New Eden

by Kishore Tipirneni

  “Yep, a science writer—possibly. I still haven’t decided.”

  “Gonna write about today’s lecture?”

  “I write about everything.” Rachael popped another mint in her mouth. “What about you? Physics major?”

  “Information theory. It’s a branch of computer science that deals with data compression, algorithmic theory, linguistics, math—just about everything, really. Light, energy, matter—everything in nature communicates with everything else.”

  “Not sure if I follow.”

  Vinod pointed to his right. “We see that oak tree over there because light is reflected from its bark and leaves to the rods and cones in our eyes and then to the visual cortex in our brains. So, the information that there’s a tree over there is being transmitted to us by light.”

  “So light is just a form of information?”

  “Light is a conduit for information. In fact, I plan on writing a dissertation one day proving that all life on Earth, human and non-human, is a computer of sorts. And to be really radical, all matter, animate and inanimate, is just information that is used by these computers.”

  Rachael looked perplexed. “Sounds radical alright.”

  “For me, the digital age started when the Earth evolved a few billion years ago. There’s never been a time in the history of the universe when information wasn’t being sent, received, stored, and retransmitted. You don’t need silicon chips and a modem for that to happen.”

  “Hmmm. Interesting way to look at creation.” Rachael’s eyes glanced at the man’s Led Zeppelin tee shirt. “And naturally music is one of the higher forms of communication?”

  Vinod spread his arms wide, looked at the sky, and emphasized each word as he spoke. “Absolutely . . . the . . . most . . . glorious form of communication that there is, especially if you’re talking classic rock even though music in geological structures—long story—goes back millions of years.”

  “So Zeppelin came late to the party then?”

  “I guess, but so did the Beatles, Stones, AC-DC, Rush, and a hundred other great classic rock bands.”

  “What’s your favorite Zeppelin song?” Rachel asked to pass the time since she saw that the line wasn’t moving. “‘Stairway to Heaven’?”

  The man shrugged and moved his head left to right as if to indicate his indecision. “Eh . . . good choice, but it’s too obvious a selection for me. I prefer ‘Kashmir.’”

  Rachael nodded. “Isn’t that the one with a lyric about being a traveler in space and time?”

  “Yes, it is!” Vinod exclaimed looking at her with a shocked expression. Very few kids of their generation appreciated classic rock as much as he did.

  Vinod extended his hand as the line finally started to move. “Vinod Bhakti. Junior.”

  “Rachael Miller. Sophomore. Nice to meet you.”

  The students filed into the auditorium, and from above, they looked like a column of ants crawling into their mound.

  3

  Red Rover, Red Rover

  Rachael and Vinod stared at each other in the darkened auditorium, mouths hanging open in astonishment at Professor Bowman’s last pronouncement.

  “Damn,” Vinod muttered. “Data that can travel faster than the speed of light? Next, the old geezer is gonna tell us that he’s discovered the Unified Field Theory.”

  “He’s certainly got my attention,” Rachael said as the applause died down. “Faster than light? That’s impossible.”

  “Quick. Take some notes. This man might become the most famous scientist in history over the course of the next hour.”

  Rachael pointed her index finger at her head. “I already am.”

  Vinod smiled and turned back towards the stage. The professor was riffing on information theory, and the young student was hungry for the next part of the presentation.

  “It’s time to get technical, but I’ll try to make this as simple as possible,” Bowman stated. “To me, baseball is still our national pastime. Field of Dreams got it right, so let’s start with a little country hardball. Notice the screen, if you would. You can see two baseballs, and no, the picture isn’t out of focus.”

  On the screen above the stage—twenty feet by forty feet— were two baseballs side by side. The balls seemed to be spinning, but their images were unclear since they appeared to be spinning both right to left and left to right at the same time.

  “For the purposes of my demonstration,” Bowman continued, “these baseballs represent two subatomic particles, and as you can see, they’re both spinning in opposite directions at the same time. You see, when two entangled particles are first created, they don’t have a definite direction of spin and can be thought of as spinning in both directions at the same time—something we physicists call a superposition. I guess that blurry image is what a batter sees when a ninety-eight mile an hour fast ball comes screaming at home plate in the ninth inning when the relief pitcher—the proverbial closer—is throwing heat. Let’s see what happens when the two balls are separated.”

  The balls were now a few feet apart and connected by a short length of string.

  Bowman faced his mesmerized audience. “The particles are maintaining a connection with each other even when separated because they're still connected at a quantum level, something we call quantum entanglement.” Bowman paused for dramatic effect. “But do they have anything meaningful to say? Maybe . . .”

  Everyone in the auditorium leaned forward in anticipation.

  “Maybe they have more to tell each other than you think. It turns out that both baseballs were hit out of the park. Home runs. One landed in the left field bleachers, one landed in the right field bleachers. They’re quite far apart, but they continue to maintain a connection with each other. Let’s give this discussion a little clarity. Watch what happens when a spin measurement is made on the baseball on the left.” Bowman looked up at the ceiling of Wheeler Auditorium. “Are you watching, Albert?”

  The baseball on the left was now in sharp focus and spinning left to right.

