by S. W. Ahmed
After a pause, he looked up again. “Essentially I’m trying to find ways to exploit wormholes in the space-time continuum.”
She had a dumbfounded look on her face. “Huh?”
He had to remind himself that he wasn’t talking to a physicist. “I’m building a time machine.”
The dumbfounded look turned to one of disbelief. “Really! Is that even possible?”
“Oh, yes it is!” His voice rose with excitement. “It’s all about using higher dimensions, you see?”
She shook her head.
He thought for a second about how to explain better. “Do you have a piece of paper in your purse?”
She took out a piece of paper and a pen. He grabbed them and drew two dots on opposite ends of the paper.
“Show me the shortest distance between these two points,” he said eagerly, giving her the pen.
She drew a straight line between them, as he had expected. He then lifted the sheet from the table and carefully folded it into the shape of a cylinder, in such a way that one dot was directly below the other.
“Now tell me, what’s the shortest distance?”
“Well, that way it’s much shorter,” she said, pointing at the distance across empty space between the dots.
“Exactly! When you drew the line before, you were showing the shortest distance in 2 dimensions. But when you bring the 3rd dimension into the equation, things can look quite different. The problem is, if you’re stuck in a 2 dimensional world, you will never know or see the 3rd dimension.
“So now let’s look at the same problem in our 3 dimensional world. What’s the shortest distance between me and that picture?” He pointed to a picture of the Himalayas on the wall at the other end of the restaurant.
“Well, I guess, in 3 dimensions, it would be a straight line, right?” she deduced, smiling. The twinkle in her eyes was more visible than ever.
“Yes! But what if there is a 4th dimension that we can’t see? Or a 5th or 6th? What if I knew how to use those dimensions to get to that picture more quickly than walking straight across the room?”
The smile on her face disappeared, and began to be replaced by a look of confusion.
“The problem is that we are stuck in our 3 dimensional world,” he continued. “That’s why it’s hard to picture higher dimensions. But for the moment, let’s assume we know how to travel in other dimensions. Let’s introduce another concept. Do you know how fast light travels?”
“No, not really. Very fast, I guess.”
“Correct! Nothing can travel faster. At least, that’s what Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us, and it has yet to be disproved. The figure is actually about 300 million meters per second.
“It’s kind of funny, but because light needs time to travel from one point to the other, when you look up at the stars in the night sky, you’re observing the past. Because they are so distant, you’re actually seeing the stars as they were years ago. When you look through telescopes at other galaxies much further away, you’re looking at the way they were millions of years ago. Watching the night sky is like taking a history lesson!
“Even when I look at you, your light rays are coming to me at a finite speed. What I really see is the way you looked about 3 billionths of a second ago. Of course, that’s a negligible amount of time, but it is a finite amount of time nonetheless.
“Now, let’s assume I can travel at the speed of light. If I start moving away from you at the speed of light, and I have a remarkable telescope that can see you from far away, what happens?”
He kept talking without waiting for her response. “I will see a still picture of you from that 3 billionths of a second ago, right? And I will continue to see it as long as I keep traveling at that speed. In other words, for me relative to you, time will stop, even though for you time will continue to progress at its normal pace.
“In fact, relativity tells us that the closer you are moving to the speed of light, the slower time becomes for you relative to everybody else. If I travel close to the speed of light away from here, and travel around space for an hour of my time, by the time I come back here, a few thousand years will have passed for you. You and everybody else I know will be dead!
“If I actually reach the speed of light itself, time for me will stop altogether! Now, if, all of a sudden, I start traveling faster than the speed of light, then I can travel back in time. Isn’t that mind-boggling?”
Cheryl’s mind seemed far from boggled. She was starting to look annoyed.
“Sounds fine and dandy, right?” he continued, too excited now to notice her discomfort. “The problem according to relativity, though, is that it’s impossible to reach the speed of light without gaining infinite mass and energy, let alone travel faster. For particles of no mass, like photons, it’s a different story. Light itself is made of photons, after all. But for anything that has mass, like you or me, it’s literally impossible to reach the speed of light in our regular 3 dimensions.
“But now, let’s bring back the concept of multiple dimensions I introduced first. What if I can travel in another dimension at a normal speed, but due to the great distance I will have covered in our traditional 3 dimensions within a very short amount of time, it will appear to be close to the speed of light in those 3 dimensions? Then time for me will slow down relative to you, and I will emerge back at this point right in front of you, but in the future! For me, only a few seconds will have passed, but for you, days or weeks may have gone by. And all that without having to worry about getting heavier or requiring infinite energy!
“If I now increase my speed in the other dimension, so that I will appear to have traveled faster than the speed of light in our 3 dimensional world, then I will actually emerge at this same point in the past!” He paused for a second, reflecting on what he had just said. “Well, in theory at least. What do you think?”
