Analog Science Fiction and Fact 11/01/10

by ASF

He connected to Lamont, gave a report, then said, “Three point one. Interesting.” He hung up, checked his watch, then pulled out his howl notebook and logged the quake.

  “It is hoped the Tevatron has not been damaged,” said Takeo.

  “At 3.1 on the Richter Scale,” said Alex, “the Tevatron’s probably safe.” He slipped the phone into his pocket. “On the Mercalli Scale, it’s probably only a four.” He glanced down at the scattered chess pieces. “Or maybe a five.” He looked across to Takeo. “How ’bout we call this game a draw as well.”

  Takeo nodded, then set up the pieces again.

  Alex saw other people coming from the buildings in the village. They seemed drawn toward Wilson Hall, the nerve center of Fermilab.

  Alex and Katerina stood from the picnic table.

  “Let’s see what news there is,” said Alex, glancing down at the still-seated Takeo.

  “Perhaps another game first?”

  Alex smiled. The man was clearly an addict. “Thank you, but perhaps later.”

  Takeo nodded and then, with a sigh, he stood. The three of them, along with Wegener, headed toward Wilson Hall.

  “Professionally,” said Alex as they ambled in the late summer sun, “this is very embarrassing.” He looked back at Wegener. “My dog is better at my job than I am. He saw this quake coming.”

  Katerina raised her eyebrows.

  “Really,” said Alex. “He predicted it. I’m sort of in competition with him.”

  “You really feel you’re in competition with . . . with your dog?”

  Alex gave a quick, tight smile. “Actually, I’m a better seismologist than my dog because . . . because, these days, real seismologists can actually prevent some quakes.”

  Katerina stared at him in silence.

  “Yeah. I know,” said Alex, made nervous by her gaze. “But it’s true. We are beginning to be able to avert quakes in some cases—by drilling and blasting in unpopulated parts of a fault to release pressure.”

  “That’s not the issue,” said Katerina, softly.

  “Oh, you mean my competing with my dog.” Alex gave a short, high-pitched laugh. “Yeah, I know. But it’s a comfort that Wegener can’t prevent quakes—considering that he predicts them a lot better than I do.”

  “One might wonder,” said Takeo, “if it can truly be called prediction.” He sounded bored with the discussion. “Perhaps the dog, through his paws, is just very sensitive to vibrations—and can feel them before humans are able to.”

  “My dog has detected quakes even when I’ve been sitting at a bank of seismographs, tiltmeters, low-frequency vibration sensors, strain meters, and ultrasonic detectors. I found nothing while he sensed a quake.”

  “Indeed,” said Takeo, skepticism clear in his voice.

  “I don’t understand it, either,” said Alex. “But it’s not vibrations. It’s . . . it’s something else.”

  Takeo’s lips formed a cold smile. “One might entertain doubts as to whether there is anything else.”

  “Look,” said Alex, with more heat than he’d intended. “Everything we know about in the physical world is just an amplification of the human senses. And pigeon and shark senses, too, if we include static electromagnetic fields.”

  “The strong nuclear force?” said Takeo.

  “All right,” said Alex. “Make that everything we know about the macro world. What if there are other phenomena that we don’t have senses for?”

  “Such as ESP,” said Takeo. “Pseudoscience?”

  “Sure. Why not?” Alex threw up his hands. “Precognition violates causality. Telekinesis violates conservation of energy. But perhaps telepathy does exist. It doesn’t violate any law of physics.”

  “But telepathy wouldn’t explain predicting earthquakes,” said Katerina, her eyes more on Takeo than on Alex.

  “Maybe some creatures can detect other physical phenomena,” said Alex.

  Katerina gave a quick, furtive smile.

  “Physical,” said Takeo. “What physical phenomenon is it, then? If there is another sense, it must be addressable by physics.” He smiled. “It is regrettable, but ghosts and spirits don’t come under science.”

  From the corner of his eye, Alex noted Katerina scowling at Takeo. Clearly there was some negative chemistry between them.

  “My dog does predict earthquakes,” said Alex, firmly.