  “Voilà!” Bowman said. “It has picked a direction to spin and is transmitting information instantly to the other baseball as to which direction it’s spinning. You see, measuring a particle’s spin causes it to move out of superposition, pick a definite direction of spin, and communicate this information with its twin. The other particle also moves out of superposition and spins in the opposite direction to the first. This communication happens instantaneously and is the hallmark of quantum entanglement. You can see now that the baseball on the right is spinning in the opposite direction to the one on the left.”

  Heads pivoted to look at the other ball as if the audience was a single organism, a cell reacting to a photon of light.

  Bowman threw his head back and laughed, clearly enjoying the way he was able to manipulate the crowd with a presentation that had been planned for over a year. “I assure you that this is not a case of misdirection. I’m a scientist, not a magician.” He walked back to the center of the stage. “It’s all about information, people. Information, in its purest form, has no mass or energy, so it doesn’t have to obey the theory of relativity and doesn’t have to travel through space-time. It can jump to any point in space-time. The information that the first particle’s spin was measured, as well as which direction it chose to spin, is transmitted instantaneously to the other particle, which then spins in the opposite direction.”

  “This guy is speaking my language,” Vinod whispered to Rachael excitedly.

  “The communication between entangled particles is unaffected by distance. One of our baseballs, for example, could have been hit into the Andromeda galaxy—that’s steroids in baseball for ya—and the result would have been the same, so you’ll have to take my word for it. For now, that is. I’ve got a kick-ass demonstration planned for you in just a few minutes. First, a few more words of explanation—a very few. Science should be kept simple during lectures. Ask any fifth-grade science teacher.”

  Bowman once ag
ain took a sip of water, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and then, placing his hands on his back, leaned backwards as if stretching. “Still damn hot under these lights,” he said.

  “There aren’t that many lights above the stage,” Rachael said softly. “What’s he referring to?”

  “He’s in his sixties,” Vinod replied. “Plus, he’s pretty informal for a guy who’s in the process of shattering particle physics as we know it. Just eccentric, I suppose.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bowman said, “this is the essence of quantum entanglement and the idea of non-locality that is its corollary. It’s actually been demonstrated on a small scale in the laboratory many times by researchers, but there’s a hitch. Whenever the spin of one particle, or a baseball in this example, is measured and the resulting information is transmitted to its twin, the connection between them is broken. They can no longer communicate.”

  The string representing the connection between the balls on the screen disappeared.

  “It turns out that our baseballs had a fleeting encounter, nothing more.” Bowman shook his head and closed his eyes. “To mix my metaphors, have you ever flirted with someone across a crowded room at a cocktail party? You turn away, look back, and they’re gone. The communication is broken.” Bowman sighed and shook his head. “What a letdown, huh? I guess yours truly will have to be sent down to the minor leagues. I flirted with you—built up your expectations—and we’re right back where we started—theory. My apologies.”

  For the first time since Bowman had appeared onstage, the audience seemed restless. Had they wasted their time on the musings of a dodgy professor who was telling them, in the final analysis, what they already knew from textbooks, namely that entangled particles don’t stay entangled after a measurement is made? He’d entertained them with humor and histrionics, but if this was his bottom line, then the whole afternoon had been a waste of time. A dozen people got to their feet and began walking down the two aisles toward the rear of the facility.

  Bowman, however, appeared unfazed.

  “O ye of little faith,” he said. “Professor Henry Bowman has no intention of playing triple-A ball for a farm team. Many years ago, I realized through mathematical computations that particle pairs can be created that are permanently entangled—artificially created particles that can never become unentangled and never lose their connection. After years of rigorous research and lab work, I’ve succeeded in creating a special type of subatomic particle that, when entangled and measured, remains entangled with its twin. Kinda like till death us do part. Our feuding spouses are now communicating with each other—are back on the same page, soul mates reading each other’s minds and planning a trip to the Bahamas.”

  The people marching down the aisles froze in their tracks.

  “I thought that might get your attention,” Bowman said. “Now then, as I was about to say, I’ve named these subatomic particles spookyons. An appropriate name, wouldn’t you say? I assure you that the entanglement of my spookyons is quite stable and would have made Einstein a convert. I guess I just have better lab equipment than he did.”

  Applause erupted as Bowman recaptured the attention of his audience with the audacious nature of his announcement.

  “Thank you,” Bowman said with a broad grin, looking like Will Rogers ready to do a rope trick. “But don’t take my word for it. After you’ve seen the demonstration, you can pass the hat to take up a collection for my airfare to Stockholm so I can pick up my Nobel Prize. Like I said, spookyons are permanently entangled. You can measure the spin on one, and its twin will immediately spin the opposite direction and will do so until you stop measuring. But once you stop measuring, they both go back into superposition—back to spinning in both directions at once. So instead of just being able to send one random bit of information, we can use them to send an unlimited number of bits instantaneously across any distance.”

  The baseballs began to grow clear then blurry over and over again, mimicking continual measurements made on their spin. With each measurement, the spin was locked either right to left or left to right.

  The enthusiasm in the auditorium was palpable. People whispered to each other, pointed at the screen, and took out their smart phones to record the event.

