Carbide Tipped Pens Part 38

"Talking faster than light."

Albert's eyes went wide.

"But I don't know what that means."

"Our theory," said Ralph at a whisper to no one in particular. "Quantum spreading as the facilitator of communication."

Liam looked innocently up at his dad. "Don't you believe me? I mean about h.e.l.lo."

"I ... Does Rex Snoopy Biscuit believe you?" Why did I say that?

"I couldn't really understand the sky people," said Liam, "but Rex Snoopy Biscuit could. He told me what they were saying."

"Oh," Albert managed, struggling to put it all into a logical context.

"I believe you, Bluey," said Ralph.

Liam returned a smiled, then looked back at Albert. "Do you believe me, Dad?"

Albert hesitated, then said, "I think so." He felt he had to give that comfort to his son. Or rather I can't say I disbelieve you.

"Let's go back and dry off," said Kimberly. "I'd hate to see us all come down with colds." She put an arm around Liam and urged him toward the observatory building.

"We can commandeer one of the visiting scientist apartments," said Albert. "There's a communal laundry. We can throw our clothes in the dryer."

Liam protested. "I can't go around without any clothes on."

"While our clothes are drying," said Kimberly, "we can dress in sheets, togas, like the Romans did."

"Well," said Liam in tacit acceptance.

Ralph whispered to Albert. "Do we announce any of this to the SETI Foundation?"

"I don't think so."

"I don't know if anything really happened, but if it did, it was profound," said Albert, as he and Ralph, dressed in ersatz togas, walked into the control room. Kimberly was in a visiting scientist bedroom, trying to coax Liam to sleep.

"How do you feel now about ... Guriada?"

"Extrasensory perception is..." Albert began, heatedly, primed to deliver the strong denial that he'd so often given in the past. "It's..." He paused. "I don't know. I just don't know."

"Excellent!" said Ralph as he padded over to the astronomy monitor. "Welcome to Club Heisenberg."

"Yeah. Right."

Albert and Ralph leaned in over the display.

"The signal is gone," said Ralph, sadly. "I'm afraid there's no way we can verify our alien encounter."

"We have the data recordings."

"Not precisely what I'd call a verification."

Albert smiled at the incongruity of two scientists dressed as Roman senators talking philosophy. "Some things that are real aren't verifiable."

"True," said Senator Ralph. "And there are many modes of communication, not just at the higher cerebral level."

Albert nodded. "I'd always thought that if it weren't repeatable and verifiable, it wasn't science. But..."

"Nature is uncertain, mate. Ambiguous."

"Ambiguity. Yes." Albert gave a sad smile. "But I really have to ask: was it a genuine SETI positive or just a spurious signal and the rich imagination of a child?" He slumped into a chair.

Ralph shrugged. "In any case," he said, "we've come up with a really spiffy theory. We should publish."

Albert sighed. "And keep searching."

The phone rang and Albert looked idly at the caller ID, then snapped erect. "The Murchison Array!" With the speed of a cobra, Albert snaked out his hand to the phone.

THE MANDELBROT BET.

Dirk Stra.s.ser

What is reality?

Does the physical universe actually exist or is it, in the words of Edgar Allan Poe, "a dream within a dream"?

Or look at it another way. Does mathematics truly describe the physical universe, or is the world of mathematics actually the universe itself?

And what do these concepts have to do with the hopes and fears and pa.s.sions that we human beings feel with every beat of our hearts?

Thereby hangs Dirk Stra.s.ser's tale.

There are lines which are monsters.

Eugene Delacroix Voice notes to self on the development of the escape-time algorithm-Daniel Rostrom Remember, the answer is always simple. That's not to say the simple answer is the correct one. The danger to avoid is the a.s.sumption that the simple answer, by the sole nature of its simplicity, is the correct one.

The escape-time algorithm is the simplest algorithm for generating a representation of the Mandelbrot set. The answer lies in the infinity of the escape-time algorithm. Repeat the calculation for each x, y, z, t point and make your decisions based on the behavior of that calculation. Pick a value for time, t, square it, add a constant. Take the new number, square it, and add the same constant. Forever, do it forever. Simple.

"Give me a moment before you shove any more of that stuff in my mouth."

"Sorry, Daniel, it's hard for me to guess when you're ready for another spoonful."

"You asked me a question, so give me a chance to answer it."

"You must have gotten stuck today. You're always grumpy when you get stuck."

"And you're the only one here I can be grumpy with, Helen. Sorry, it's because I can't move my body that it gets to me when I can't get my mind moving as well."