  “One suggests it is otherwise,” said Takeo, equally firmly. “And why then cannot all dogs predict quakes?”

  “I wondered about that myself.” Alex paused, feeling exposed and foolish, before daring to tell them his speculation. “I got Wegener from a German Shepherd rescue organization. He was a drug-sniffing dog put out of work by the new electronic noses.”

  “But one does not understand what relevance this has to—”

  “During his training, Wegener probably had to sniff a lot of drugs.”

  Takeo laughed. “Is it suggested that your dog acquired this alleged earthquake ability during a drug high?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not an expert on canine brain chemistry.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Takeo under his breath.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Katerina said, “I didn’t think we were in danger of quakes here in Illinois.”

  “Actually,” said Alex, “this part of the country is the second most active for quakes. In fact, Batavia sits over an extension of the New Madrid Fault.”

  “Seismology sounds like a very interesting and satisfying discipline,” said Takeo in a tone of voice suggesting an apology for his previous discourtesy.

  Alex nodded. He hoped Takeo would interpret it as “apology accepted.”

  They walked again in silence until, out of the blue, Katerina asked, “What’s your dog’s howl duty cycle?”

  “His what?”

  “I mean, what percent of his howls—howls for unknown reasons, that is. What percent actually . . .”—Katerina seemed to be carefully choosing her words—”actually correlate with earthquakes?”

  “I don’t really know.” Alex glanced at Wegener. “But my dog can predict a Richter 3.0 or greater quake anywhere within five or six hundred miles.”

  “Five hundred miles.” said Katerina. “Impressive.” She seemed momentarily distant. Then her expression changed to one of resolve. “Perhaps we could have lunch tomorrow. To talk about earthquakes—and your dog.”

  “I’d like that,” said Alex. “And his name’s Wegener. Named after Alfred Wegener, the father of plate tectonics.” Alex patted the dog. “Du bist ein braver Hund,” he said softly into the dog’s ear.

  “You speak to your dog in German?” said Katerina.

  “He’s a German Shepherd.”

  The next day, Alex, with Wegener running alongside, bicycled to the User’s Center where he’d meet Katerina for lunch. He swung off his bicycle, locked it, and then pulled his pants cuff free of his sock.

  “Stay!” he said, pointing to Wegener.

  Wegener howled.

  “Stay!” said Alex again. As there was a perfectly understandable reason for the howl, there was no reason to log it. He looked absently at his dog. She wants to talk about earthquakes. And about you, Wegener. I wonder why.

  He shrugged, then hand-brushed his hair, turned, and padded into the User’s Center.

  Walking into the dining room, he saw that Katerina had already arrived, and had gotten coffee. She waved him over to her table.

  “My dog’s outside,” he said as he sat. “Do you want to talk to him, too?”

  She laughed. “You’ll do, for the moment.”

  They gave the waiter their lunch orders and then, rather like the appetizer to a meal, they started with small talk.

  “I gather you knew Takeo before you came here,” said Alex.

  “I studied under Dr. Wakabayashi in Berlin, before I switched from physics to biology.” She toyed with her coffee, stirring it despite having taken it black. “I don’t think he’s quite forgiven me.”
/>   “He called you Kätchen,” said Alex, reacting to her sorrowful expression. “That’s an indication of, well, endearment.”

  Her lips formed a sad smile. “In this case, I think it’s more an indication of status . . . an adult addressing a child. Just as I call him Wakabayashi sama, a term of respect for his much higher status.” She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup, and stared at the black ripples on the surface. “Takeo has a theory,” she said, abruptly.

  “Oh?”

  “He believes that heavy particles, hadrons, moving at high speed loosen the binding of spacetime.”

  “Huh?” said Alex under his breath.

  “In the absence of mass,” said Katerina, pointing a teaspoon at Alex, “what is the nature of space-time?”

  “Well . . . according to Einstein,” said Alex, proud of himself that he was conversant with modern physics, “it is flat.”

  “But what use is space if there is nothing to put into it?” Katerina paused a few seconds and continued. “Takeo’s studies suggest—suggest strongly—that in the absence of mass, space-time becomes stochastic—essentially undefined.”

