“As best we can tell there are fourteen levels. There may be more but our acoustic seismology loses its accuracy below that depth. The top levels at least extend out from the central shaft in all directions at least a hundred meters. And we are sure there is some kind of heating system in there.”
“How can you know that?” asked Whitney.
“Gradient change, it is our guess that the air density is causing the gradient change we see.”
“So now we go in.”
“That's right. That's your job Doctor Howe. We hope you can 'break-in' without causing a loss in the integrity of the find.”
“Of course,” said Whitney as she walked to the mine opening.
“Just a moment Dr. Howe and I'll start the lighting system.”
Dr. Cole went over to some of the electrical equipment and flipped some switches. The lights came on and the mine opening was illuminated by the string of lights disappearing down the shaft which angled no more than twenty degrees but was curved somewhat downwards so that the distance one could see was limited.
“It looks like we've got enough for a days worth of light if the weather holds and the solar panels keep working.”
Whitney nodded and started down the mine shaft.
Power cables were strewn along one side of the passage, Whitney avoided those just in case. After about fifteen minutes she could feel her leg muscles beginning to ache from the unusual angle of the walk.
Really need to get that exercise program going, she thought.
She stopped to take a sip from her water bottle strapped to her belt.
“How much further?” she asked.
“I'd say we were about half way,” answered Dr. Cole.
The four continued their descent.
Another ten minutes and the shaft became more steeply sloped, maybe thirty degrees.
Whitney's legs and knees were now complaining. Just when she thought she would have to stop and rest again the slope began to level off. Before long she was standing in front of what looked like a steel door excavated from the granite itself.
“Well that shouldn't be here,” said Joyce.
Whitney nodded.
“What do you suggest doctor?” asked Cole.
“Do you know the condition of this find initially?”
“The door was buried in rubble, either deliberately or naturally, we couldn't be sure. We uncovered it and then called you.”
“The air is so fresh, how come? We must have walked about a mile down.”
“A little over a mile and a half,” said Dr. Cole. “There are air shafts from the surface routed into that area beyond the door. The positive pressure behind it is then vented into this shaft.”
“You are telling me that there is machinery in there still working after . . .”
Whitney paused.
“After some one hundred and thirty years. The mine closed in nineteen sixty-four right?”
“That's right Dr. Howe. But of course we don't know when all this,” he pointed to the door “all this was built.”
“Still it must have been many years,” she said.
He nodded in agreement.
“So let's open it.”
“You think that is wise? What about contamination?”
“It's already contaminated with air from the outside. Our breath won't add much. But we should put on our masks for the sake of safety.”
They all donned what looked like a surgical mask but built from a nanofiber that could trap anything down to the size of a germ while allowing oxygen and carbon-dioxide to permeate. The edges of the material molded to the users face forming a seal.
“My computer has a cryptographic add-on which can determine the key to the door. I tried it before but didn't proceed with actually opening it.”
Cole took his computer up to the door and started the crypto. The key was exchanged with the door.
“I hear something,” said Joyce.
“You must have excellent hearing,” said Cole. “The computer and door are exchanging keys in the high audio range.”
Then suddenly a loud pop was heard, the door shuttered.
“That's it,” said Cole.
He tried the door but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pulled.
“I don't understand it.”
“Let me try,” said Whitney.
After a gentle push the door opened wide. She averted her eyes from Dr. Cole and entered with Cole behind her. Joyce and then Ernesto came behind, both grinning.
There was a cold light in the room. Not fluorescent or LED, but something else that was very diffuse. Then Whitney realized it was coming from the walls and ceilings. The room itself was six-sided or hexagonal. What looked like doorways were in each of the other five walls, at least there was an outline of a door although the wall looked completely smooth from where Whitney was standing.
“The outlines look like doors but I don't see any mechanism,” said Ernesto.
“Well,” said Whitney. “When in doubt advance.”
She thereupon started walking directly to the door across from the entrance.
“Dr. Howe what are you doing,” said Cole. “Be careful.”
Just before she would have crashed into the door an opening appeared, as if solidity was an illusion. The others came running up to her.
“Are you okay?” asked Joyce.
“Did you know that would happen? asked Cole.
Whitney looked from Joyce to Cole and said, “Yes and no.”
“Okay well I think we should split up and search as much as we can before dark, which will be in about three hours,” said Cole looking at his computer. “Agree?”
“I agree except I think we split into two with one of you accompanying either me or Joyce since we are the archaeologists.”
Everyone agreed so Cole and Whitney went down one hall while Joyce and Ernesto went down another.
The halls turned out to be slightly slanted downward. After several feet Whitney came to a door on her right that was again outlined. She paused and considered it a moment. Then instead of using the “door” she walked straight towards the wall. Cole yelled for her to stop. Instead with a slight shimmer she passed through. Shortly she reappeared in the doorway which had dissolved.
