‘Professor, sahib, I have a scrapbook that I made of my grandfather, that I would like to show you.’
Tom groaned inwardly. He wanted to tell Ajay to leave it with him and he would look at it in the morning, but he could tell by the enthusiasm on his face that Ajay literally meant that he wanted to show it to him. Perhaps he regarded it as too valuable an item to let it out of his sight. Tom also recalled making Ajay a promise to finish the stories about his grandfather when they got back to CERN, so he only had himself to blame. So much for an early night.
‘Come in, Ajay. I was just about to make a coffee,’ Tom lied.
Ajay entered the apartment and stood awkwardly by the door.
‘Please take a seat. The sofa would probably be best and then we can look at the scrapbook together.’ Tom beckoned him further into the room.
Ajay eyed the orange sofa as though it was a wild animal.
‘Is something wrong?’ Tom asked, catching his expression.
‘I haven’t been into this apartment since Professor Morantz, since Professor Morantz…’ Ajay was having difficulty finishing his sentence. ‘Since I found Professor Morantz on the couch.’
Well, that certainly answers that question, Tom thought.
‘Okay, if you’re uncomfortable in here, why don’t we look at the scrapbook in your room?’
The suggestion seemed to pacify Ajay and the savage look on his face was replaced by a genteel smile. ‘Follow me, sahib,’ he said to Tom, making a hasty retreat through the door.
Ajay’s apartment was the size of Tom’s living room, not what he’d expected for the grandson of the great physicist. A single bed took up the whole of one wall. Along the wall opposite was a kitchen sink and worktop with a microwave and a two-ring hob on it. Underneath was housed a small fridge. The single window that provided all the natural light was centrally positioned between the two walls, and the ‘designers’ had managed to squeeze a small table and chair underneath it. To the right was a narrow bookcase stacked from top to bottom with books. A door to the left of the kitchen sink was obviously where the bathroom was, Tom surmised. The décor and carpets were the proverbial beige and fawn, although Tom had difficulty in determining the colour of most of the walls as they were plastered with newspaper cuttings.
Tom scanned the articles’ headlines:
‘Massive quake kills thousands in China’
‘Wenchuan earthquake leaves 5 million homeless’
‘Earthquake rocks Port-au-Prince, Haiti, thousands feared dead’
‘Magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes Chile's Maule Region’
‘Tsunami triggered by Chilean earthquake leaves thousands homeless’
‘Pacific coast of Tōhoku, Japan, hit by massive earthquake and tsunami’
‘Earthquake off the coast of Sumatra measures 8.6’
‘Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in melt-down after quake hits’
‘500,000 dead or missing after worst nuclear disaster ever’
‘Are you, by any chance, interested in natural disasters, Ajay?’
‘Not all, only earthquakes.’ Ajay was making the coffee and had his back to Tom.
‘It’s an interesting subject. Would you like to be a seismologist?’ Tom ventured.
‘As you can see, I read a lot of books on the subject…’ Ajay turned around and pointed to the bookcase beside the window. ‘But I don’t think I’m smart enough.’
Tom was getting a bit too tired for small talk. He looked around for a suitable place to sit and chose the edge of the bed. Ajay joined him, carrying two steaming mugs, which he placed on the floor in front of him. He grabbed his scrapbook and sat next to Tom.
***
Tom had finally managed to get back to his bed just after two in the morning. Ajay had gone through his scrapbook, meticulously explaining the contents of each page, in detail. It mainly consisted of press cuttings from the time Satyendra Bose’s historic paper was published in conjunction with Albert Einstein, as well as personal letters from him to his son, Ajay’s father, and postcards to Ajay from the places his grandfather had visited. The last few pages were dedicated to when his grandfather was honoured by the Indian government and ended with his obituary, with eulogies from people who had known him personally through either work or his private life.
Tom had grown very fond of Ajay in the short time that he’d known him. However, fatigue had finally got the better of him and he made his excuses to leave with as much bonhomie as he could muster.
CHAPTER 9
Tom had hit his snooze button three times before he finally gave in and forced himself out of bed. Half asleep, he made his way to the bathroom mirror; the dark lines under his eyes were still there. He decided that a shower was the only antidote to his tiredness; but, no sooner had he turned on the faucet, than the phone rang.
‘Good morning, Professor. I hope I didn’t wake you?’ It was Deiter. Why did he always sound as though he was being sarcastic?
‘Not at all, I’ve been up for hours.’ Tom didn’t want to give Deiter the impression that he was somehow the weaker man for being exhausted – it was childish, but he couldn’t help himself.
‘Good! Then you wouldn’t mind coming into the office to go through one or two things before we set up the initialisation sequence for today’s experiment?’
‘Of course not. I’ll be there straight away,’ Tom said, trying his best to sound wide awake. He hastily put the phone down before he was caught out.
He checked his watch; it was just after 6.30 am. They certainly want their pound of flesh, he mused as he forsook his shower and quickly got dressed. He was out of his apartment within ten minutes and made his way to the main reception building, where he had been dropped off the previous day. It seemed like a week ago.
