Quantum Times

by Bill Diffenderffer

  Planck nodded, “More trial and error than theory. And it doesn’t receive, only send. We may be talking to the universe, but it is not talking to us.”

  Nodding again the professor said, “Of course. I meant it receives your thoughts – not those of the universe. The electronics themselves I’m sure are quite simple.”

  Planck smiled, “Perhaps not that simple for me. Getting it calibrated to read very faint electromagnetic waves took some doing.”

  “Yes but the theory is not new.”

  “Agreed.”

  David interjected, “In doing the trial and error…what was the experiment?”

  Planck smiled again, “Not very original, I’m afraid. We moved pennies with our minds.”

  “You can move pennies with your minds repeatedly and under observation?”

  “Yes,” Planck replied, and then added, “But we found that moving objects through space takes a lot of mental effort. It really is not something the universe wants to do. It prefers to change the state of things. That is easier. Like turning off cancerous cells in the body… or making green bananas ripen.”

  Almost concurrently Gabriela asked, “You can cure cancer?” and David asked, “You can manipulate matter at the molecular level?”

  “Yes and yes. But we are still learning. We are at the very beginning of the journey.”

  Gabriela’s eyes were wide with excitement, “But why are you keeping this a secret? You should be publishing your work, get the peer review, and wait for the Nobel Prize!”

  Planck just shook his head, “It scares me to death.” The three of them just looked at him, not understanding. Planck went on, “If it weren’t for the appearance of The Object we would not now be talking about this.”

  Then Dr. Wheeling started nodding his head again. Whereas just a few moments earlier his eyes had been bright with excitement and a smile had danced on his lips, now his expression had turned somber and his eyes had narrowed with apprehension. “I think I now understand what the scientists working on The Manhattan Project felt as they designed the first nuclear bombs,” he said. “The social and political implications of Planck’s work are staggering!”

  “One more question Planck before I must go and just think about things. Am I correct in surmising that the distance between the participant or participants who are engaging in the mental exertions and the object that is the subject of those exertions -- that distance between them is largely irrelevant? The trick…no not trick…the change you just effected to our bananas, you could have done that with us in the room or the bananas could have been 5 miles away or five hundred miles away or even five million miles away?”

  Planck regarded the professor with a look of grateful appreciation. Dr. Wheeling’s mind could advance with his own down the dark hidden pathways of a reality that glimmered tantalizingly close.

  “Yes professor that is correct. The challenge is to locate the object in the mind. Where it is physically doesn’t seem to matter. But you need to have a very precise vision of where it is exactly. You can’t just give GPS coordinates.”

  Dr. Wheeling’s expression turned gloomier, “Oh my God. Mankind is not ready for this.”

  When Dr. Wheeling walked away wanting some time to think, Planck too said he had some things he had to do. All agreed to meet in three hours for dinner and to resume the conversation. Gabriela and David went back to their room and decided to take a walk along the beach. They changed into shorts and tee-shirts and walked out of their room and soon had the sand underfoot and the cool ebb and flow of the sea nuzzling their ankles. The sun was nearing the horizon and a breeze lightly drifted over them dissipating the lingering heat of the day. Though they walked holding hands their thoughts were far from any notions of romance.

  The writer in him led David to composing paragraphs in his mind that he was afraid he might never see published. “We are now among the very few people in the world who know that the laws of physics … the laws of the Universe …allow a man with just his mind –“

  “Women too!” Gabriela interjected.

  “Yes. Allow a person with just his or her mind to alter the molecular structure of matter and to move that matter through space. Moreover we know that this power of mental manipulation can be enhanced with a simple electronic device that broadcasts electromagnetic waves to an accommodating Universe that is apparently open to suggestions. So, you want to change the weather? Move a hurricane from here to there? No problem. You want to cure your friend or colleague of a brain tumor? No problem! Your fruit isn’t ripe yet? No problem! Who knew?”

  Gabriela kicked some of the surf at David. “That’s why you are a writer and not a physicist! Think about what we are learning! Is everything we thought we knew about physics wrong or does this fit somewhere in it or on top of it? Planck several times mentioned ‘The Universe’ as if it is a partner in this. I can’t wait to find out what the frequency is of Planck’s little device. Is the Universe really listening to it? I think we are going to have to redefine what we mean by ‘the Universe’.”

  David kicked some water back at Gabriela. In doing so he took note of how great she looked in the little cropped off tee and running shorts she had on. Looking at her, people would have guessed swimsuit model long before they would have considered astrophysicist. As he was thinking about what they might do back in their room before dinner, Gabriela said, “You never told me how good looking Planck was.”

  “Ten years ago he wasn’t. It’s not that he looks so different – but now he just looks better. I guess he works out now but not then. He looked more sickly and neurotic then….Why? Do you find him attractive?” David had always been good enough looking in the sandy haired boy next door way to not have to think about how he looked. Now however, comparing himself to Planck, he felt like he might be losing out. Planck he was sure would fine Gabriela beautiful – and he didn’t seem to have anyone.

