Quantum Times (13 page)

     “I don’t know that it is even possible in this age of the Internet – information flows too freely.”

     Scarpetti shrugged, “Perhaps…but I think we have to try. We can’t afford to lose control of this. People would start looking to the Universe for assistance and stop looking to government. We could lose our hold on them. And the people aren’t ready to deal with mind over matter. That would put too much power in their hands.”

     Greene was not surprised by his friend’s answer, though he didn’t agree with it. With all that had happened in the last couple of days he’d been forced to accept that major changes were looming. As intelligent as he knew he was, he knew there was no way he could anticipate all that was ahead. He had decided the best he could do was to help steer its military implications. “You think the government is ready for this new power?”

     “Absolutely! We are the only one’s who’ll know what to do. We have the smartest people in the world within our government – we have the academic community to draw on. Who else could do it? You know you can’t put this kind of control in the hands of the people. Forget what we say on the campaign trail – this is the biggest thing to hit mankind in a thousand years! Situations like the one that faces us now are what governments are supposed to manage.”

     “You think the government can manage this? This President’s administration isn’t exactly known for management competency.”

     “That’s why I’m here now. I know how to manage this!”

     General Greene had learned to be more cautious in the use of power – like most senior military officers. “So the answer for now is to throw a shroud of ‘national security’ over it all?”

     “Yes! Damn right.”

     “And that’s why we just took a writer from The Washington Post and a Nobel Prize winning physicist and put them in isolated detention, shut off from communication with anyone.”

     “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 of stars in it, is just one of ten to the 500
th
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.”