“Sounds pretty exciting,” she said dismissively. She began looking at her watch.
But Marc was completely engrossed in his explanation, unaware of everything else happening around him. “That’s where wormholes come in. They open up access to higher dimensions, allowing me to travel great distances through tunnels in space, and also allowing me to travel forwards or backwards in time. Many people believe that wormholes are few and far in between. But they don’t know anything about string theory. See, string theory is the current, modern theory of matter and energy, closing the gap between two of the greatest theories of physics in the last century – relativity and quantum mechanics. Fundamentally what string theory says is that all matter, all energy, all forces, when you break them down to their simplest forms, are actually composed of tiny strings. These strings resonate at different frequencies, resulting in the creation of all the different kinds of elementary particles and forces that provide the building blocks of everything in the universe. Now string theory has yet to be proven by actual experiment, but I’m certain it won’t be much longer. The new Large Hadron Collider to be built at CERN will undoubtedly have the ability to verify the assertions of string theory within the next few years.
“What I’m doing in my small lab will actually verify one aspect of string theory. You see, string theory directly implies that higher dimensions exist. More importantly, string theory also implies that every point in space, no matter how large or how small, is a gateway to those higher dimensions. What I intend to show, then, is that every point in space can be used as a gateway to higher dimensions. In other words, every point in space is a potential wormhole. There are potential wormholes right here in this restaurant, around you and me right now. The tricky part is to know how to open a wormhole, and then keep it stable long enough for successful travel through it. That’s what my research is all about.
“Many scientists believe that every time you travel backwards or forwards in time, you always end up in a different parallel universe. That’s absurd! That would mean that for every person who traveled in time, there would have to be a separate, parallel uni
verse just for him, or her!
“I think that’s all rubbish. I believe you can use wormholes to travel backwards or forwards in time within the same universe, right back to the same point in space that you left from. And my work will prove it!”
“That’s great, really great,” she said, now looking worried. “Listen, it’s almost 9. Do you mind if we head out and work on my math assignment? It looks like a long one, and it’s the most important assignment for the class. If I don’t get it in on time, I’m going to be in deep trouble with the professor.”
“Oh! Yeah, sure.” He hadn’t realized how the time had passed. The restaurant was almost empty now, and the waiters seemed anxious for them to leave, repeatedly asking if they needed anything else.
He asked for the check and, after paying for the both of them, got up and led the way out into the biting cold. It was pitch dark outside, but at least it wasn’t snowing anymore.
They decided to head to his lab in Rockefeller Hall, since it was the most comfortable and spacious location they had access to. He just hoped they wouldn’t run into Graham in the corridors – one horrible encounter per day with his advisor was more than enough.
They didn’t talk much on the way to the lab, mostly due to the freezing cold. She complained a little about one of her other friends, but otherwise there was silence.
Marc wished that Cheryl had more intellectual understanding and curiosity for his subject area. He really enjoyed talking not just about his own research, but about many of the sciences in general – astronomy and physics on the one hand, as well as philosophy, theology and sociology on the other. In his senior year at MIT, he had decided on doing advanced studies in a field that would combine his deep knowledge of the natural sciences with the interest in philosophy and religion that Iman had generated in him. He had therefore chosen astrophysics as the subject for his graduate studies, to help him learn as much as possible about the creation of the universe.
But then, he had lost Iman in a messy breakup, not too long before his graduation date. She still had another year to go at Harvard. Given their nearly identical social circles in the Boston/Cambridge area, he had decided to move out of the city to give them both the needed space to get over each other. That had meant foregoing a lucrative scholarship offer from MIT with their MS/PhD program in astrophysics, and instead opting for a school in a different, more serene location – CornellUniversity.
Cornell’s physics department had only been too excited to get him, hoping they could use his brilliance to further their research in a number of important areas. But after his mother’s death, he had abandoned all of his attractive research ideas and had just bummed around for the first several months of his graduate program. Then he had jumped on the idea of building a time machine, much to the chagrin of his advisor and the rest of the department.
His research, however, still had quite a ways to go, and he was increasingly falling into a vicious cycle of conflicting priorities between his work and Cheryl. The more time he spent on his time machine, the clearer it became how unattainable his goal was and how he needed to improve his present life. The more time he spent with Cheryl made him realize how hopeless the situation with her was, and how desperately he needed to travel back in time to change his own future.
Tonight, he knew, was dedicated to helping Cheryl, but tonight his hopes were extra high that his relationship with her would finally turn in his favor. Tonight he really needed something good to happen, something to make him forget the bombshell of rejection that had hit him earlier in the day.
Chapter 4
“Marc, it’s locked!” Cheryl said, trying to open the large metal door in front of her. They were standing outside one of the side entrances to Rockefeller Hall. “Come on, open it, hurry! I’m sick of this cold.”
