Einstein's Bridge

by Cramer, John

  Tunnel Maker considered his options. He could continue on the present course. He could try other more energetic transmissions, bursts of positrons, muons, gamma rays or antiprotons that might attract attention to the Bridgehead. Or he could notify the Concantation of Individuals that this attempt to establish contact with a microcsopic Bridge had failed and that the time had come to enlarge the Bridge to macroscopic size and perhaps send an Emissary through the Bridge aperture.

  It was clear that he must allow more time before approaching the Concantation. And increasing the energy of the signals had its dangers for the inhabitants of the other Bubble, who might be damaged by the radiation. He would save it as a last resort. He decided that he must be patient. Experience with other contacts indicated that communication often required a dozen or so rotations.

  Tunnel Maker resolved to wait for at least another dozen rotations before taking any further action. The waiting vigil was the most difficult part of contact.

  CHAPTER 5.2

  The Desert’s Edge

  GEORGE sat in the third row of the SSC’s large lecture theater. The room was about one-fourth full. The speaker was a distinguished theorist, a Nobel laureate and holder of an endowed chair on physics at an ivy-league university. He waved the laser-spot pointer at the diagram projected on the tall screen at the front of the room. He was discussing the Energy Desert and once again raising the possibility that particle physics, as practiced at the SSC, was about to come to an end.

  George had heard this argument before. The progress of particle physics had been driven by a succession of ever more powerful accelerators beginning with E. O. Lawrence’s original cyclotron and culminating with the SSC. The field had advanced in a series of carefully orchestrated leaps, quantum jumps from each particle accelerator to the next new and more powerful one. And like clockwork, again and again new phenomena, completely unexpected discoveries, had appeared when each new accelerator began to produce its higher energy particle beams. One of the wisdoms of science is that to see what none have seen before you must look where none have looked before. That maxim was epitomized by the unbroken chain of remarkable discoveries that had emerged from experimental particle physics from the 1930’s onward. But the chain could break.

  The pessimistic argument that the speaker was presenting was that, in his esteemed judgment, the chain of new discoveries was indeed about to break, the series was about to terminate. With the wisdom of hindsight one could see that the great discoveries of particle physics had all been consequences of the fundamental underlying structures of matter, the quarks and leptons and the “carrier” particles that mediated the fundamental forces. The set of these particles now seemed almost complete. All the expected quarks and leptons had been found, culminating with the discovery of the top quark at Fermilab in 1994-95. The Higgs particle, presently being sought in different ways by several experimental groups at the SSC, might be the last piece in the cosmic puzzle. The next generation of particles might lie vastly higher in energy, at the “Planck scale,” the mass scale set by the smallest possible black holes, the domain where gravity and the three other forces of nature must unite into a single force.

  If that was so, the SSC was the end of the line for accelerator-based particle physics. There was little point in building an even more powerful machine. From the SSC at the edge of the desert, a vast energy wasteland stretched from the Higgs to the Planck scale, a great energy region where nothing of interest would happen, where no new particles would be discovered. Where the dance of theory with experiment to produce new knowledge was about to come to an end.

  The QCD Standard Model worked too well, the speaker declared. There would be few surprises in the energy region that the SSC had opened to exploration. Experimental particle physics was reaching its logical conclusion. He advised the younger physicists in the audience to begin preparing for an alternative career.

  George thought of the violet track with its 29 clusters of jets, and he laughed. Others near him glanced curiously in his direction. He knew something that the speaker had come to doubt. The universe is indeed a far stranger place than is dreamed of in our philosophies.

  George’s cellphone made a chirp. It would have to be of some importance, he thought, because he had set the threshold at a fairly high urgency level. As unobtrusively as he could, he squeezed down the aisle past several sets of knees, shrugged at the speaker in apology, and walked up the aisle to the rear door.

  When he was in a quiet place, he pressed the receiver button of the device. “George,” said Wolfgang, “I wanted you to know that there was a cancellation in the superconducting metallurgy group’s schedule. We have time on their X-ray fluorescence microprobe on Monday morning at 7. Is that OK with you? If it is, I will prepare an insert now, so it will be ready to go on Monday.”

  “Monday morning is fine,” said George. “I could even have some results in time for the group meeting at 10 AM. I’m scheduled to report on our progress then. I just hope this works, Wolfgang. If those speckles on the pixel chip aren’t the problem, we’ll have to go back to square zero.”

  “Just one step at a time,” said Wolfgang, “as they used to tell us in the East German Army.”

  CHAPTER 5.3

  Jukin’ at P.J.’s

  ALICE and George returned to their table at P.J.’s, rejoining Roger and Susan. Alice seemed happy and a bit out of breath. George was glad that his initial performance as a dancer to country and western music had been at least adequate.

  He had never been to P.J.’s before, although he’d heard about it from the students. He was glad that their table was well away from the juke box, permitting some conversation. George looked at Roger. He was looking pretty good, considering. “Howler you doing, old friend,” he asked.

  “Fine,” Roger said. “It was a bit disconcerting to have a seizure, particularly when I’d never had one before, but there seem to be no lasting effects. I slept eight hours last night, woke up feeling fine, and I’ve felt unusually relaxed all day.”