  “Let’s see… he sort of looks like Brad Pitt and his IQ is probably around 200 and maybe his work will rewrite the laws of physics. And he doesn’t feel the need to talk all the time. Sounds to me like he’s every brainy girl’s dream!”

  David started to think about whether he should be worried. He didn’t normally think in those terms. Actually it had never occurred to him before, but he had to admit, Gabriela could easily find Planck very attractive. He found he didn’t like that thought at all. He tried to not think about it, and yet there it was in his mind again.

  Gabriela had a delighted little smile which she hid from him when she saw the effects of her words about Planck. She took his hand and said they should go back to their room. She seemed to have the same idea in her mind that David had a few moments earlier. Apparently all the talk about physics was a turn on. Or maybe it was just the island palms swaying, the setting sun and the warm ocean breeze on their bare skin. The laws of chemistry, if not physics, seemed to be working as usual.

  Later when David and Gabriela went to rejoin the professor and Planck, they found them already in spirited conversation sitting at a table on the outdoor patio. “David, Gabriela, I’m glad to see you. Planck and I have been having a wonderful conversation. My recent work and his actually coincide….He has just been much bolder than I have in pursuing the logical extensions of what our studies and theories have been telling us. Once again it is the young minds who lead the old in Physics.”

  Planck looked up at them with a smile and waved them to take a seat. “Dr. Wheeling is too modest. I am already sitting at his feet and learning. I was right in sharing my secret with him… and you too.”

  “So where are we?” David asked as he and Gabriela took seats around the table.

  The professor took the lead. “Basically we have three challenges to overcome and all three need to be addressed quickly. The first is what to do about The Object wanting to communicate with Planck? I think we know why it wants him and perhaps even how it found out about him.

  “The second challenge is in advancing the understanding of the P
hysics involved in his work. In dealing with The Object, whether it is friendly or hostile, we may need to use what Planck has been discovering.

  “The third challenge is in determining what to do about releasing to the world generally and other physicists specifically the results of Planck’s work. We must do so for two reasons: one because others are probably working on it already – rarely are even the most brilliant breakthroughs not being worked concurrently by one or two others and their purposes may be less benign than Planck’s. Second, the existence of The Object and the challenges it presents us may require full exposure.”

  “Wow,” David uttered.

  Then Gabriela interjected, “Since we are physicists I think we should start with the second challenge. The better we understand the actual physics involved the better we should be able to address the other two challenges.”

  Dr. Wheeling and Planck both agreed. As it was Planck’s nature to talk little and the professor’s nature to lead any intellectual conversation, he spoke first.

  “My new friend Planck and I have been talking for over two hours and in those two hours my thinking has crystallized more than in the last twenty years. The foundation for all physicists’ dream of a Theory of Everything is found in Planck’s work. Not surprising to me is that it is rooted in extending quantum physics to the Einstein world of large masses. What happens at the absolutely tiny quantum level sets the rules for the universe itself.

  “As we all know, it has been well accepted for years that an “observer” is necessary at the quantum level to turn potential mass into real mass. Without an Observer the world – the universe itself – is just a wave function of probabilities. Until the Observer shows up, nothing actually happens. Without an Observer, the universe, as it was at the time of The Big Bang, is almost without mass but it has almost limitless potentiality.

  “The Universe then consists basically of the laws of physics spoken in the beautiful language of mathematics. The laws of physics and our mathematics are the Universe. But there is something else lurking out in the universe –something that changes everything – literally changes everything. It is the Observer. Or as it is better described, it is “Consciousness!” Dr. Wheeling paused and took a sip of the ice tea he had placed on the table.

  Planck at this point spoke up, “The issue of consciousness is what has absorbed me from my first studies in Physics. My intuition from the first day was that rather than being a by-product of the universe, it was the universe itself. Consciousness is The Observer required by quantum physics—and it is in everything! A man’s consciousness is just a piece of it. Moreover, the universal consciousness that exists – and always existed – has two imperatives of its own, for reasons I have no idea, but it is observable. The first imperative is to expand! It has a deep hunger for expansion. That is why the universe itself is expanding. And the second imperative is complexity. The more complex the universe is, the more interesting it becomes. A man’s brain –or a woman’s brain,” Planck added with a glance to Gabriela, “is perhaps the most complex structure in the universe – at least it is so far of everything we have discovered.”

  “So much for Occam’s razor!” David interjected. “You know I never did like the idea that a simple theory is better than a complex one. That to me seemed just a contrivance to make Physicists’ work easier.”

  The professor chimed in here, “And this is where Planck made his breakthrough! He theorized that the Universe –‘consciousness’ – needs instruction. It wants to be told what to do. It has been waiting patiently for us to develop enough to replace the burden of potentiality it has borne with our own wants and requirements – something that we have probably been doing since our earliest days as microbes without really knowing that we were now dictating to the universe what we needed and wanted.”

  David added, “So this universe/consciousness ‘encouraged’ the development of increasingly complex biological entities which ultimately became us and now it is willing to do what we want it to do? Isn’t that a lot like the doctrine of Intelligent Design which all serious scientists hate the idea of?”

