Mach's Legacy

by D. W. Patterson

  “Okay then let's go to the other end. Once we clear the plasma bring us back to the center of the frame.”

  “Yes ma'am.”

  The plasma had shifted to the top of the wallscreen and was growing larger.

  “Center that image,” said Captain Bryson.

  The plasma globe now filled the screen and was still getting larger. One could feel the closeness of the plasma as it filled the screen to maximum. It almost felt necessary to duck.

  Just then Baskum walked into the room.

  “Captain Bryson what is going on . . .”

  He stopped as he saw the giant glowing globe on the wallscreen.

  “Mr. Baskum this is not the time, return to your quarters immediately.”

  Baskum looked from the wallscreen to the Captain, started to open his mouth but turned instead and left the room.

  The ship trembled.

  “What was that?” asked the Captain.

  “Just a moment,” said her Junior Officer.

  “Ma'am diagnostics reports that we have lost the comm-tower.”

  Amy knew they had made it past the plasma globe with nothing to spare. Losing the communications tower was a small price to pay although it would make docking at Lalande more hazardous.

  A half hour had passed. Captain Bryson was watching the wallscreen. It was hard to tell but the plasma globe had grown a bit.

  “J.O. is that globe getting larger?”

  “A moment ma'am.”

  Junior Officer Stevens consulted the tracking Em.

  “Yes ma'am. The globe has increased speed slightly.”

  “Pilot I told you to pace that thing, increase speed.”

  “Yes ma'am.”

  “How long until we reach the end of the reference frame?”

  “Five minutes,” said the navigator.

  “How long to Lalande's wormhole mouth?”

  “Four minutes,” said the pilot.

  It's going to be close.

  When a ship reaches the end of the frame-dragging effect it usually exits the reference frame out the front as the frame dissolves back into normal spacetime. The Star Traveler would have to exit in the opposite direction while keeping the plasma globe behind it. No one had ever tried it before. Exactly how the knots and ripples of the dissolving frame would affect a ship exiting in that manner was unknown.

  “We're at the dissolve point Captain.”

  At this point all Amy could do was hang on.

  The end of a frame-dragging results in the local reference frame which has been knotted up and slipping through ordinary spacetime becoming un-knotted or dissolved. The knot in spacetime must now smoothly release without any rips or tears. This involves dissipating the stored gravitational energy as gravity waves at a scale usually many times that of a ship's size.

  Except, some of the gravity waves are closer to the size of the ship. These ripples not only cause an action like the rising and falling of a body in water but also a stretching and compression of the ship.

  Alarms were wailing as all along the ship's central girder the twisting and turning forces were trying to tear the metal composite apart.

  “J.O. kill those alarms,” said the Captain.

  “Pilot I want this ship turned one-eighty immediately! It's like we are trying to ride water rapids backwards.”

  The ship came around to the new heading.

  “Chief put up the front mag-field.”

  “Ma'am?”

  “I know we're not traveling fast enough to worry about particle collisions, I've something else in mind. Patch the sensor readouts to the pilot Em.”

  The Captain moved to the piloting station as the magnetic field lines displayed.

  “Pilot do you see what I see?”

  “Yes ma'am.”

  “Very well aim for the center.”

  The ship changed course slightly. It wasn't long until the buffeting let up. The pilot kept his eyes on the Em's screen showing the magnetic field lines in relation to the ship. It wasn't long until the churning and twisting field lines smoothed out.

  “I think we are out of the worst of it Captain,” said the pilot.

  “Very well. Plot a course to Lalande's habitat navigation. Engage when ready.”

  Captain Bryson retired to quarters to refresh herself before docking.

  “But how did you know it worked like that Captain?” asked Mr. Baskum when he met the Captain in the habitat's restaurant the next day.

  “Like light,” Mr. Baskum, “which is an electromagnetic phenomena that follows the curvature of space, I thought our front magnetic field which we usually use to turn aside charged particles at speed, could map for us the twists and turns of such a heavily distorted spacetime.”

  “Well that was thinking outside the box. You've saved a lot of lives and saved the company a great deal of money as well as providing a tool to use should these incidents keep occurring.”

  “You think they will Mr. Baskum?”

  “I don't think anyone really knows Captain but once we show others your mapping technique we can at least have a chance against this thing, whatever it is.”

  Chapter 12

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Wormhole Quarantine Zone

  The concentration of energy required to open a wormhole is so great that to chance its use closer than ten AU (about the distance from the Sun to Saturn) from any human habitat is unwise.

  This had been discovered by accident when the wormhole generator was new. It was found that if enough energy could be concentrated at a point in space a dangerous disruption of spacetime would occur that would then propagate away at the speed of light destroying any mass in its way. Fortunately the effect would dissipate over distance and ten AU was thought to be an adequate quarantine for a normal “jump.”

  It would take a 4th generation fusion ship about fourteen days to accelerate/decelerate to that distance . . .

  Eric Jordan's parents were discussing his college future one more time but this time with a different result.