"All right, how about having another go at explaining to me what you were thinking about today? Even if I don't understand it, it may help you gain some insight."

"I suppose there's always a chance. Do you remember what I was saying about the Mandelbrot set and how I have developed the idea to include a time dimension?"

"Er, yes, I remember good old Benot B. Mandelbrot. French, wasn't he?"

"No, technically Lithuanian. Lived and worked most of his life in the U.S., but that's not really important, is it?"

"I just like a bit of a context, Daniel."

"OK, well the important thing is I've tied the behavior of Mandelbrot-like time dimensions to quantum computing."

"Here, eat this before you go on. I need a moment to digest what you've said."

"Ha ha."

"Just chew on this, Daniel."

The loner in physics-Eleanora Schmidt Is it possible for a non-physics trained person to make a fundamental breakthrough in physics? Does nature speak in a language that an intelligent, determined non-specialist can decipher? Self-taught artists can sometimes create something truly extraordinary that a fully trained artist can't. It can be argued that the training itself limits thought patterns and inhibits creative leaps.

The loner physicist has the added handicap that he or she is not working as part of a team. Are great discoveries still achievable by individuals working alone? Some would argue that this is still possible. A case in point is the work of Daniel Rostrom, a man with little formal physics training who brought his skills from other fields such as computer science, art, and geography to bear on the complex field of time travel speculation.

The jury is still out on whether Daniel Rostrom was the greatest polymath and deepest thinker of our century, a brilliant hoaxer, or a fringe-dwelling crackpot. Rostrom, whose muscular dystrophy meant he was wheelchair-bound for much of his life, presents us with the most detailed insight into the loner physicist. As a young man he had a bionic recording device implanted into his brain which he could switch on and off at will. The original intention was to use it to play podcasts of scientific papers that he would otherwise have physical difficulty in reading and to keep a verbal record of his thoughts. In practice he kept the device recording most of the time with a cloud-sync to his computerized chair, so we have a full record of everything he said and heard. The later recordings which are dated after his disappearance are the subject of much debate. Most in the scientific community believe them to be an elaborate hoax, but there are those who believe they are genuine. The question always arises as to how a wheelchair-bound man with late-stage muscular dystrophy could simply disappear without his caregiver or any family members having any idea where he had gone. There are, of course, myriad conspiracy theories, but there are also physicists who have argued cogently that the most likely series of events was that he simply did what he said he would do.

"That's not what you said last time, Helen."

"So now you're going to play back my words again, are you, Daniel? Just to make me look bad."

"No. I don't want to make you look bad."

"Look, Daniel, that bionic recorder drives me insane. Can't you turn it off for conversations with me?"

"I could, but it would make it harder to get to the truth."

"I might just quit. How would you like that sort of truth?"

"You've said that..."

"Don't give me a precise count of how often I've said I'd quit."

"I'm sorry, Helen. I never mean to upset you."

"Being your full-time caregiver isn't a picnic, and it's not exactly pleasant when you have a digitized record of everything I've ever said to you inside your head."

"You know I'm after the truth. What else have I got sitting here in this wheelchair with nothing but numbness below my neck?"

"Yes, well, you stick to scientific truth. The rest of us only have the fuzzy truth we deal with day to day."

"There's only one sort of truth, Helen."

"And you're going to find it."

"That's right, I'm going to find it."

Voice notes to self on the development of the escape-time algorithm-Daniel Rostrom One of two things always happens in a Mandelbrot set: either an iterated point jumps up to two units away from the origin or it jumps further away. The result is a shape that is finite but an edge that is infinite. It's all about the edge. The line. It's a monster. The more you magnify it, the more complex it becomes. It never settles down. Ever. I know this is the key. Somehow a Mandelbrot set has only two dimensions, yet it also possesses another dimension. What if that other dimension was time? With the right procedure it must be possible to both orbit close to an origin and jump in ever-increasing spans. I know I'm on to something. Think.

This isn't just a computer-generated image, it's real life. Coastlines. You can see it in coastlines. They are infinitely long. Magnify them and you will see more twists and kinks. Magnify them again, and you see even more. It never stops.

There is no arrow of time, it's a coastline of time.

"So, this chair of yours is going to be your so-called time machine?"

"Yes, like in the H. G. Wells novel. Except it won't be coming with me. You've only just realized that, Helen?"

"I'm a bit slow, remember? You've often told me that."

"No, I haven't. I can prove-"

"Don't worry about calling up the relevant recordings. Even if you haven't said it, I feel it from you sometimes."

"Do you really?"

"Never mind, tell me again how this is going to work."