sartorius that the recording was successful, meaning that his thoughts were appropriate. Sartorius begins beaming the recording, translated into X-rays, down into the ocean.

Kelvin goes to the library to...