  Alex leaned forward and tried to look intelligent.

  “Takeo believes,” Katerina went on, “that mass binds space-time. It holds space-time together. And high-speed hadrons loosen that binding.”

  “Hadrons from the Tevatron, I assume.”

  “Yes,” said Katerina, “but mostly from cosmic ray bursts.”

  Alex chuckled. “And what does all that have to do with my dog?”

  Katerina smiled in return. “The loosening of space-time would be a new physics phenomenon—a phenomenon that I think some creatures might possibly sense.”

  “What?” Alex narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. “But yesterday, Takeo seemed to be arguing against just that.”

  Katerina nodded. “Oh, he was really arguing with me, over my theory.”

  “Please.” Alex rubbed a hand across his forehead. “One theory at a time.”

  “Yes. Yes, you’re right.” Katerina paused for a moment. “In his theory, the effect would manifest in massive objects—the Earth, for instance. He believes this loosening, these little rents in space-time, could be the cause of some earthquakes.”

  “Ah,” said Alex.

  “And my theory is that if there’s a macroscopic physics phenomenon, nature would have provided some creatures with a sense for it.” Katerina pursed her lips. “Wakabayashi sama thinks my theory is nonsense.”

  “So that’s why you need a seismologist and a . . . a canine seismologist.”

  Katerina nodded. “I’ve been looking for someone, a seismologist, preferably, with an animal that predicts quakes. But every seismologist I’ve talked to about it has said I should stick to biology.”

  Alex brought a hand to cover his shirt pocket, as if about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. “Wegener and I . . . our hands and paws are at your service. How can we help?”

  “Do you record all of your dog’s howls,” said Katerina, pointing at his shirt pocket, “in that notebook?”

  “All the howls that I can’t explain. Yes.”

  “Do you know about the ConneXion software package?” said Katerina.

  “What?” Alex, surprised by the change of subject, shook his head.

  “It correlates as well as anti-correlates just about everything accessible over the Web. It correlates against a set of inputted data and restrictions on the scope of the search.” She toyed with a table knife. “I’d like to see if Wegener’s howls really do correlate to quakes, and if those quakes correlate with cosmic ray bursts . . . or even with the Tevatron being active.”

  “You’d like to borrow my howl-log.”

  “Only for tonight.”

  Alex withdrew the notebook and handed it over. “Maybe we could meet here for breakfast tomorrow,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.

  Katerina flipped through the pages. “I think I’m going to have a long night.” She closed the notebook. “How about a late breakfast or early lunch? Say at eleven?”

  “Great!”

  Late that night, Alex checked his e-mail.

  Lieber Alex,

  I have exciting news.

  If you do not object, I’d like to invite Dr. Wakabayashi to our early lunch.

  Viele liebe Grüße,

  Katerina

  The place was almost empty when, at ten of eleven, Alex walked into the restaurant. But at a table near a window sat Takeo. A leather-bound notebook and an open pocket chess set lay in front of him.

  Alex, walking over, saw that no pieces had been moved.

  Takeo gestured to a chair. “A game perhaps?”

  Alex sat. “Sure.” He saw a flurry at the door. “Wait. No. Later, perhaps. There’s Katerina.” Katerina swept up to the table. She greeted Takeo as she sat, then without further preamble, she withdrew a file folder from her handbag and faced Alex. “Wegener’s howls correlate to earthquakes—and with a five-sigma figure of merit!”

  “Hey, that’s great,” said Alex.

  “And,” said Katerina, “most of the howls that associate with quakes also are correlated with cosmic ray bursts.”

  “Are you serious?” said Takeo.

  “I’m only reporting the data.” Katerina flourished the file folder.

  “Might one examine those data?”

  “Certainly.” She passed the folder to Takeo.

  Alex and Katerina sat in silence as Takeo, head down, riffled through the folder. After about a minute, Takeo looked up. “These data are . . . strong.”

  “Then you believe my dog really can predict earthquakes?” said Alex, trying to keep the sound of victory out of his voice.

  “It is so—if these data are accurate.” Takeo’s expression clouded. “But one would like to understand what stimulus the dogs are responding to.”

