Quantum Times

by Bill Diffenderffer

  “That’s what the President wanted – and I agreed. We didn’t want to do it, but national security required it. Otherwise David Randall could write all about this at a much deeper level than he already has and it would go on the front page of The Washington Post. And even if we could strong arm The Post into not printing it, David could post it on the internet and the world would see it.”

  Scarpetti paused but only for a moment, “And if Dr. Wheeling started writing his views, it would be even worse – now you have a Nobel Prize winning physicist saying it. We can’t unwind that sort of thing. We either control it now or we lose it forever.”

  Greene took another sip of his scotch as he thought about what Scarpetti had said. “You know I think the people will adapt to this pretty well. At the individual level, it will take years before they learn how to do what Planck says is necessary. Meditation isn’t that easy. You ever meditate?”

  “Hell, I don’t have the time.”

  “And there’s the matter of the amplifier,” the General added.

  “The amplifier, yes. Do you think we can put out some kind of electromagnetic wave that would block its transmissions? You know – jam its frequency. Could we do that?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

  “Well get your smart scientists to look into that.”

  General Greene tried a different approach. “In talking with Dr. Wheeling several other thoughts came up. He thinks that with the New Physics we can solve the energy problem. And we can grow more food – enough so no one anywhere goes hungry.”

  “Forget all that! Not our problem. That doesn’t help our government. In the land of milk and honey no one needs big government – or a military for that matter. Let’s stick with what we know!”

  “So how long are we going to keep Wheeling and Randle under wraps?”

  “Until we are sure they’ll see things our way!”

  “That’s what the President wants?”

  “Are you kidding? I had to talk him out of dumping them in some landfill in Maryland. He’s a whole lot harder and tougher than people think.”

  It took Gabriela a whole day to get back to New York from Pirate’s Cay. The boat ride to Nassau took hours and then getting to the airport and waiting for her flight took hours more and then she faced the 3 hour flight and taxi ride back to the apartment in the upper eastside she shared with David. But she had put her time to good use thanks to her cell phone. Dr. Wheeling had asked her to enlist if possible but at least inform other physicists of the results of Planck’s work. The physicists she contacted were eager to meet and a time and place were set. He had said when two nights ago she had told him about the meeting that he would try and call in. She knew that yesterday the professor and David were supposed to have had a meeting at The White House, but she hadn’t heard from him since. She had been trying to call David too but his phone just went to voicemail. She had just gotten the same result now when she tried to call Dr. Wheeling.

  So she resolved to just carry on without their input. She knew what she needed to do. As she stood at a whiteboard in the empty classroom at Columbia she had just started on that.

  It would be better to say that the classroom was empty of students. In front of her lounging on desktops or seated were four of the most distinguished physicists then teaching or researching in the New York area. The classroom was chosen because it had whiteboards; the idea of talking physics without whiteboards would have been just crazy.

  Gabriela had secretly been thrilled when Dr. Wheeling had asked for her help. She knew that Planck’s work would ripple out in the physics world like the ripples caused by a fat man doing a cannonball into the middle of a backyard swimming pool. She wanted to be in the center of that! It could make her career. And now there to meet with her were physicists whose work she had admired since she was a young doctoral student.

  The two physicists who were there from Princeton – the two with the most credentials – were there because they had received a message from Dr. Wheeling a couple of days ago that their coming to the meeting was essential and vitally important. Of the other two, one was Gabriela’s mentor at Columbia and the other was the latest brilliant young physicist who was then at NYU and who happened to be Gabriela’s friend.

  Gabriela had just finished detailing Planck’s work and the events of the last few days. They had recognized Planck’s name as the person The Object was seeking. They had already asked a few clarifying questions about how the group meditation took place and about the engineering of the ear plug amplifier.

  The older of the two Princeton physicists, Dr. Craig Smolin, one of the early disciples of John Wheeler, then asked, “So what exactly does Dr. Wheeling wish us to do? Where is he in this?”

  Gabriela looked at all of them as she said, “First he apologizes for not being here. He is in Washington now as we speak. Yesterday he took the President through all this and he is still caught up with The White House and the Pentagon—I think. His anticipation of that is why he asked me to coordinate this meeting. I think he is concerned that our Government will try to control how this develops – sort of a new Manhattan Project. Dr. Wheeling does not believe that would work in the current environment or be a good idea.”

  “I see.” The others in the room all seemed to agree.

  Gabriela continued, “Dr. Wheeling is also hopeful that you might explore the theory of what Planck is proposing and help iron out its wrinkles. As this goes public he feels it would be very helpful if distinguished and influential physicists such as yourselves could speak up for it. Otherwise misinformation and disinformation could create more confusion and dismay than it already will.”

  “It’s already going to create bedlam!” replied Andrew Susskind, Gabriela’s young physicist friend.

  “And there is still The Object out there, intentions unknown. We may need these new physics!” added Jennifer Davies, Gabriela’s original faculty advisor and mentor.

