by Frank Smith
"We have this peculiar behavior of cosmic rays in the presence of a host," I said, "a host consecrated by either an ordained Catholic priest or an ordained Episcopal priest who happens to be a woman."
"Ok, let's call all that 'Stage One'," she said.
"Stage One it is."
"Good. Now, Stage Two. If your divine hypothesis is correct my successful experiment would testify to the validity of Anglican Holy Orders and the validity of women's ordinations, both of which are denied by the Catholic Church."
"It would be revolutionary," I said. "Physics in support of religion."
"I'm not so sure Rome would see it that way," she said. "I think 'physics in support of heresy' might be closer to their take on it. Also, physics replacing religion has historically been the case: Greek gods moving the planets, angels flapping their wings to keep the same planets moving, earth gods causing volcanos, sea gods causing hurricanes. Not a single supernatural explanation of a natural phenomenon has held up against scientific scrutiny. Not one."
"And," I said 'I believe we will eventually find a natural explanation for this cosmic ray strangeness too but let's just explore the divine hypothesis, unlikely as it may be."
"Okay, let's speculate that the explanation of these strange observations is that a consecrated host contains the real presence of Christ who then- you'll have to help me out on this -who then does what?"
"Who creates, channels, redirects, whatever, the sub atomic particles that make the tracks; direct intervention by the deity into the physical world."
"Which is the definition of a miracle," she said. "Let's examine that. I find major problems both scientific and spiritual."
"I'm listening."
"The spiritual first. The only reason that we would entertain a divine hypothesis at all is because of our belief. Give the results of these same experiments to non-believers and the probability that they would come up with divine intervention is zilch. They might agree that the phenomenon is mysterious or weird but they are not going to inject God into the mix."
"Okay. Good point. What's your scientific objection?"
She drank the last of her coffee and threw the cup in the basket. "The hypothesis is 'ad hoc'. It applies only 'to this' phenomenon. We don't use God to explain any other physical phenomena. Not anymore. If we use God to explain the cloud chamber tracks how do we know that God exists? Where's the proof? Belief isn't good enough for a scientific explanation."
"I know this has weakness as a scientific experiment but supposes we look at it as purely a religious experiment. I'll repeat my original question. Do you want to participate?"
"I'm undecided. Let me tell you why. First of all, what you are asking me to do is to test my faith. I don't need proof of my beliefs. Now you ask me if I want to test them out, to make a choice which you did not have to make. You just fell into this."
"True," I said.
"Secondly, I think you're jumping the gun. I think you probably will find a rational explanation for all this. Give yourself a chance to find it and if that fails then we can take the divine hypothesis more seriously and I'll reconsider my involvement. Does that seem reasonable?"
"Fair enough," I said. "So you are interested?"
"How could I not be? This is fascinating. Keep me in the loop. I wish I knew where you go from here."
I thought about what Georgina said when she left. Maybe I didn't know where I was going but I knew where I wanted to go. I wished that my life could get back to normal. I turned on my laptop to check emails but opened its "restore" utility instead. If the performance of the computer deteriorates I can restore the system to an earlier point in time when there was no problem. I have the setting adjusted so that the computer automatically establishes restore points weekly. I scrolled down the list of points to a week last summer in mid august. I had just finished summer school classes and Olivia and I were down the Jersey shore at my mother's place. Vicki and Joey came down and we spent a couple of idyllic days on the beach during the day and putting the kids on the rides at Wonderland on the boardwalk at night. If our lives had a "restore" utility, that week would be my restore point. No CDF. No threatening emails. No murders. No errant cosmic rays. Life does have restore points of a sort. It's called nostalgia. There's just no return key. No, my life couldn't return to normal. "Normal" priests did not have daughters, girl friends, or fianc?es. Almost normal would be nice though.