  “A . . . new . . . sense,” said Katerina, stressing each word. “Your binding-of-spacetime idea.”

  Takeo nodded. “Just so.”

  “But,” Katerina went on, “the quake we felt here had a strange correlation.”

  “Oh?” said Alex. “Stranger than the dog correlation?”

  “This quake correlated with both the Tevatron and also the LHC being on.”

  Alex saw Takeo stiffen. “Dr. Wakabayashi,” said Alex, sensing it was not a time for first names, “what’s wrong?”

  “The LHC storing particles in the ring and also the LHC,” said Takeo, as if to himself. “One must think.” He took a notebook from his briefcase and started scribbling.

  “What do the Tevatron and LHC have to do with it?” said Alex after a decent interval.

  Takeo nodded, then closed his notebook. “High-energy particles moving at near lightspeed weaken the bonding of the space-time through which they move,” he said. “Or so one believes.”

  “What does it mean, weaken the bonding?” said Alex.

  Takeo moved his hand as if drawing a horizontal line across a blackboard. “An ultra high-energy particle leaves a wake of micro-discontinuities, rents, in the fabric of space-time. And as for the Tevatron and LHC, if the wakes intersect, a surface of discontinuity, a 2-D surface, occurs.”

  “Wouldn’t it be worse near the Large Hadron Collider?” said Alex. “It’s many times more powerful than the Tevatron, isn’t it?”

  “Four times,” said Takeo.

  “At the moment,” said Katerina.

  “It would be much worse here,” said Takeo. “Here one is in the LHC’s wake.” Takeo gave a worried smile. “It is good the LHC was only running at four Tev. Otherwise . . .”

  “Otherwise?” Alex prompted.

  “There might possibly have been much bigger discontinuities. One could imagine a worse earthquake.”

  Alex saw that Katerina seemed worried. “What did you mean ‘at the moment’?”

  “It was on the morning news,” said Katerina. “Sometime this evening, they said. The LHC is expected to go online with seven, or perhaps eve
n nine Tev.”

  “Aree!” said Takeo from deep in his throat.

  Alex swiveled to look at him. “What?”

  “One must do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.”

  Over the next five minutes, Takeo filled many pages of his notebook with equations and numbers.

  Alex watched impatiently. Some envelope!

  Then Takeo withdrew a calculator from his briefcase and did a more concrete calculation. He slid the calculator over to Alex. “This is the energy ratio . . . from seven teravolts as against four.”

  Alex looked at the number. “Jeez! Are you saying that if the LHC at seven teravolts were operating at the same time as the Tevatron”—he tapped the calculator display—“this could happen?”

  “It is so,” said Takeo.

  “What . . . what are we going to do about it?” said Alex. “This really could be a global disaster.”

  “Do?” said Takeo with a smile obviously pasted on. “Theoreticians don’t do. They theorize. And this theory is just that—a theory.”

  “Don’t you believe in your theory, Professor Wakabayashi?” said Alex.

  “Believe the theory? Intellectually, yes.” Takeo gave a slight shake of his head. “Emotionally . . . one doesn’t know. The theory does imply earthquakes. It’s just that the quality of the implication is uncertain.” He seemed to deflate. “And in any case, what can be done?”

  “Well . . .” Alex bit his lip. “We can’t stop the LHC from turning on with seven teravolts, but . . . but maybe we can get them to shut down the Tevatron.”

  “That would stop it, wouldn’t it?” said Katerina.

  Takeo nodded. “Both machines must be running for there to be a 2-D contour.”

  “Then,” said Alex. “Then I think we should go to the director and ask him to turn off the Tevatron.”

  “He’ll laugh at us,” said Katerina.

  “And if there is error,” said Takeo, “which is likely, then careers will be at risk.”

  “When exactly is the LHC powering up?” said Alex, now very conscious of time.

  “If I remember . . .” Katerina bit her lip. “I think they said seven p.m.”

  “An odd time,” said Alex.

  “If it is like the Tevatron,” said Takeo, “preparing takes many hours. One can not merely throw a switch.”