“It's all a giant holodeck just like that old space show,” she said.
“Why?” asked Cole.
“Maybe to separate the space, maybe to make it more familiar for those that use it. Maybe to make the spaces more private, could be many reasons.”
“Makes construction a lot cheaper.”
“That too,” said Whitney.
“Anything in there?”
“Just globes about two centimeters in diameter inset into the walls like diamonds in earth.”
“Globes for what?”
“I don't know. I suggest we finish our survey of this hall and get back to meet with Joyce and Ernesto. Who knows what else we'll find.”
Cole nodded.
At the end of the hall they found an opening with a metal ladder mounted to the wall, obviously the way to the next level below. But nothing else was found. Just holoroom after holoroom filled with the same globes though the size might vary.
Meeting back at the main room which was not holographic Whitney found that Joyce and Ernesto had found the same thing she and Cole had, except they had not discovered it was all one big holodeck.
“What now?” said Cole looking at Whitney.
“I suggest we scout the remaining three halls as quick as possible before heading back. Then we'll meet back here. Try to be back by two so we can get to the airstrip before dark.”
The others agreed so Whitney and Cole took one hall each while Joyce and Ernesto took the other. They were all back by two except Cole.
“Same,” said Joyce. “Nothing but globes, slight variation in size is all.”
“Yeah I would say from about two to three millimeters, not much but it might be important.”
“I wonder where
Dr. Cole is?” asked Ernesto.
Not long after, Cole emerged from his hall. His head was bleeding, he was holding a torn sleeve from his shirt over the wound.
“What happened Dr. Cole?” said Ernesto rushing to his side.
“I got a little careless I guess. When Dr. Howe showed me that the walls were all holo projections I started going from room to room through the walls. Worked great, I was making good time when all of a sudden I found a real wall behind one of the projected ones. Probably granite. As you can see I led with my head,” he smiled.
“You okay otherwise?” asked Whitney.
“Yeah, it will leave a bump that's all.”
“Okay let's get back to the airstrip, clean you up and get back to Redcliffe.”
Chapter 8
Wormhole Physics 101, 8th Edition, by Dr. Elias Mach
Copyright 2640 C.E.- Chapter 1, Page 23
The Mach Effect
Introduction to the Mach Effect
The Mach Effect describes a relationship between a particular mass and the universal mass. The physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach said in essence that the inertia (a measure of mass) that an object exhibited was caused by all the other masses in the universe.
This is easy to understand if one considers a single object in an otherwise empty universe. How do you measure its velocity? There is no reference by which to measure its coordinate change, therefore there can be no velocity. If there can be no velocity then there can be no resistance to a change in velocity, therefore no inertia. A subtle but logical argument.
When applied to the wormhole generator the Mach Effect shows that if a material's electrons are shielded from the universal mass then the large and negative “bare mass” of the electron will be expressed.
This argument follows from the fact that electrons are surrounded by a sea of virtual particles and these virtual particles have a large positive mass. The electron's measured mass is very small, therefore, according to simple addition, the electron's intrinsic mass must be large and negative. This “exotic” mass would display negative gravity and this along with the huge bare mass is just what is needed to open and keep open the mouth of a wormhole . . .
Elias had found Emmy an electronics engineer. A graduate student in the Electrical Engineering department named Roger looking for a thesis.
After interviewing Roger, Emmy was skeptical but he came recommended by the Dean of Engineering so she decided to give him a chance. Emmy had to spend several afternoons working in the lab with Roger as she was trying to explain what she wanted from the electronics.
“All the data we get from the trip needs to be logged, but here is the problem we face. There has never been a recording of any data during a traversal. Many have tried and failed. So unless we can figure out the cause we haven't an experiment.”
“Shield the electronics?”
“No, I don't think so. At least not in the way we usually think of it. I believe that there is a suppression field being generated by the tremendous gravitational forces keeping the wormhole open. Especially at the point where my grandfather expects a phase change in space time is occurring, about 7.5 light-years.”
“So what should I do now?”
“Well you keep working on the sensor electronics. I've got to come up with some theory about this suppression field I'm proposing. Once I have that I can tell you what you are trying to shield against.”
Emmy did as she often does when trying to figure something out. She surrounded herself with Emmies, datacubes and old fashion books. Her grandfather often loaned her his collection of old physics books, some hundreds of years old.
She started with the basics. What is a wormhole? In her grandfather's original edition on wormholes on page two she read:
The Morris-Thorne wormhole is an exact solution to the Einstein field equations. It can be thought of as a structure linking two separate points in spacetime, usually represented visually as a tunnel or wormhole as the twentieth century physicist John Archibald Wheeler called it.
The wormhole remained an object of speculation until recently when it was experimentally shown to exist.