  Dr. Wheeling shook his head, “What we are saying is not Intelligent Design. But we know simple organisms evolved to greater and greater complexity. Most of the organisms’ efforts failed biologically but some succeeded by virtue of Darwinian selection. And we know that at some point in the chain of evolution that consciousness evolved to the individual level. Besides most scientists – physicists especially—prefer to ignore the consciousness issue altogether. It is the elephant in the kitchen that is so inconvenient. We know it exists but why and how?

  Planck shook his head. “I think, David, consciousness is not just a property of higher forms of being, just in us. I think it is meaningless to think of it as separate from all matter, organic or inorganic. But we have become self-aware and now our will is stronger within its massive vastness. But the point is yes, the universe will within some as yet unknown limits do what we want.”

  David said, “You know what’s funny? My sister receives a blog every day from quote the Universe close quote that gives very positive advice about how the universe wants her to get everything she wishes. And in fact there are lots of people who just generally believe that if you work hard at something the universe will aid and support –help you get what you want, that it is on our side. I’ve talked to a lot of people that believe that – not in a scientific kind of way but just a casual but real belief. I’ve heard business leaders say that if the team all will work in the same direction that the universe will support their clear intentions. I’m just saying, a lot of people believe that.”

  The physicist in Gabriela was fully engaged, “So where is the energy output for all this? Energy has to be involved to perform these changes of state at the massive level we are talking about.”

  “Precisely!” Dr. Wheeling exclaimed. “And the answer lies in something we have only recently come to believe in. An energy so vast that it moves galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars –“

  “Dark Energy!” Gabriela said, “It must be Dark Energy.”

  Planck nodded, “That’s what I think. We theorize that all of the matter and energy that we can observe is but 4% of the universe and that 96% is Dark Energy and Dark Matter – most of that Dark Energy. Imagine if that can be put to our use!”

  For all four of them the potential change in the world they knew was overwhelming. They sat silently pondering this strange new view of their universe.

  “So as to The Object wanting to communicate with Planck,” Dr. Wheeling stated, “I think we now know ‘why Benjamin Planck’ and how they came to know of him. I think they somehow know how to trace unusual displays of Dark Energy – just as we know how to spot unusual electromagnetic displays. And they traced that Dark Energy back to Planck.”

  David’s mind was now in overdrive, “So what should worry us is that what we are just figuring out, The Object has already mastered. If so, they are so much more powerful than we are that they could annihilate us – our whole planet – the way North and South Korea just annihilated themselves!”

  David thought about it some more and then said, “Planck, if The Object wants to talk to you, I think you better give them a call.”

  The leader of the Alien Earth Expedition stood on the grounds of Lafayette Park in Washington D.C. looking at the home of the man who was the most powerful human on this planet. In the weeks since the Expedition had arrived, he in particular had been responsible for understanding the leadership and government structure of this particular country – the country which from a militaristic standpoint was most clearly capable of global domination. His seconds in command were even now visiting the countries here called China and Russia and some political combination called Europe, but those countries were both less powerful militarily and less of a cultural leader.

  The Alien Leader had admired the architectural beauty of the structures he had seen as he walked through this city. They spoke of grand vision
and humanistic pride; they promised foundational strength for future generations. From what he had been learning, their leaders and legislators did not measure up to the architectural promise. Small minded partisanship ruled over wisdom and balance. The fateful signs of economic stagnation and political decoherence were everywhere visible to his experienced eye. And if it was so visible here then it would be worse in the other leading nations whose histories he had now accessed. This world was ripe for destruction.

  The population’s inclinations seemed guided toward their lowest common denominators. Leaders were chosen based on charisma and patently unredeemable promises rather than experience and judgment. Empty ideology was communicated as if bearing great truths. The galvanizing strength of Balance was nowhere understood.

  In all the media he had been observing it also was clear that the virtues of respect and politeness, honesty and self-discipline were ignored. Vacuous celebrity ruled. He had seen countless proofs that the destinies of civilizations were cast by the values evident in those civilizations. This was a civilization in decay. Now its true mettle would be tested and he doubted it would pass the test – a test that was rigorous and demanding, brutal and without conscience.

  He was not unsympathetic to the people or dismissive of the government’s good intentions. The problem here he believed was that the political leaders had no true understanding of the challenges posed by accelerating technological development. Predisposed to solving future problems with solutions from the past, these leaders offered no new visions and would be blindsided by unanticipated challenges. Enormous challenges lurking twenty to thirty years in the future were either unknown or disregarded, yet these challenges would be upon them in a mere blink of civilization time.

  The Alien leader had seen the consequences of civilization decay on other worlds – and always the political leaders had failed to recognize the early signs. Instead, in their ignorance and egotism, they pranced about in their robes of self-importance giving meaningless speeches and posing and basking in media’s glare. The people they served said nothing, though they knew better. No child stepped forth and asked why their emperors wore no clothes.