  Dr. Smolin said, “So let’s get back to the physics – too bad my departed friend John Wheeler isn’t around for this. He would have loved it! And it is not far from what he was thinking. He thought information might be at the core of reality – his ‘it from bit’. He even had a name for it: he called it ‘Participatory Physics.’ Of course Hawking will hate it!”

  Jennifer Davies then spoke up. “It seems to argue in favor of the Strong Anthropic Principal. The idea that the universe is the way it is so as to give rise to life and mind. Planck just goes one step further and says at its most fundamental level the universe is the Observer or Mind or consciousness, take your pick. The laws of physics are its creative tools and mathematics is its form of communication.”

  Gabriela joined in, “And that explains the ‘Goldilocks conundrum’ – why the universe is so uncannily perfect for the creation of intelligent life. Why the force of gravity is exactly what it is, and the same for the strong and weak nuclear forces, and that electromagnetism works just the way it does. All of which are so delicately calibrated, change the force of any one of them even a little, and the universe never forms or at least not in a way that sustains life.”

  The second professor from Princeton, Chandler Freeman added, “Speaking for Super String theorists. We are not going to like this. It suggests ‘intelligent design’.”

  Dr. Davies argued back, “No one is suggesting intelligent design at the biological level. But Super String theorists admit that explaining why the laws of physics and mathematics work so well for the development and existence of life presents a problem – you try and solve that problem with the concept of the multiverse but that just seems to be borrowing a Darwinian model with none of Darwin’s painstakingly developed biological and fossil history.”

  “Well I like putting consciousness at the center of it all.” Andrew Susskind replied. “Super String has major problems. First, in order to explain how our universe can be so perfect for intelligent life it posits that our universe, a universe so vast and old with trillions o
f stars in it, is just one of ten to the 500th power of potential universes – essentially an infinite number of other universes. Of course they have no proof whatsoever of the existence of any other universe – but they believe that they do exist. Sounds like ‘faith’ to me – a word of course they reject. Then Super String needs eleven dimensions, not just three or four counting time, to make the mathematics work. Can’t get the math to work? No problem – just add a new dimension to space/time….Then it just ignores the implications of the need for an Observer at the quantum level and how consciousness came into existence.”

  Chandler Freeman shook his head, “It is true it is not fully worked out; but you have to agree that it does explain much of what we know. It is not out of faith that most of the theoretical physicists on this planet believe in some form of Super String theory.”

  Andrew wouldn’t back off, “Well then, I eagerly await their explanation for how Ben Planck moved the hurricanes with his mind and the minds of his fellows on the island. Or just ask them to explain how Planck turned green bananas yellow in just minutes.”

  Freeman held his hand up, “For now I accept that was done. But we need much more experimental data to confirm Planck’s work.”

  Gabriela felt she needed to get the group back on point. “Let’s not just focus on Planck. Let’s remember that there is The Object up in our sky and all of us can see that. And all of us have observed that it just showed up out of nothing – like a quantum particle popping into existence. And all of us saw those missiles just disappear in front of us. Like a quantum particle popping out of existence. Our current understanding of physics doesn’t allow for any of that given the masses involved! I think we will discover that Planck’s physics does. And I think we should try to figure out how The Object does what it does. And we don’t have a lot of time because I don’t know what The Object is waiting for, but I for one don’t think it is going to stay quiet for much longer!”

  Dr. Smolin stood up from where he was sitting, not to leave but to get their attention. “I think we have only scratched the surface of what we are confronting. Let’s put the issue of the role of consciousness aside for the moment. Gabriela’s point is a good one. How did The Object arrive here? I hear people talking about a wormhole or some such nonsense. And some talk about traveling faster than the speed of light. I think more nonsense. Einstein isn’t wrong there. But The Object is proof that something else is at work. And I believe that there will be more changes to our understanding of physics than just those associated thus far with Dr. Planck. We are at the beginning of a new frontier.”

  “But why isn’t it doing something? It’s just up there doing nothing!” Andrew said.

  Dr. Smolin shook his head, “Oh I don’t think it is doing nothing. We know it has no language problem with us. And we know it understands our electronic devices better than we even do -- it uses them in a way we can’t duplicate. No it is not doing nothing. I’m certain it is studying us -- studying us in great detail. But why is it studying us and what will it do when it is finished its study?”

  Jennifer Davies then spoke up, “One thought occurs to me. I start by choosing to believe that most of what we know about physics is in fact true. It also seems that most of what we have been talking about is best explained by what we know of how particles behave at the quantum level. I plan to go back and think about what if one could apply consciousness to alter matter in ways consistent with quantum behavior with the one exception that added mass is not a constraint.”

  As often was the case, Gabriela was on the same wavelength as her mentor Jennifer, “That would bring into the discussion quantum entanglement and other strange particle behavior.”

  “Yes, it would. And we know that entangled particles can instantly affect each other regardless of the distance separating the two particles. The limitation of the speed of light does not apply to them.” Jennifer Davies assented.