  “Yes, he’s fine,” said Susan, apparently speaking with some authority.

  “So you think you know where your Snark-thing stopped?” Roger asked. “That’s exciting.”

  “Maybe,” said George. “We tracked it to a particular lead-glass scintillation counter. The slow-control archives show that about the time of the Snark event, that unit started drawing excessive photomultiplier string current and has been doing so ever since. It could be that the Snark is embedded in it and is making it scintillate continuously. It could also be that the Snark or something else caused the unit to develop a light leak.

  “In any case, the unit is drawing excess current and needs to be replaced. I’ll do that as soon as there’s a shutdown. That will be when the next maintenance cycle starts and the circulating beam in the ring is dumped, maybe in a week. Then we’ll see.”

  Roger nodded sagely and patted George on the shoulder. “Retain your faith, my son,” he said. “Everyone must believe in something. In my own case, I believe that I’m ready for another Lone Star. Anyone else want one?”

  Alice and Susan both nodded.

  “Sure,” said George. “Western dancing promotes a powerful thirst.”

  Roger disappeared through the crowd in the direction of the bar.

  “Well, look who’s here,” said a voice.

  George turned to see Belinda walking toward them, accompanied by a man who looked familiar.

  Belinda was wearing a flowery low-cut dress, her astrological jewelry setting off her cleavage. She smiled at George. “Hello Dr. Griffin. I’d like you to meet my friend Whitey,” she said. “How are you, Miss Lang. We spotted you folks over here and came by to say hello.”

  “George, Whitey is my next door neighbor,” Alice said.

  George shook hands with Whitey and introduced Susan. “It’s a small world.
And I’m George, not Dr. Griffin,” he said. He gestured to a pair of chairs at the table. “Why don’t you two join us?” He recognized Whitey now. The man had a reputation as an electrician who was smarter than he looked and could deal with the tricky problems.

  “Surely would like that,” said Whitey, and they sat down. Conversation was becoming difficult as the music increased in volume. Finally, Whitey turned and said, “Alice, I was wonderin’ if you would do me the honor of a dance.”

  “Of course,” said Alice. They walked toward the dance floor just as Roger was returning with four long-neck bottles of Lone Star. George introduced him to Belinda and explained that Roger was a new arrival from CERN.

  “How do you like Texas, Roger?” Belinda asked. Roger looked around the room. “I’m liking it more and more,” he said. “It has its own unique flavor, and I seem to be acquiring the taste. You have good people here.”

  Belinda nodded. “Did you know,” she asked, “that a lot of famous Americans originally came from Texas? Like George Washington?”

  George saw that a tall Texas tale was coming and smiled.

  “George Washington came from Texas?” asked Roger, looking skeptical. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Belinda, smiling. “The story goes that little George got a small hatchet for his eighth birthday, and he went outside the ranch house and cut down his father’s favorite mesquite bush with it. When Father Washington came home from rounding up his herd, he noticed that his mesquite bush had been cut down, and he became very angry. ‘Who in the Hea-yul cut down ma mesquite bush?’ he demanded. George walked bravely up to his father and said, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet.’ Father Washington scowled down at his son for a long time. Finally he came to a decision. ‘George,’ he said, ‘you go on in and pack up your saddle bags. Tell your Ma we’re movin’ to Virginia. You’re sure as Hea-yul never gonna make it in Texas!’”

  Alice and Whitey returned to the table while the others were still laughing. “It’s a wonderful coincidence that we met you here,” she said to Belinda.

  “It’s particularly nice because Whitey’s on the night shift this week and he was scheduled to work tonight,” Belinda said. “He was supposed to be doing wiring at the lab all night, but one of the ring quadrupoles quenched. They had to rearrange the schedule and let him off, so we decided not to let a perfectly good Saturday night go to waste.”

  George looked up in surprise. “The ring is down?” His thoughts were shifting rapidly, formulating a plan .

  “Sure is,” said Whitey. “Hell of a mess. Gonna be down ‘till they change out that quad. They sent all the operating crews home for the weekend.”

  George abruptly stood. “Then, I’m very sorry, but Alice and I have work to do. We’re off to hunt a Snark.” He looked as Susan and Roger. “Sorry. I’d planned to do this next week, but if the ring is down now, we’d better take the opportunity.”

  “I completely understand,” said Roger. “I hope you find something.”

  “Good huntin’,” said Whitey.

  CHAPTER 5.4

  Into the Pit

  ALICE followed George out of the elevator to the LEM pit floor. She’d been rather annoyed by George’s abrupt announcement that they were leaving P.J.’s. But she also realized that she would have asked to come along, if he’d consulted her.

  It was cool in the pit. George had given her a white lab coat to wear over her dress, for which she was grateful. A few lights supplied illumination, but most had been turned off when the crew left, and George had not turned them back on. She sniffed the now familiar smells of machine oil, electrical insulation, and cleaning solvents, and the mustiness of the underground installation. Further down the tunnel she heard a click, and puffs of steam began to billow outward. Cryogenics, she thought.

  George consulted a printout. “This way,” he said. They rounded the corner of the giant detector and stepped into a shadowy region.