  “I suppose he must go but I want him back during school breaks,” said his mom.

  “Yes dear one, as you say,” said Tomas as he leaned over and kissed his wife. And so it was decided. Their son was going to school in the Centauri System.

  Eric was excited, it was too good to be true. He was going to the Centauri System to study. The physicist Elias Mach was there and Eric knew that he sometimes still lectured at the university in the Centauri Two habitat. Elias Mach was maybe the greatest physicist of all time. And Eric would get there using Mach's greatest invention, the wormhole drive, for the first time. What a change, just yesterday he was resigned to going to school on Titan but the university here could not compare to the greatest Physics department in two star systems.

  Eric had sent his application through the Titan wormhole communications center and after waiting a few weeks he was informed of his acceptance, with full scholarship, but because of his age the Dean of Students wished to meet with him before he was officially admitted. An all expenses paid trip for him and his father was offered by the University for this purpose. The two were to leave the next day.

  “Now, you have all your things you want me to ship packed, right son?”

  “Yes dad. I believe so.”

  “Eric when you get there and get settled remember that curfew is still in effect just like home. You're still growing son you need your rest.”

  “I know mom. I agreed it would be just like home.”

  Eric and his dad had transferred from the Titan shuttle to the wormhole ship. The scene only a couple of hours before with his mom had gone better than expected. Saying goodbye at home she had forced a bag with food, drink and zero gravity sickness medicine into his hands and hadn't teared up. Eric was now in zero-g and wondering if he should take one of the tabs.

  The trip was without incident and Eric and his dad soon got use to the zero-point-four g acceleration and the routine aboard the ship. They arrived at th
e quarantine limit. As they settled into their cabin to watch the wormhole mouth open one of the ship personnel came by to see that their Emmies and wallscreen were synced to the ship's. That way they could watch wormhole formation out the front of the ship as the command crew would see it.

  When the ship finally came to a standstill the Captain's voice came over the Emmies reporting that they would begin the jump in five minutes and that the passengers should watch their screens.

  Eric and his dad had dozed off but came awake with the announcement. This was the part of the trip they had been waiting for. The ship's frame groaned as the Mach effect was established and shielded the inner layer of the wormhole generator from the universal mass.

  Out the front of the ship a shimmering light began to glow. The point of light expanded and became brighter. Around this center point of light, space started to shimmer and the stars started to spread from points into streaks. Eventually there was a circle of bright light around the center, a consequence of gravitational lensing, the effect by which the light of stars behind a massive object (the forming wormhole mouth) is distorted into rings or arcs around the object.

  The center light continued to grow until it appeared a bright opaque bubble in space, large enough to encompass the ship. As this giant bubble solidified the fusion ship began to move slowly towards it. By the time the bubble filled the Emmie's entire screen it was suddenly gone. They had traversed the wormhole.

  Eric looked at his dad, “Did you feel anything?”

  “No son, nothing.”

  “Kind of a disappointment.”

  His dad nodded.

  No one had ever described the traversal. It seemed that it only took a second if that but there was no conclusive evidence of the experience because human and machine seemed to enter a kind of suspension which precluded recollection or record.

  The ship would now finish its trip under fusion power. Eric and his dad settled in for the more boring part of the trip into the Centauri System and the Centauri Two habitat.

  Emmy had lost track of her original research project, a way to transport humans through long-distance wormholes, and was busy experimenting on skyrmions with her grandfather. So far they had been able to create but not control the balls of plasma. The laboratories thick meta-material walls were a witness to their failures.

  “You think so grandfather?” asked Emmy.

  “Yes it is similar to the problem I had when developing the wormhole generator. If I didn't get the voltage ramped up fast enough the wormhole mouth would collapse into a very small black hole and then evaporate through Hawking radiation quickly.”

  “You mean explosively grandfather? Those evaporations are legendary you know.”

  “A few required the autonomous 3D building printers to be called,” he said with a smile. “But I think it deserves a try and I'm going to have Dag present, he's very quick to sense dangerous situations.”

  So the next experiment was set. Elias had beefed up the current supply by using an isotopic reservoir instead of the current generator. An isotopic could supply the necessary current much faster.

  Emmy knew her grandfather was following a hunch rather than any sound calculation but she went along anyway. His hunches were more right than wrong.

  In the control room that day were Elias, Emmy, Dag and Roger. Elias started the experiment by dumping a small amount of current from the generator into the superconducting rings of the skyrmion to prepare them for the later huge inrush of current. After that he watched the current buildup in the isotopics.

  Just as the isotopics topped out Elias switched in the path to the superconductors. Tens of amps of current dumped into the rings in a matter of microseconds. The entire skyrmion structure groaned as if slapped.

  Elias looked to Roger who was trying to monitor current instabilities in the rings. He shrugged.

  That was not the signal that Elias had hoped to see. He started to move to damp the superconducting currents when he heard something that sounded like a jet starting up. He and the others looked at the wallscreen view of the inside of the lab.

