The Oppenheimer Alternative

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Why?

  All those years ago—damn near thirty!—he’d been hauled into the office of the head of the Cavendish Laboratory, accompanied by his parents, who had been visiting Cambridge. His father brought along the latest acquisition for his art collection, a Renoir portrait of a young girl purchased from a London gallery (“a little something for above the lab’s fireplace,” Julius had said with a wink, as he handed it over). Robert had been asked to explain why, oh, why he’d coated the apple meant for his tutor, Patrick Blackett, with cyanide.

  But he couldn’t explain—not then, not in front of his parents. He couldn’t tell them how his heart, and other parts, yearned for Blackett, how, as Pauli had recently been saying, the universe would not allow both of them to occupy the same space, and so—don’t you see?—one had to go. Instead, he’d offered an answer that belied his intellect, thus denying his defining characteristic, but left private matters private.

  And now, here, in Washington, he took a deep breath and repeated his reply from back then, verbatim, in a low, diffident tone. “Because,” he said, “I was ... an idiot.”

  Robb made a sound in his throat. “Is that your only explanation, Doctor?”

  Oppie roused a little. “I was ... reluctant to mention Chevalier.”

  “Yes.”

  “No doubt somewhat reluctant to mention myself.”

  “Yes. But why would you tell him that Chevalier had gone to three people?”

  It had worked at the Cavendish, damn it all. Soon enough he’d been on his way, briefly into the care of Freud’s disciple Ernest Jones and then off to Göttingen. But you can’t change one, let alone many, experimental parameters and expect the same result. “I have no explanation for that,” Robert said, his voice still soft, “except the one already offered.”

  “Didn’t that make it all the worse for Chevalier?”

  “I didn’t mention Chevalier.”

  “No, but X.”

  Robert frowned, considering this, then tilted his head in agreement. “It would have.”

  “Certainly! In other words, if X had gone to three people that would have shown, would it not—”

  “—that he was deeply involved.”

  “That he was deeply involved! That it was not just a casual conversation.”

  “Right.”

  “And you knew that, didn’t you?”

  Knew? Could have reasoned out, perhaps. Might have hypothesized. But knew? Oppie shrugged a little. “Yes.”

  Robb was brandishing a transcript. “Did you tell Colonel Pash that X had told you that the information would be transmitted through someone at the Russian consulate?” Oppie, feeling nauseated, said nothing. “Did you?”

  “I would have said not, but I clearly see that I must have.”

  “If X had said that, that would have shown conclusively that it was a criminal conspiracy, would it not?”

  If ... If ... “That’s right.”

  “Did Pash ask you for the name of X?”

  “I imagine he did.”

  “Don’t you know whether he did?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did he tell you why he wanted it?”

  “In order to stop the business.”

  “He told you that it was a very serious matter, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t recollect that, but he certainly would have.”

  “You knew that he wanted to investigate it, did you not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And didn’t you know, Doctor, that by refusing to give the name of X you were impeding the investigation?”

  He looked at Kitty, impassive next to Lloyd Garrison, Oppie’s lead attorney, then back at Robb, practically a silhouette, looming in front of him. “I must have known that.”

  “You knew, Doctor, that Colonel Pash and his organization would move heaven and earth to find those three people, didn’t you?”

  “It makes sense.”

  “And you knew that they would move heaven and earth to find out the identity of X, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you wouldn’t tell them?”

  Except for the upward lilt, it wasn’t a question, but, as the silence grew, Oppie replied, “That is true.”

  “How long had you known this man Chevalier in 1943?”

  “Perhaps five years. Five or six, probably.”

  “How had you known him?”

  “As a quite close friend.”

  “He followed the Party line pretty closely, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, I imagine he did.”

  “Did you have any reason to suspect he was a member of the Communist Party?”

  “No.”

  “You knew he was quite a Red, didn’t you?”

  “I would say quite Pink.”

  “Not Red?”

  “I won’t quibble.”

  “You say in your answer that you still consider him a friend.”

  “I do.”

  “Doctor, I would like to go back with you, if I may, to your interview with Colonel Pash on August twenty-sixth, 1943. Is there any doubt now that you did mention to Pash a man attached to the Soviet consul?”

  “I had completely forgotten it. I can only rely on the transcript.”

  “Doctor, for your information, I might say we have a record of your voice.”

  Jesus fucking Christ. “Sure.”

  “Do you have any doubt you said that?”

  “No.”

  “Was that true? Had there been a mention of a man connected with the Soviet consul?”

  “I am fairly certain not.”

  “Dr. Oppenheimer, don’t you think you told a story in great detail that was fabricated?”

  Oppie exhaled noisily. His pipe had gone out, but he passed it nervously from hand to hand. “I certainly did.”

  “Why did you go into great circumstantial detail about this thing if you were telling a”—Robb made quotation marks with his fingers—“‘cock-and-bull’ story?”

  Oppie could feel his heart hammering. He shook his head slightly, not in negation but as if trying to get loose components to fall back into place. His tone had become defensive, high-pitched. “I fear that this whole thing is a piece of idiocy. I’m afraid I can’t explain why there was a consul, why there were three people approached on the project, why two of them were supposedly at Los Alamos. All of that seems wholly false to me.”