Emmy stopped reading. The image of a caterpillar making its way through a tunnel occupied her thoughts. The way it rippled as it advanced. Then she stopped.
Could it be that simple?
Emmy waited in her grandfather's (she usually didn't think of him as her great-great) study filling the wallscreen with equations. Elias came in, back from a lecture at the university.
“Hello Emmy how are you?”
“Fine grandfather.”
Elias looked at the wallscreen.
“And what is this you are working on?”
Emmy began, pointing at the wallscreen at times.
“Well I haven't finished but I wanted to talk with you first. I was imagining the locomotion of a caterpillar, you know how its segments ripple as it makes its way. Imagine that the caterpillar is in a tight tunnel, his movement would be constricted. He wouldn't be able to arch his body without interference.
“That image made me think that our phase change at 7.5 light-years is similar. Except that instead of multiple arches our wormhole has only the one, at least at the distances we can cast them, although I suspect it would occur at multiples of 7.5 light-years.
“I intend to show that the spatial phase change along the length of a wormhole can be likened to the standing wave of a plucked guitar string, with nodes, wavelength, and so forth. If this is so then I can use all the mechanics of wave functions to describe the phase change.
“However there is one difference between the plucked string and a wormhole. The wavelength, that is the tone, of a plucked string changes according to its length, the wormhole phase change does not.
“So at this point,” she said pointing to something on the screen. “After having laid the groundwork for conceptualization of a wormhole and its phase change I will now show that it is also very similar to an impedance change in a wire. And if I can show this then I can use the complex mathematics of AC circuit analysis to calculate the phase change.
“I will show that just as in an AC circuit when the impedance of the source does not match that of the load a mismatch results and causes the voltage or current to add an imaginary, usually called a phase angle, part to its value. This phase angle goes from zero to a maximum and then back to zero just like our wormhole phase.
“In the electric circuit case to remove the phase angle we need to match the source with the load. This is done often in audio systems, like when the output impedance of the amplifier matches the load impedance of the speakers.
“In the case of the wormhole to remove the phase change and therefore the phase maximum causing all the trouble we need to match the source with the load, that is the wormhole entrance to the wormhole exit. We have never really bothered with this as long as the entrance and exit mouths were large enough for a ship to pass. And I suspect this matching will be a challenge to implement as it will probably have to be accurate to a few parts in a million.”
Emmy was silent as Elias seemed to be going over her talk in his head. Finally he said, “You might think about using the pipe of a pipe organ as your analogy since it has some physical reference to a wormhole. Although I do see how the string analogy allows you to bring in the machinery of complex numbers in the form of electric circuit analysis.”
He was silent and then smiled.
“And if you can prove your analysis with experimentation we could call it wormhole tuning.”
Emmy laughed.
“There's one thing grandfather. Once I'm ready to do experiments I was wondering if I could use your old equipment? I understand you donated it to the university when you moved?”
“Yes of course Emmy. I'll help you with it and Dag is also trained in its use. But we will have to find an off campus site as the experiments can be a little exciting.”
Emmy nodded her head and smiled. She knew about the history of her grandfather's exp
eriments with wormholes and the times he had blown up his lab.
Wormhole Physics 101, 8th Edition, by Dr. Elias Mach
Copyright 2640 C.E.- Chapter 7, Page 223
Wormhole Generator Design
The design of a wormhole generator is very much a materials problem. The Mach device is made up of three layers, each with its own special characteristics. In the lab these layers are most easily implemented by three concentric spheres. In spaceship design the layers take the form of three rings, one atop the other, usually adhered to the outer hull of the rotating crew wheel.
The innermost layer provides a solid support for the outer layers and contains the material which supplies the negative mass or exotic mass needed to open a wormhole mouth.
The next layer is the actuator layer which drives the Mach effect in the outer layer and is usually made of a PZT (lead-zirconium-titanate) composite. A large voltage is supplied to this layer and driven with a sinusoidal signal.
The outer layer, the Mach layer, is made from a material with a large capacity for internal energy change. And when it is driven by a quickly ramping voltage applied to the actuator layer it will shield the innermost layer from the universal mass.
The final essential element for designing a wormhole generator is that the layers should be in acceleration. In the case of a spaceship this is usually accomplished by the rotating crew wheel which not only provides the artificial gravity for the crew but also provides the acceleration, always remembering that a change in direction (the turning wheel) is also an acceleration.
They had found a place off campus and outside the town not far from where Elias had originally experimented. They were surrounded by fields and the densest forest in the habitat. An old building on the site served as the nucleus of the lab and soon the automated construction equipment and girder walking 3D printers had the walls going up for the buildings expansion. Elias had the machinery push berms up on all sides of the lab just in case. Any explosion would be forced up and away from the surrounding countryside.
Mach's Legacy Page 5