  The skyrmion ball was dazzling and literally lifting from its supporting structure as it had done before. But this time it was heading straight up. Elias knew it was too late, once again he had no control over the plasma ball.

  When the plasma ball reached the ceiling it rolled along it momentarily as if looking for a way out. Then it bounced and blasted its way through the roof which was not as sturdy as the walls.

  From there the ball seemed to have a mind of its own as it drifted lazily towards the center of Mecklinburg starting fires and destroying anything in its path. After making its way through a couple of downtown buildings the trajectory imparted to the ball of plasma set it on a course to leave the habitat.

  After encountering the hull of the habitat in a public park the ball dug its way through the soil, the sub-terrain, the radiation protection gel and the carbon composite nano-material where it dissipated most of its energy before exiting.

  “Ball Lightning in a Habitat?” - The New Hope Sentinel, 01.15.2644.

  “Ball Lightning Wreaks Havoc” - The Centauri Journal, 01.15.2644.

  “Ball Lightning or Alien Warning?” - The Centauri Worker's Union, 01.15.2644.

  Fortunately no one was injured during the plasma ball's journey. But the news media hyped the story until something had to be done by the habitat's government.

  Elias made no attempt to deny his involvement but did shield the others. Eventually after a public reprimand and an admonishment not to do it again the incident receded from public memory.

  It became imperative that it be possible to control the skyrmion. The control problem had more to do with the monitoring electronics than the physics. If they could see the magnetic field changes in real-time they could adjust the currents to keep the skyrmion from drifting. But so far the graduate engineer Roger had been unable to do so.

  Eric Jordan had been accepted to the fast track program in the Physics department at Centauri University. In what he thought was the greatest luck of his young life the Mach's had taken him in as a house guest. They weren't even charging him but in return for a free room he was doing odd chores around the house. His mom back home was relieved to know that he was in a mature, responsible household.

  Eric had done several electronics projects in high school and had won several Science Fairs with the projects. Besides his classes Eric had volunteered to work on Emmy's wormhole project as an engineer. Emmy was skeptical at first but when her grandfather had shown her Eric's designs she agreed. Any kid who could design detector electronics for his homemade particle accelerator had the skill and drive to get the job done.

  As a result Eric spent many afternoons working in the lab with Emmy as she was trying to explain what she wanted from the electronics. Roger had moved on to other projects.

  “We very much need real-time feedback from the magnetic fields. My grandfather and I have an idea for controlling the motion of the plasma ball by controlling the currents. Of course once we launch it we'll have to come up with some other kind of control for flight.”

  “So you need millisecond, microsecond or nanosecond response times?”

  “I think you should shoot for less than a hundred microsecond response times. If we can know the entire magnetic field configuration every hundred microseconds and respond in another hundred I think we can control the skyrmion.”

  “Sure I can do that,” said Eric.

  Emmy was surprised and a little skeptical but didn't want to be discouraging.

  Chapter 13

  5/6/2095

  When Dr. Jefferson had recovered sufficiently he went back to the mine to work although with a new respect for the object of his investigation.

  “Are you sure you are up to this Amos?”

  “I'm fine Whitney. But I do intend to be more cautious than I was before.”

  “Good idea,” said Whitney with a smile.

  After a few days ca
refully probing one of the globes Dr. Jefferson was again ready to extract the information he believed it contained. The Canadian military had evacuated the cave except for a detail waiting outside in the entrance area in case they were needed. Whitney and Amos were behind the central hallway door in one of the holo rooms.

  “Okay Whitney why don't we move a bit back before I start.”

  They retreated to one corner of the room opposite the globe that Dr. Jefferson had wired up for inspection. There the military had setup a makeshift barricade for their protection.

  “We should be safe here,” said Dr. Jefferson, “now what I've done this time which I think will make a difference is to allow one of the new Em AIs to act as a interface with the globe. I am hoping that the Emmie can negotiate a protocol to transfer the data I believe is stored in the globe. I believe the incident last time was caused by a mismatch between my equipment and the globe. The globe literally blew itself to pieces trying to force a data rate that was well beyond what my equipment could accommodate.”

  “Switching on now,” he said.

  Except for his tapping the Emmie's screen the room was silent. Dr. Jefferson was intent on watching the readout. He spoke up for Whitney's sake.

  “They are negotiating. Okay there, I believe they have an agreement. Testing the channel, test successful. Here it comes . . .”

  He meant that data was starting to flow into the Emmie's memory. This continued for a minute and then Dr. Jefferson tapped the screen ending the experiment.

  “Oh well,” he said.

  “What is it Amos, a failure?”

  “No, nothing like that. We got the data, its just that the Emmie's memory is full. It seems a thousand terabytes is not enough.”

  “Really?

  “Yeah we only got one billionth of the data in that one globe.”

  “You're kidding. Do you know how many globes are in a room and how many rooms are on this floor and how many floors there are?”