  “You will agree, would you not, sir, that if the story you told to Colonel Pash was true, it made things look very bad for Mr. Chevalier?”

  Oppie coughed. “For anyone involved in it, yes, sir.”

  “Including you?”

  “Right.”

  “Isn’t it a fair statement today, Dr. Oppenheimer, that, according to your testimony now, you told not one lie to Colonel Pash but a whole fabrication and tissue of lies?”

  It wasn’t a criminal proceeding, Oppie knew; it wasn’t even a trial. If only it had been. No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. Ah, but apparently the Fifth was for tax frauds and grifters, not those who had won wars.

  He closed his eyes, closed them tight, closed them as if against a blinding, piercing explosion. “Right,” he said, the word all but lost to the wind.

  Chapter 42

  I go to my office at the Institute solely for the privilege of walking home with Kurt Gödel.

  —Albert Einstein

  On his visits to the I.A.S., Dick Feynman had observed the ritual often enough to discern its pattern. Kurt Gödel’s office was in room 210 of Fuld Hall, directly above Johnny von Neumann’s. Albert Einstein was seventy-five now, and his hearing was failing, but Helen Dukas, his secretary, apparently knew the distinctive echo Gödel’s footfalls made as he descended the east staircase,
and she would alert Albert as soon as they’d begun. By the time Gödel, who would turn forty-eight at the end of this month, was making his way along the first-floor hallway, Helen would have gotten Einstein into his jacket.

  Oppenheimer wasn’t at the I.A.S. currently—he was in Washington, dealing with that security-hearing bullshit—and so there was no one here today to play policeman, meaning, as far as Dick was concerned, this was the perfect opportunity.

  When visiting the Institute, Feynman normally worked in the east library on the second floor. At just thirty-six, he was fleeter of foot than either the arthritic Einstein or the valetudinarian Gödel, and he’d started moving as soon as he’d heard Gödel emerge from his office across the hall. Dick was down the central staircase and out the main doors before the east door had debouched either of the older physicists.

  When they did emerge—Gödel in something parka-like against imaginary cold, Einstein with just a light jacket over a cardigan that protruded below the jacket’s hem—Dick boldly strode over to them. “Why, Professor Einstein! Dr. Gödel! What a pleasant surprise!”

  Einstein’s hooded eyes focused on him, and it was clear he was trying to place the face.

  “Dick Feynman. I work with Hans Bethe at Cornell.”

  That merited a nod.

  “And John Wheeler was my thesis supervisor.”

  “Ah, Wheeler!” said Einstein, clearly pleased. Interest in general relativity had waned during the thirties and forties, but Wheeler had done much of late to revive it.

  Gödel, peering imploringly through round glasses, had said nothing but was clearly counting on Einstein to dispense with this interloper. Everyone knew that the Einstein-Gödel walks were sacrosanct.

  Dick was indeed conscious that he was intruding. True, he was known for not being intimidated by great men—Niels Bohr prized his company precisely because he was perfectly willing to shoot down the Nobelist’s ideas. But, damn it all, a chance to talk with the greatest physicist of all time and the greatest logician since Aristotle was not to be passed up. And one or the other of them just might have the answer he needed.

  It was a little before 2:00 p.m.—neither of the older men kept long office hours—and Dick rubbed his hands together appreciatively. “Such a beautiful day for a walk. May I join you?”

  The habitually taciturn Gödel was wearing a white linen fedora. “Actually ...”

  Dick knew in this case he would have to offer a present up front if he was going to get what he wanted. “Dr. Gödel, I’m fascinated by your concept of a rotating universe. Won’t you explain it to me?”

  To his delight, Einstein added, “Ja, Kurt! See if you can make it make sense to him.” The wizened face turned to Feynman. “I don’t understand it myself.”

  Feynman started walking backward, facing the other two. He knew where they were going, of course—the mile-long journey to Einstein’s house at 112 Mercer Street, after which Gödel would continue alone to his own abode, 1.6 miles farther on, at 145 Linden Lane.

  Gödel wasn’t yet convinced. “You’re not a spy?” he said in his thick German accent.

  Feynman tried not to laugh. Gödel’s paranoia was almost as legendary as his hypochondria. “No, sir. I’m part of the Arbor Project. I’m working with Kitty Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard.”

  “The death of humanity,” said Gödel, with no apparent regret. “It was inevitable.”

  “Not if we can help it,” said Dick.

  “You could still be a spy. Klaus Fuchs was.”

  Dick knew this wasn’t the time to mention that he and Klaus had, in fact, been pals at Los Alamos. “I play the bongos. No one trying to be inconspicuous would do that.”

  “There, you see!” crowed Einstein, delighted. “Logic, Kurt!”

  “All right, all right,” said Gödel, holding up his hands. “Rotating universes, is it? Very well.”

  Dick turned around and fell in next to Gödel—he didn’t have the chutzpah to try to take the place between Gödel and Einstein. Most of quantum physics had left these two behind—“we are museum pieces!” Einstein was said to have exclaimed recently—and they rarely spoke to any other scientists anymore.