CHAPTER 36-KING KONG
Gravity is certainly normal and Tuesday morning I immersed myself in it. We no longer need angels flapping their wings behind the planets to keep them moving. Newton replaced the angels with a force; the same force that makes an apple fall to the ground- or a giant ape fall from the top of a building. I wheeled a large cart into the lecture hall. It held a small stuffed monkey, a two by eight-foot-long slab of plywood, cut and painted to vaguely resemble the Empire State Building, and a box of stop watches. Class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 to 10:15 was physics fun time.
When I started at PaCom I inherited the department's general education physics course. It bored the students and it bored me so I changed the syllabus slightly and renamed the course "Hollywood Physics"; same physics principles but different applications. Now we use physics to calculate how fast Superman must be travelling at takeoff to actually "leap a tall building with a single bound". It's more interesting than the same problem using a cannon ball. So is a calculation to determine if a thin spider web is strong enough to support Spiderman's weight and also supply the centripetal force necessary to swing from building to building. Now we have a waiting list to get into the course. This was "Retro Week" starring the 1933 version of King Kong.
"Those of you on the ends of the rows please come up and grab some stop watches and pass them down your row. There's not enough for everyone, so share. I want you to observe this film clip carefully. I'll ask a few questions about it when it finishes." I clicked on the laptop plugged into the projector.
Arms lifted, wounded in the chest and bleeding, King Kong rose to his full height and swatted at the planes as if they were annoying mosquitoes. A Curtis biplane headed directly at him, its twin nose guns blazing. Rat-a-tat-tat. Clutching the fatal wound to his neck Kong gave up the fight and fell to the street below. Barump! I clicked the pause button and faced the students.
"Okay. Before I showed you that clip I asked that you observe it carefully. How many did?" Most hands went up, some tentatively. "All right. When Kong let go and fell, about how long did it take for him to hit the ground? One second, five, ten?"
Most hands quickly went down. I called on one of the remaining brave souls. "John?"
"About five seconds?"
"How many think five? - more than that? - less?" I'll get back to that question in a minute. Let's talk about the fall. Obviously the film makers didn't take a huge gorilla up to the top of the Empire State and push him off. Right?"
Some laughter. They were waking up. "No, they used a model." I walked over to my plywood Empire State Building that was standing upright on its wooden stand. "Here's my version of that model-straight from your local Home Depot. And, here's King Kong," I said holding up the stuffed monkey. "Curious George has agreed to stand in."
More laughter. Some of the students were smiling and leaning forward in their seats anticipating my next move. "We're going to make our own King Kong movie -at least pretend to. I think we're all set. When I drop George start your stop watches and stop them as soon as you see him hit the floor. I'll drop on 'go'. Ready, get set-go!"
Lots of stop watches clicking, lots of mumbling, and a few curses.
"Not so easy, is it? The fall takes less than a second. What are some of your results?"
I put a sampling of the shouted numbers on the board. They ranged from about a half second to a little under one second. "Quite a scatter," I said. Okay, good. Now, watch the film clip again. This time use the stop watches to time Kong's fall on the screen. Turn on when his feet separate from the buildin
g and off when you hear him hit the ground."
I clicked on the "play" button. Kong leaned back. He fell, bumped a ledge, fell the rest of the way. Barump! "Okay. Before I ask what times you measured let me ask this question. When Kong fell did it seem realistic? What I mean is did the time of the fall feel right? Not too fast or not too slow? The real time of fall for the miniature Kong in the film to fall from the model building was just about what you got with our model-an average of about seven tenths of a second. Now, what times did you get for the fall on screen?"
I wrote "Screen Time of Fall" on the chalkboard. "Carl?"
"I got eight point two seconds"
"Maria?"
"Seven point nine."
After collecting about twenty measurements I had the students average them. They got eight point one seconds.
"So, in the studio it took about seven tenths of a second for the model Kong to fall but on the screen it takes over eight seconds. What did they do? Peter."
"They played it back in slow motion-slowed down the projector in the theater by a factor of-he grabbed his calculator-a factor of eight point one divided by point seven or?eleven point six. Roughly twelve times slower."
