A Short Investigation of Tarvivkynaltoni
Nerrid Scientific Treatise
Blenktikopf Nomaninksonsonsonsonson did not actually write this short (roughly two thousand page), illustrated treatise examining the theory that everything always gets pulled down to the ground. He did, however, sketch out an outline of the theory in what is now the prologue to the work after a suffering an accident in the tunnels beneath Nerridon. After a small fusillade of rocks had tumbled loose from the ceiling, falling all around Blenktikopf and cracking him on the skull, he had an epiphany. Nothing ever fell up. Less than four hundred pages later, he had sketched out not only his theory, but a dozen proposed experiments to prove or disprove it, and a score of implications in that fellow Nerrid scholars could explore.
Sadly, though not unpredictably, Blenktikopf died of his head trauma two denaries after the accident. It was a miracle, his fellow scholars said, that he could produce such a fine work in such a short span of time. A cadre of fellow took this a motivation to finish Blenktikopf's work, designing elaborate experiments to do so. A few even postulated that the injury itself had someone led to his insights and at least three Nerrid died of head injuries trying to replicate his state of mind. Perhaps most impressive of the experiments was conducted a few years later when, after constructing a tower the height of twenty Nerrid, scholars discovered, all other things being equal, the heft or weight of an object had no effect on how quickly Tarvivkynaltoni worked.
The final volume was published in 15 BC, roughly two decades after Blenktikopf's death. It is considered the seminal work on the subject Tarvivkynaltoni - the pulling down of everything - and has been translated into a half-dozen languages and distributed to centers of learning throughout Tarien. While the original is indeed short - filling only a score thin books - due to the inefficiencies of non-Nerridian languages, many translations number over a hundred volumes.