  “Albert thinks the universe is immortal and immutable, and he has added his ‘cosmological constant’ to relativity to ensure that,” said Gödel. “To make the universe beautiful, he says, because he thinks aesthetics are important! But me? I’m a simple man—I love the pink flamingo on my lawn, which Albert dismisses as kitsch—and I will force nothing to be a certain way just so that it is more appealing to the mind’s eye. We can dispense with the cosmological constant if we are willing to assume either an expanding universe—”

  “Such nonsense!” declared Einstein.

  “—or,” continued Gödel, “if we allow for one that rotates.” They turned left on Olden Lane. Einstein, frowning, lit his pipe. “And one that rotates does produce an exact solution to Albert’s field equations.”

  “And in such a universe,” Feynman provided, to show he was following along, “the centrifugal force caused by the rotation of the universe would keep everything from collapsing under the force of gravity.”

  “But to propose a universe so finely tuned!” said Einstein. “Nonsense.”

  “Maybe,” said Gödel, amiably. “Or maybe we’ll find someday that any universe that can support cohesive matter, complex chemistry, and eventually life must be finely tuned. Eternity is the concert, but you must tune your violin before you begin to play it, Albert.”

  “Except you don’t believe in eternity,” declared Einstein.

  And this, Feynman knew, was the key point. Gödel’s rotating universe allowed for what he called closed time-like curves, in which paths through space-time loop back on themselves, permitting, as his paper on the topic said, “travel into any region of the past, present, and future, and back again.” Indeed, his theory had such curves passing through every four-dimensional point: regardless of where or when you were, you were on a closed time-like curve and theoretically able to follow the loop backward or forward. That meant there was nothing special about the future as opposed to the past—or about the present.

  Einstein was happy to accept that there was no one “present”—no “now” universally shared by all; that notion was one of the cornerstone breakthroughs of relativity. But he also held nonetheless that for any individual the past was both done (immutably fixed) and gone (no longer existed in any material sense). Conversely, he contended the future didn’t yet exist, and therefore was uncertain and malleable. In contrast, the closed time-like curves Gödel was postulating gave no special character to any class of moments—none were irretrievably gone, nothing was forever written in stone, everything was up for grabs.

  “An assault on the very nature of time!” Einstein declared as they came to the intersection of Olden Lane and Mercer Street. Appropriately, they did not meet orthogonally, but rather obliquely to their right and acutely to their left. In curved space-time, no true right angles really existed.

  They continued to argue as they walked along Mercer. The shade was intermittent; many trees were still acquiring their spring wigs of leaves.

  “Besides,” continued Einstein, “we clearly do not live in a rotating universe. Such a universe would not appear like, say, a geologist’s solid-rock core sample when spun, in which everything would seem to rotate at the same speed. No, general relativity demands in such a universe that far-away galaxies should be seen rotating slowly around us—and they aren’t.”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” said Gödel. “I don’t argue for one second that my metric describes our universe—merely one that your equations make possible.”

  “But, you know,” Dick said, “we should be living in a rotating universe. There are an infinite number of possible rotating universes, including one degree clockwise per day, two degrees clockwise per day, and so on, plus the equally infi
nite counter-clockwise versions. But there’s only one non-rotating possibility: zero degrees in either direction. And I distrust anything that is a special case.”

  “As one should,” said Einstein. “But the observational evidence is clear.”

  Einstein’s white-clad house was just a block and a half up Mercer from where they’d turned, and soon enough they were upon it. The three now stood outside its small wrought-iron gate, and Dick hoped briefly that Einstein would invite them in. But instead he said, “A pleasure, young man. And Kurt, although I don’t believe in closed time-like curves, I do look forward to reversing our course tomorrow morning.”

  Gödel tipped his fedora at his friend, and Einstein made his slow way through the gate and up the four steps to his front door. Feynman and Gödel stood there, and it was clear by his fidgeting that Gödel wished Dick would go off in a separate direction now—that damned paranoia again. And so, since it was make-or-break, Dick dived in. “But what if our universe is rotating in a way that would make it seem like it isn’t?”

  “You mean a very slow rotational speed?”

  “No. But you know what John Wheeler proposed: that maybe there’s only one electron in the entire universe, and it just keeps moving backward and forward in time so that there seem to be a gazillion of them?”

  “Ah, yes. Furchtbar herzig. A charming conceit.”

  “But what John didn’t take into account is that an electron moving backward in time is a positron. My diagrams—”

  “Oh!” interrupted Gödel. “That’s who you are! The young man with the squiggles.”

  Feynman grinned. “Guilty as charged. Anyway, of course, if an object containing an electron moving into the future happens to be rotating clockwise, it can be considered just as validly as that same object containing a positron rotating counter-clockwise.”

  Gödel’s eyes closed for a longer-than-normal blink as he visualized this. “Right, yes. Of course, this isn’t Uhlenbeck’s electron spin, but—”

  “No. Electrons and positrons spin in the same direction. I’m talking about the gross physical rotation of whatever object the electron or the positron happens to be part of. If something is corkscrewing right as it goes into the future, it’ll be corkscrewing left as it moves into the past.”