"You're almost right, Peter. However, they did it at the other end. Filmed the drop faster than the normal frame rate so that when the film is played back at the normal projector frame rate in a theater it takes much longer. You'll have another chance to observe King Kong before Thursday's class. Pick up the hand-out problems on your way out. In one of them you must use the kinematic equations for free fall to calculate the time to fall from the real Empire State Building and to fall from the model used in the film. Take the height of the model to be eight feet." One hand went up.
"What's the height of the Empire State Building?"
"That's part of the problem. Google it. Also, the 'youtube' address for the clip I just showed you is on the sheet."
My cell phone vibrated on my belt. Caller ID displayed the number for Munchkin House. Was Olivia sick?
"Okay, see you Thursday," I said to the class.
CHAPTER 37-OLIVIA'S CLOSE CALL
I stepped into the adjacent storeroom to take the call.
"This is Louise Carpenter, Dr. Donnelly. I just wanted to check with you. We have only the names and pictures of your mother and Mrs. Meyers as authorized to pick up Olivia and Mr. Donnelly is here and wants to take her?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Donnelly. Your father?"
"Louise, listen to me closely. My father died five years ago."
"Oh my gosh!"
"Stay calm Louise. Can this guy hear you?"
"No. He's on the enclosed porch. But he can see me."
"Are you on the phone in the hallway?"
"Yes."
"Where's Olivia?"
"She's in the library with the other children for story time."
"Okay. Now, push the button by your phone for campus security. When you hang up pick up a child's jacket, any jacket, from the coat rack and walk into the library as if nothing is wrong and you're going to fetch Olivia. When you get inside lock the door. I'll be right there."
I would have sprinted to Munchkin House if I could. Classes were changing and getting through the hundreds of students and faculty crowding the Quad was like trying to pick my way through a maze. When I finally got there four campus police Segways and a Philadelphia Police Department squad car with its roof lights flashing were in the driveway. I bounded up the porch steps and through the door, my heart pounding, and bumped headlong into Chief Robinson of the campus police.
"She's okay, Doc. She's okay. The guy was gone when we got here. The PPD officers are in Mrs. Carpenter's office taking a statement. They'll want to get some information from you also."
"In a minute," I said. "I want to see my daughter." I headed toward the library door where Mrs. Bertino was standing.
"Olivia doesn't know anything about this, Doctor Donnelly. Maybe it would be better to leave it that way; not scare her or the other children. They're in the middle of a Peter Rabbit story."
To ease my fears Chief Robinson came over with another campus cop.
"Doc, this is Carlos Ramirez. Carlos is going to remain here for the rest of the morning and this afternoon 'til the shift change at three when another officer will stay until closing. What happened today should not have occurred. I'll send an email or a letter out today to the parents of every child at Munchkin House describing what happened and my decision to tighten security by assigning an officer to permanent Munchkin House duty. No one should have to worry about their child's safety when at school. I'll worry about my budget later."
I shook hands with Robinson and Ramirez and thanked them. Both were armed. Our campus police are not "rent-a-cops" but real police with full arrest powers. Robinson led me into Mrs. Carpenter's office where I talked to the PPD officers for a few minutes. The younger of the two officers said they had a description of the suspect and would arrange for someone from police headquarters with an Identikit to visit Mrs. Carpenter in the afternoon in the hopes of getting a likeness. The older officer said that maybe I would be able to identify "the creep".
I left after thanking Mrs. Carpenter and picked my way through the small group of students who had been attracted by the flashing bar on the squad car.
"Was it a bomb threat, professor? Was anyone hurt?"
Another kind of threat I thought. I stopped in the chapel at the Newman Center. I needed to calm down and talk to my boss.
CHAPTER 38-OLIVIA GETS HER WAY
I lied to Tom Lacey. I do scare easily. After I left the Newman Center I walked around campus letting off steam and resisting the impulse to go back to Munchkin House and take Olivia home. Finally, I forced myself to go back to my office and prepare for my one o'clock class. Lunch was a pack of peanut butter crackers and a Hershey bar from the emergency rations in my desk drawer. My mind refused to get serious about celestial mechanics so I lifted some problems from a couple of textbooks and made six copies of the set for the students in my theoretical physics class.