The complex was as deserted as it had been when he’d left Ajay in the early hours of the morning. As he approached the statue of Shiva, adorning the entrance to the building, he couldn’t help but recall Frederick’s conversation the previous evening. Shiva the Destroyer, he had called it. Surely Brahma the Creator would have been a more fitting donation from the Indian government?
He headed for the doorway but, as he walked past the sculpture, something colourful caught his eye. He looked down at the feet of the statue, where somebody had placed a bouquet of white and red flowers. He stepped closer to inspect them and noticed that there was a card nestled between the stems. He picked it up and read the sentiment. ‘Om Sarva Mangal Manglaye Shivay Sarvaarth Sadhike Sharanye Trayambake Gauri Narayaani Namostu Te.’
Puzzled, he made a mental note to ask Ajay its significance when he next saw him, and returned the card to the flowers before making his way into the building.
Deiter was already discussing the contents of a computer screen with two other people, whom Tom recognised as junior technicians from his previous day’s introductions. There had been too many names to remember and it certainly wasn’t one of Tom’s fortes. He just hoped that he’d be able to pick up their names from Deiter before he was put in an embarrassing position. Deiter obliged almost immediately.
‘Ah Professor, there you are. You’re just in time,’ Deiter said, almost cordially. ‘You remember Max and Peter? We’re just tweaking the Collider’s alignment based on yesterday’s test results.’
He was grateful to Deiter, but he still didn’t know which one was Max and which one was Peter. He played it safe and acknowledged both of them with a single nod.
Tom knew from his research that the alignment of the proton beam was critical to the success of the Collider. The positively charged protons that made up the beam must be aligned and made to bend so as to go round in a circle. This was done by 9,000 magnets strategically placed throughout the 27-kilometre tunnel.
The ‘dipole’ magnets caused the protons to bend consistently in one direction to get round the circle. The ‘quadrupole’ magnets focused each beam so that it stayed compact, to increase the probability of a collision when the beams were brought together. H
aving just one of the thousands of magnets a nanometre out of sync could mean the difference between identifying the God particle and the proton particles missing each other altogether.
‘We’ve fed in the data from yesterday’s tests, made the necessary adjustments to the magnets and now we’re ready to run a computer simulation,’ Deiter informed Tom without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘If you watch the monitors on the wall over there, you’ll see the results.’
Tom turned in the direction of Deiter’s gesture to see five of the computer displays flick to life. The centre console showed a 3D schematic drawing of the LHC. The two on either side displayed the now familiar sets of scrolling green figures.
‘The monitors showing data each represents one of the four detectors placed around the Collider where the two beams intersect,’ Max or Peter told him.
‘And the centre one will show the beams’ trajectories based on our computations,’ Peter or Max added.
‘Okay, run the simulation,’ Deiter instructed.
The centre screen zoomed in on a computer image of the particle accelerator. It was so lifelike, Tom had to remind himself that it was all being generated by a small box under the desk where Deiter was sitting and not hundreds of feet below ground.
To achieve the maximum collision velocity, Tom was aware that it was necessary to give the protons a ‘push start’, using a series of smaller particle accelerators to increase their energy before being released into the tunnel as a beam. Once there, the RF cavities would take over and increase the velocity of the protons until they reached the speed of light.
‘Protons reaching maximum containment velocity,’ one of the technicians announced.
‘Release the first beam in three… two… one… now!’
The computer-generated image panned out to show a bright yellow beam circulating through the tunnel.
‘Release the second beam in three… two… one… now!’
A blue beam emerged, travelling in the opposite direction to the yellow one. The beams intersected at four points on the diagram, indicated by a faint glowing green ball, which seemed to get brighter the longer programme was allowed to run.
‘Why are the intersection points intensifying?’ Tom asked, hoping it wasn’t a stupid question.
‘The green balls represent the number of collisions the protons make,’ Deiter responded, his eyes still firmly glued to the monitor. ‘As the beams speed up, the number of collisions increases, which is why they glow brighter. The figures on the screens give us a prediction of the actual number of hits we’re achieving per second.’
Tom turned his attention to the screens to see the figures steadily increasing.
‘And how long before the beams reach maximum velocity?’
‘Twenty minutes, but we’ll run the simulation for an hour to see if there are any fluctuations in the collision rate,’ one of the technicians replied.
‘You boys having fun?’ Serena Mayer had walked into the office unobserved. ‘Men and their computer games,’ she mockingly chided.
Tom turned to face her. Her green eyes sparkled mischievously, making his pulse race a little faster. He tried to play it cool.
‘Serena, I’d almost forgotten about our eight o’clock meeting. Shall we go to my office?’ Without waiting for a response, he led the way across the room.
‘I’ve left the file Herr Volker asked me to compile for you, on your desk,’ Deiter shouted after him.
It was the first time the two technicians had been distracted enough to take their eyes off their computer screens. Their gaze followed Serena, intently, as she strolled after Tom, only returning to the task in hand after her shapely body had completely disappeared from view.
‘When you two have quite finished,’ Deiter said irritably.