  It was spooky, Alice decided. This would make a good set for a horror movie. In fact, it was just the place for an attack of giant mutant fire ants.

  “Here’s where it is,” said George, looking up. He walked to a rack, typed something into a keyboard mounted there, and flipped several switches. “Do you know how to operate a beam crane, Alice?”

  “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head, “they didn’t have many of those in the newsroom.”

  George smiled and shrugged. “OK,” he said, “you can watch and call for help when the experiment falls on me.” He walked to the wall and removed a control box on the end of a long wire. He pressed a button. The relative silence of the pit was broken by the jolt and hum of electrical machinery going into operation. A long horizontal steel beam rolled out from the wall along parallel rails until it was directly overhead. He touched another control and a square-ish assembly at one end of the beam rolled in their direction, a hook dangling below it by several cables.

  George wheeled a tall stepladder over to the detector, climbed it with the control box under his arm, removed a cover plate, and very slowly, with occasional adjustments of the crane, slid a long tray out of the detector, so that its outer end was supported by the crane hook. Alice could see that the tray contained a row of long slabs encased in black plastic, stacked like fallen dominoes or shingles on a narrow roof. The “shingles” were studded at their upper ends with silver plates trailing bundles of electrical wires.

  Carefully George removed the electrical connectors from one of the units and slid it out of the array. He slowly descended the ladder holding the unit in the crook of his elbow and placed it carefully on a workbench. Then he opened a cabinet and removed an identical unit. “We have spares,” he said, “and that one needed to be replaced anyway.” He climbed the ladder, slid the new unit into its place in the array, connected the wires, slid the tray back into the detector, and replaced the cover plate. He descended, restored the switches to their original positions, and typed commands into the keyboard and studied the screen. “Everything is back to normal,” he said, picking up the unit he had removed “and the other scintillators are much happier with this one gone.”

  George walked to a tall blue cabinet that stood back against the gray concrete wall and removed a small instrument . “This,” George said, holding up the instrument, “is a radiation survey meter for checking radioactivity.” He placed the round end of the survey meter against the unit in his hand. The instrument chirped every few seconds, and a digital readout on its face read “0.1 mr/h.” Then he slid the device along the length of the unit. As he neared the far end, the chirp rate increased sharply, and the readout changed to “1.3 mr/h.” . “I’ll be damned!” he said. “It does seem to be a bit radioactive.”

  “Isn’t that what you expected?” Alice asked. “Isn’t that what this was all about?”

  George turned, smiling. “Sure, but it was only a wild idea,” he said. “I didn’t really expect to find anything. Chances were, this thing had only developed a light leak. There’s almost never any measurable radioactivity from events in the detector after the beam goes off. But the Snark made jets all along its path from ejected quarks and gluons. If it could do that, it might disrupt normal nuclei and make them radioactive, so I thought it was worth checking the level of radioactivity.”

  He walked to the cabinet, replaced the meter, and closed the door. He took a small knife from his pocket, and cut at the black tape on the outside of the unit. It peeled back, to reveal a transparent crystal interior.

  In the dimness of the area, Alice could see that a blue glow illuminated the crystal inside, and that the glow was centered at a tiny blue point near the end of the bar. “Is that the Snark?” she asked, feeling a rising excitement.

  “It must be.” said George. “It has to be! We did it, Alice. We’ve captured our Snark!” He placed the glowing scintillator bar on the
workbench, slowly gathered Alice to him, and kissed her. She was surprised but responded with some enthusiasm, and they stood together for a long time.

  Finally they walked to the elevator. George held the glowing bar-like object in one hand and Alice’s hand in the other.

  CHAPTER 5.5

  Prime Flashes

  “...Derek inched along the catwalk, pulling the stiff cryogenic hose after him. Below, Patricia moaned softly as she retreated to a corner where she was hemmed in by the tall racks of electronic equipment. The train of giant fire ants, their clattering venom-wet mandibles extended, strode toward her.

  She lifted a heavy piece of equipment from a table and hurled it at the giant insect at the head of the line. It caught the object in its jaws, then flung it aside with a twist of its giant head. It paused, as if studying her with its jet black compound eyes, then brushed its mandibles with its forelegs.

  ‘Patricia,’ Derek called from above, ‘turn your back on them and cover your face with your arms. I’m going to try something.’ She looked up at him, then turned as he had directed. She was sobbing softly to herself, waiting for the mandibles to dig into her back, waiting for death.

  Derek twisted the valve at the end of the long corrugated hose. A jet of clear, steaming liquid nitrogen leapt forward and cascaded downward, producing great plumes of vapor as it fell. Derek played the stream directly on the head of the first fire ant. The insect stopped in mid stride. He could hear a cracking, popping sound as the insect froze solid. It did not fall over, but stood rigidly frozen in a six-legged mid-stride.

  ‘It’s working,’ he called down to Patricia. She seemed to be shivering, perhaps from the rapid drop in temperature. He pulled the hose backward now and directed the stream at the other ants in the column. Through the heavy work gloves he wore the back splatter of the liquid nitrogen was slowly freezing his fingers ...”