"I want you to work on these problems together this afternoon. Make yourselves comfortable in the seminar room. None of the four are easy but to make it worthwhile I guarantee that at least one of them will be on the test next week. I'll be in my office if you need help." The students did a good job hiding their disappointment at missing my lecture on planetary transfer orbits.
I puttered in my office, straightening books on the shelves, wiping the inside of the microwave, and taking everything out of my briefcase and holding it over the wastebasket to knock out the dirt and crumbs. That was such I good idea I did the same with each of my desk drawers. I found a lost pair of sunglasses, a half-eaten candy bar, and a golf ball. When my office looked better than it had in years I tidied up my computer, defragmenting the hard drive, scanning for viruses, and getting rid of temporary files. While deleting emails that the spam filter had missed a new entry announced itself with a beep. In the subject bar, all in capital letters, appeared, "PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS." The message was, "JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE HOW EASY IT WOULD BE. DON'T IGNORE MY WARNINGS."
I immediately replied, "Who are you?"
No answer. The sender's email address was a chilling "[email protected]." Again I typed, "Who are you?" Nothing, but I already knew who it was; Pen Pal, aka "M", aka "the creep". I saved the message and forwarded copies to Angela Rossi and Chief Robinson.
I had enough threats for one day and picked up Olivia early. We went to her favorite playground where she played on the "big girl" swings. Olivia has the pumping action down pat and can now hit the bumps without any help from me. We made a stop for Chinese take-out and another stop, by request, at McDonald's. My mother was surprised and happy to see us.
"This is a treat, Frank. I was getting ready to open a can of soup for myself. I love chicken with broccoli. Now, I don't want to interfere but how can you feed chicken nuggets and French fries to this child? And a chocolat
e milkshake?"
"She can eat her peas and carrots tomorrow, Mom. Today she wanted a happy meal and today Olivia gets whatever she wants."
"Can I have two stories before bedtime, Daddy."
"You can have three."
"And you won't skip any pages, Daddy?"
"Not a one, sweetheart."
I learned a few things that day. Since Father Soroka's death was not an accident then the email was likely from his killer and the veiled threats in the previous "priests should be truly priests" emails were now all too real. Could they also be connected to the threats to my priesthood from the CDF?
Olivia fell asleep half way through her second story. I tried to watch TV. A Fox News commentator was strongly hinting that God was on the side of the Republicans. On MSNBC He seemed to be favoring the Democrats. Was He on my side or the CDF's? I was certain He wasn't on a killer's side. I prayed for guidance; for how to protect those I loved, for how to deal with the CDF, with what was going on in a two-gallon aquarium in my lab, and most of all, with my quest to marry Vicki.
Later I took my Bible from the drawer in my bedside table. I fanned the pages, and stuck my finger blindly on a page. I read a passage from Joshua.
Be strong and of good cheer,
be not afraid,
neither be thou dismayed:
for the Lord God is with thee,
withersoever thou goest.
"Be not afraid"; the words that John Paul had said to me so long ago. Okay, I'd try. In the meantime I was not going to sit around waiting for another shoe to drop, either from "the creep" or from the CDF. I needed help from Angela Rossi and her colleagues to nail pen pal. This had to stop. And I needed help with the cloud chamber experiments
CHAPTER 39-DOUBT
The following afternoon I took the digital cameras from the cosmic ray experiment back to my office and transferred almost four hundred photos into the computer. Fifty-three showed noticeably increased activity; presumably those taken when I was near the cloud chambers. Most of the extra tracks were not unusual except for some straight and horizontal tracks which did not resemble typical cosmic ray activity. It was not beyond my students to perpetrate a hoax. Last year one of the lab groups got me going with a photo showing some unusual curved tracks. It was a week before I discovered that if I looked at the curved tracks as a group rather than focusing on individual curls I was looking at a line drawing of Mickey Mouse. There were no cartoon characters in the present photos.