***
Tom sat behind his desk and waited for her to come through the door. He picked up the thick manila folder that Deiter had left for him and started to thumb through the pages without taking much notice of its contents.
‘Please, take a seat,’ he gestured to the chair opposite him. ‘Can I get you a coffee, tea or anything?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Good, because I have no idea where the coffee machine is.’ Tom smirked at his own remark, but Serena’s face remained impassive.
She sat down, put her briefcase on the floor beside her and crossed her legs. Her skirt rode up to just above her knee, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by Tom. There was an awkward silence as he absently flicked through the pages of the dossier. He was struggling to come up with an opening gambit that would impress her without sounding too arrogant.
‘So, how did it go yesterday?’ he blurted out. Safe, if not a little too generic.
‘Well,’ she replied.
‘Good, good.’ He returned his attention to the file in an attempt to buy himself enough time to formulate his next ‘killer’ question.
‘And how do you like it here?’ was the best that he could come up with.
‘The hours are long, but the work is very interesting.’
‘Good, good.’ More page turning. Then he put the folder down on his desk and leant back in his chair. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but where is your accent from?’
‘I grew up in Israel, but my parents moved to America when I was fourteen. I continued my studies there and graduated from university five years ago.’
‘And which university was that?’ Tom enquired, to be polite.
‘MIT,’ she said, smiling at him.
‘That’s a coincidence. I was a professor at MIT.’
‘I know,’ she laughed, the mischievous glint returning in her eyes. ‘You taught me.’
‘I don’t remember you,’ Tom exclaimed, rather tactlessly.
She feigned a hurt expression.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean I don’t remember you,’ he bumbled. ‘I meant I didn’t recognise you. Sorry, I mean I don’t remember teaching you.’
She laughed again. ‘I don’t blame you. It was only for one semester, when you first arrived at the university, and it was my last term. So I hardly had any classes to attend,’ she said, letting him off the hook. ‘But you did give me a “C” for one of my papers.’
This time it was Tom’s turn to laugh. ‘You probably deserved it. I hope it didn’t affect your career too much?’
‘No, but I did think you were quite mean at the time.’
***
They spent the next hour laughing at the merits and foibles of the various lecturers they had both known at the university, him from a colleague’s perspective and her from a student’s perspective. Deiter, meanwhile, paced backwards and forwards between his work station and Tom’s office. Finally, when he couldn’t stand the joviality any more, he knocked on the door.
‘I’m sorry to disturb this important meeting, but we need Ms Mayer to be able set the parameters for today’s experiment.’ His face had definitely gone a few shades redder.
‘My fault, Deiter,’ Tom said apologetically. ‘We were just discussing mutual acquaintances.’
Deiter stormed back to his desk.
Serena got up to leave. ‘Do you want me to leave the results of yesterday’s tests with you?’ she asked Tom, retrieving her briefcase.
‘Why don’t we go through them over dinner tonight? My treat for being so mean to you at university.’ The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about it. He wasn’t accustomed to asking attractive women out on dates, but they were getting on so well, it seemed the natural thing to do.
‘I’d like that. Where and when?’
‘I only know one restaurant in Switzerland, but I know for a fact they do a very good fillet mignon, and the lobster’s not bad either. Shall we say the Hotel d’Angleterre at eight o’clock?’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Tom watched her as she went over to speak to Deiter. By his body language it was obvious that he didn’t appear best pleased that she was getting on so
well with the new Director General. Well, that’s something you’ll just have to live with, Dr Weiss!
CHAPTER 10
‘Release the first beam in three… two… one… now!’ Deiter was instructing the same two technicians as earlier that morning, only this time it wasn’t a computer game.
All the workstations in the room were manned and all the computer screens were being observed by at least one operative. The tension in the room was palpable. Unlike the previous day’s test, the room was deathly silent.
‘What’s the status of the heat shields?’ Deiter barked across the room.
‘Heat shields fully operation, temperature stabilised,’ came the response.
‘Okay, release the second beam in three… two… one… now!’
Tom stood behind Deiter. He knew he wasn’t expected to be an active participant in today’s experiment, but that didn’t stop him feeling like a spare part. He turned to the computer screens on the wall he had observed that morning. This time, the schematics were showing a computer-generated image of the actual beams that were circulating some hundred metres below them, while the data screens were recording the actual number of times the protons smashed into each other. As with the earlier simulation, the figures were steadily increasing, and were updated on a scrolling roll every second.
The other screens around the room were now showing CCTV footage of various parts of the Collider. With 27 kilometres to cover, it was obvious to Tom that they could only focus on the vital components; even so, they flicked from one image to another every ten seconds.
Tom was surprised to see that there were still workers underground. The tunnel itself would have been cleared and sealed long before the experiment was initiated, so what were they doing down there? He looked around to see if he could find somebody who wouldn’t be too distracted by a question and decided to approach a group of three technicians monitoring the proton collisions.
‘Why are there still people underground when the experiment is running?’ He directed his question to the most senior-looking individual out of the group - or, at least, he was the oldest.
The God Particle Page 7