(Probably Found) Looking for book from childhood

[Pete]

Many years ago, mid to late 1960s I came across a science fiction book in the local library. It is one of the first science fiction books I ever read, possibly even the very first. I have no idea who wrote it, what the name was or anything else, but I do remember parts of the story line. If anyone there knows this book and can furnish me with some info on it, I would like to try finding a copy.

The story starts with some sort of accident in a laboratory doing research on extreme cold. They experience a power surge in the cooling machinery and generate some sort of odd field that nobody can explain, the theory is that they somehow managed to create some sort of 'negative molecular motion'. For some reason they call in a juvenile delinquent girl, I think the name was Gail, and she is supposed to investigate this phenomenon. She manages to learn the trick, but decides that she doesn't want to tell her supervisors about it, so she fakes a trance. They doctors quickly catch on that she is faking and determine to give her some drugs to make her talk, but she uses the secret of the field to escape. The story jumps forward in time a bit, to where the girl, now grown and married, finds her own child involved with creatures from Jupiter who are experiencing some sort of crisis and need help. The field secret, passed on to the child is somehow used to communicate with these creatures.

That's about all I remember, but I would love to find the book again. Anybody recognize this?

Pete

 

[Foxbat]

Sorry, I don't recognise this description. Luckily there are quite a few folk much more knowledgable than me around here. With a bit of luck, one of them may be able to help.

In the meantime, welcome to Chronicles Network. May your stay be happy and fruitful

 

[CassFrank]

This is a mixed up memory description of Alan E Nourse’s The Universe Between (1951).

All the pieces are here, just not quite in the right order with some exaggerated or deflated.

From a review: “Dr. John McEvoy has made a discovery. But he doesn't really know what his discovery is. It is a box. But it's not a box. He bounces in several tennis balls which bounce back out the other side. One of them comes back inside out, but with no marks on the ball suggesting any method by which that happened. Several pencils were pushed through. One came back with a wood core and a thin graphite covering.

McEvoy has also had men volunteer to go in. All come back either insane or in a coma. What are they seeing? He learns of a girl, a high-adaptive, Gail, who demonstrates a keen ability to rapidly adjust to any new environment in which she is placed. McEvoy gets permission to ask her to try. Gail goes into the box and comes back badly shaken. But she refuses to talk. McEvoy goes into her hospital room, insisting she tell him what she saw, what she learned. He goes to the door and locks it. She knows what he wants, that she can't tell him. She turns the "corner" she learned about in the other place. And is gone.

Twenty years later, strange things are happening. A section of Manhattan disappears. The bottom 3 floors of a building in Philadelphis wink out of existence and the rest of the building collapses into the hole. Has McEvoy's new machine gone rogue? He all but dismantles it and still it continues to function. He is certain it has something to do with the other place and he need someone to go in and discover the connection. He must contact Gail and, suddenly, Gail is contacting him. But the one who agrees to go is not Gail, but her teenage son Robert.”

The Universe Between

"A fascinating adventure into the fourth dimension, wri…

www.goodreads.com

 

[Dave]

It's been 19 years so I'm marking this one (probably found). Alan E Nourse is the answer to several of these book search questions.