  “Very interesting. I think we all should get to work,” Responded Dr. Smolin.

  That evening Gabriela returned home eager to share her day’s events with David. She had held her own with some of the best minds in the world of physics. David would downplay it; not to belittle it but because he believed of course she could do it! She still hadn’t heard from him but felt sure he’d call if he wasn’t home already. But when she arrived home he wasn’t there and she could see he had not been there earlier. She realized she hadn’t heard from him in two days – the last time they had talked was the evening before his morning meeting in The White House. It had been bothering her all day that she couldn’t reach either David or Dr. Wheeling but now it really hit her. Where was David?

  She needed someone to talk to but now realized how much she depended on David to be that person. She didn’t really do the girlfriend thing. Most of the people she worked with were men and the few women friends she had had no clue about the work she did – and frankly that never bothered her much. Her relationship with David filled that void. At the end of the day they would usually go out to one of several restaurants they frequented and they’d talk. David understood what she did and she loved hearing about the research he would do as he wrote about some new scientific development.

  They talked about getting married but so far David hadn’t showed up with a ring and she didn’t bring it up. They both said they couldn’t imagine taking time out for children but that wasn’t as true for her now as it had been. They were happy together, and had enough friends who weren’t happy in their relationships, that they told each other that they didn’t want to change anything.

  She loved that David was so even tempered but could get all excited about some new scientific development. At heart he was a jack of all trades kind of guy – no one thing could hold his attention for long. And he was so smart that he could learn the basics of anything regardless of complexity and then be able to communicate the core ideas so that anyone could understand them. That was his real gift.

  Now she really wanted to talk to him and she didn’t know where he was. And the hours were just creeping by. She tried to catch up on her emails but couldn’t stay focused on them. She realized she should eat something though she wasn’t hungry. She microwaved a Boston Market dinner which she ate while watching an old movie on television and then went to bed and slept badly.

  By late afternoon the next day she still hadn’t heard from David. Now she knew she had to do something; but what do you do when your boyfriend goes off to meet with the President of the United States and then you don’t hear from him again? She tried Dr. Wheeling’s number again and just got voicemail again. She realized that whatever had happened to David had probably also happened to Dr. Wheeling. And she also realized that filing a missing person’s report or checking for unidentified males at local hospitals wouldn’t be much use.

  Then she thought about reaching out to David’s uncle, General Mark Randall. She knew David had been in contact with him. It took her some time but finally she found the general’s contact information. But before she tried to call, her phone beeped with a text message.

  The text read, “Don’t worry about David we’ll take care of it” and it was signed Planck.

  Gabriela’s relief was immediate – David was all right! And so apparently was Planck! Then her curiosity hit her. Where was Planck? And how did he know David was OK? And who was the ‘we’ he referred to?

  Chapter Six

  “The universe does not exist ‘out there’, independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which is happening. We are not observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe….Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.”

  John Wheeler, Princeton Professor of Physics and one of the most highly regarded physicists of the 20th Century

  Hank Scarpetti walked in to see his boss, “Mr. President we have a problem.”

  The President looked up from his desk in the Oval Office. “What’s happened?”

 
“The Object just told us to return Dr. Wheeling and David Randall to Planck’s island in The Bahamas unharmed and immediately.”

  Annoyance plain on his face, the President shook his head, “Is it another worldwide blast?”

  Scarpetti could see the President’s stubborn streak setting in. “It appears not. But the message is on my smartphone and on my laptop. Why don’t you check yours – almost no one has access to that.”

  The President opened a drawer and pulled out his phone. For security reasons he rarely used it. He turned it on and looked at it. The message was there too. He nodded to his Chief of Staff. “How would it know we have Wheeling and Randall? No one was supposed to know!”

  “I don’t know sir.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would it care? And why does it think it can just order us around?”

  Scarpetti refrained from saying the obvious. “I think The Object could have put the message out worldwide which would have been much worse for us politically. I think it’s trying to work with us on this.”

  “What the hell is The Object anyway? How in hell does it even know who Wheeling and Randall are – and I repeat, why does it care? …..So you think we have to do it?” The President pulled on his right earlobe, a gesture Scarpetti had seen many times when the President seemed confused about an action to take. “Can’t we just hide them away somewhere and claim to know nothing about them?”

  “Mr. President this isn’t some newspaper with a story. Or some accusation by a Senate subcommittee. Those we can ignore. We can tell them whatever we wish. We don’t know what the consequences could be here. At a minimum The Object could communicate it worldwide – that would not be good for us.”

  “So I have to do it? …I’m tired of the goddamned Object just orbiting around over my head, over my country, and then sending out cryptic text messages worldwide. Why won’t it communicate with me? First it cares about this damn Benjamin Planck. Then it cares about a damn physics professor and a newspaper writer! But the President of the United States it doesn’t care to talk to. What sense does that make?”