  “Wait a second!” Bowman said, his right arm and index finger pointing at the screen. “That’s not the demonstration! Just a graphic! I’ve just been warming up in the bullpen.”

  The baseballs disappeared, and their images were replaced by a picture of the red planet, Mars. The abrupt change of imagery caused the excitement in the auditorium to intensify further. What did a distant planet have to do with entanglement?

  “Yes, that is indeed the red planet, and my demonstration will cover approximately 142,000,000 miles. Anyone out there still want to leave?”

  The auditorium grew silent, and the aisles cleared.

  “It’s time to do some real science, so let me introduce my capable Ph.D. student, Joshua Andrews.” Bowman squinted as if to pick out certain audience members. “Ladies, he’s single.”

  A young man took the stage—tall, mid-twenties, and handsome—approached a table that was now visible thanks to an overhead light being switched on. Joshua lifted a black cloth covering the table like a magician’s assistant, revealing a clear, hollow glass sphere that glowed an eerie shade of green. It was, appropriately enough, the size of a baseball. The top and bottom of the sphere were coated with thin metal plating, attached to which were numerous wire cables that ran to a table six feet away, where they connected to a gray metal box with dual joystick controls and other switches. The overhead screen switched to an extreme close-up shot of the mesmerizing glass orb.

  “The inside of this glass sphere is a vacuum except for a single spookyon I created,” Bowman boasted, “and it’s entangled with another spookyon even as I speak. Since the spookyon is subatomic, it’s much too small to be seen. The equipment connected to the sphere allows us to measure the spin of the enclosed spookyon. But where’s Waldo? Where is its twin?”

  “On Mars!” a brave soul from the audience shouted.

  “Well, duh!” Bowman shouted back. “The image of Mars didn’t appear on the screen for nothing! But let me be a bit more specific. Joshua, do your thing.”

  Joshua Andrews picked up the control and flicked one of the switches. The screen’s image changed to a scene of rust-red rocks on the forbidding Martian desert.

  “What you are seeing,” Bowman explained, “is a live feed from the latest Mars Rover NASA launched last year and that landed on the planet’s surface last week. The gurus at JPL don’t have a clue that I’ve concealed another sphere containing a spookyon entangled with this one inside the orbiter that the rover uses to communicate with Earth. They must be crapping their pants about now because I’ve just hijacked their rover by replacing their communication channel with one that uses our spookyons. But I don’t think they’ll be locking me up once they see the rest of my demonstration.”

  Joshua stood sideways to the audience with the controller in his hand. He was excited to be able to finally reveal the work upon which his Ph.D. thesis would be based. He had his eyes glued to Professor Bowman and hung on his every word.

  “The best is yet to come,” Bowman announced. “I said that you’re seeing a live feed from Mars, but how’s that possible? The red planet is currently twelve light minutes away, so to send a signal to turn on the camera and then receive an actual video feed should take, round trip, twenty-four minutes. But this image has no time delay. It is indeed live! You see, one of my colleagues at the University of Arizona was commissioned by NASA to build the orbiter’s communications array. When she told me of her project, I convinced her to conceal the second sphere in its com panel. Spooky action at a distance, ladies and gentlemen. Instantaneous communication with the Mars Rover thanks to a pair of entangled spookyons. Joshua, let’s look at that large black rock ten feet away and slightly to the right.”

  The green sphere on the t
able glowed brighter as Joshua worked the joystick and nudged the rover ahead. The camera on the vehicle wobbled only slightly as it crawled ten feet ahead to the black rock.

  Using the joystick, Joshua extended the rover’s main arm, technically known as the Instrument Deployment Device—and lifted the rock from the Martian desert using what had been nicknamed a “space claw,”—essentially a robotic hand at the end of the IDD.

  “On second thought, Joshua,” Bowman said whimsically, “let’s have a look at the orange rock on the left instead. Orange is the new black.”

  Joshua maneuvered the rover and its arm to retrieve the orange rock, lifting it to a position in front of the rover’s camera lens.

  “Can you imagine what this will mean to the muckety-mucks at NASA and JPL when they want to send commands to spacecraft exploring the outer planets of our solar system?” Bowman asked. “And one day to probes in interstellar space? No time delay. No tense, anxious waiting to see whether or not some robotic arm or solar panel on a spacecraft a billion miles away has deployed. No time lag between taking a picture of Pluto and receiving it in JPL’s imaging center. All because of spookyons.”

  Bowman winced as if in pain and placed his hands on his lower back and closed his eyes before continuing. “And can you imagine other applications for spookyons? With a little imagination, what amazing communication systems might be built that will enable us to talk in real time with colonies on Mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But why stop there? Even—”

  Perspiring heavily, Bowman took a step towards the table and his glass of water, but he didn’t reach it. His chest heaved, and he collapsed on the stage floor.

  “Henry!” Joshua cried out as he dropped the controller, rushed to the side of the professor, and knelt next to the motionless form. “Are you okay?” He stared at the audience. “Someone call 911!”

  Bowman lifted his head and tried to prop himself on his elbow. He looked into Joshua’s face hovering over him.