“It’s not locked. It’s probably just got ice accumulated around the edges. Here, let me try.” Marc yanked hard at the door, and it slowly creaked open.
The corridors were dimly lit. A couple of people were walking around, none of them paying any attention to the two individuals who had just entered the building.
Marc gladly welcomed the warm air inside. He quickly led Cheryl up several flights of steps to his lab on the fourth floor, hoping to avoid running into any of the professors or other graduate students. News traveled fast in this department, and he really didn’t want to talk about his situation with anybody else at that moment.
“Whew!” he whistled softly with relief, as they reached the door to the lab.
But he had whistled a little too soon. Just as he began unlocking the door, he heard a voice behind him.
“Hello, Marc.”
He turned around slowly, trying his best to hide his exasperation. “Hello, Dale.”
Of all people, it just had to be Dale Poloski, Graham’s biggest rival in the department. Marc wondered if Dale had been standing all this time outside the lab, just waiting for him to show up. Dale didn’t usually stay in the office this late.
“Working hard, I presume?” Dale asked with a smirk. He was a short, middle aged man, with pale skin and curly, light brown hair that hadn’t been cut or groomed in quite a while. His round face exposed two tiny, blue eyes, a flat nose and very chubby cheeks that easily reddened during any conversation that excited him. He had a hunched posture and usually walked with his hands behind his back. During any conversation, his face was never more than an inch away from the person he was talking to. Marc absolutely despised him, not so much because of his annoying mannerisms, but more because of his constant derogatory comments about Graham’s students and the work they did. Not to mention that he also had very bad breath.
“The usual, you know,” Marc replied. “Have to keep trudging away.”
Dale’s big head edged close to Marc’s, almost bumping into it. He shot a glance at Cheryl, who was standing right behind Marc.
“Present company provides valuable scientific expertise, I suppose?” he jeered.
Marc said nothing, holding his own breath to avoid inhaling Dale’s. In truth, he knew that Dale was a good professor with noteworthy credentials, but with an age-old rivalry against Graham and an undying jealousy of the relatively higher caliber of Graham’s students. In fact, considering that Dale was on the faculty committee, Marc felt fairly certain that Dale had something to do with the decision to put him on probation.
“You are aware of your current situation? 30 days, and counting!” Dale seemed to savor every word in his mouth, and his cheeks turned red as he chuckled. “If I were you, I would spend every minute, every second, getting that, heh, fairy tale of yours operational.”
“I will do my best to make it work,” Marc said, trying to remain as polite as possible.
“I certainly hope so, for your sake and for Graham’s!” Dale gloated, merrily humming a tune as he walked off with his hands behind his back.
Marc led Cheryl into the lab.
“What, that was it?” she said, looking surprised.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s all you had to say?”
He shrugged. “What else was I supposed to say?”
“He just walked all over you! Couldn’t you say anything to defend yourself?”
“But he’s right. About my situation anyway.”
“That’s not the point!” she cried, looking him in the eyes. “He insulted you, your work, and me too! Couldn’t you at least say something to defend me?” She sighed, visibly upset. “You know, you really need to learn to stand up for yourself.”
Marc sighed too. Had he had this encounter during his undergrad years, he would certainly have given Dale a piece of his mind. The irony of how Cheryl had greatly contributed to his overall loss of self-confidence since those days didn’t elude him.
The windowless lab was decently sized and somewhat dark, even with the lights on. Powerful air conditioning kept a stable, comfortable temperature, also providing a slight breeze and a fresh smell. There were at least two whiteboards o
n every wall, all of them covered with scribbles of mathematical equations and numbers, including several diagrams of wormholes and other astronomical phenomena. A couple of old desks stood against one of the walls, with books and papers spread over one of them, and a laptop computer and small boom box on the other.
The highlight of the lab, however, was a huge, white table in the center. It stretched across most of the room, and had all kinds of odd machinery and electronic equipment on it, some of them stacked on top of each other. Most of them displayed flashing red and green LED lights, with a few that had small screens presenting numeric data. Cables were spread out all over the place, and a constant background hum emanated from the apparatus. A couple of flat panel monitors on one corner of the table depicted graphs of complex trigonometric and exponential functions. Underneath them sat a new, powerful looking desktop computer.
A clear circle, about 3 feet in diameter, was marked on the center of the table. Three identical instruments sat on the circumference of the circle, spread evenly apart around it in a perfect triangle. They looked like strong light emitting devices, and all three of them were facing the center of the circle. The center itself was conspicuously empty.
This lab was Marc’s playpen, and this was where he performed his experiments. Many of the electronic components he had built himself, using spare parts from older devices that were going to be thrown away by the department. He had originally shared the lab with three other students, but they had eventually been relocated to other rooms. At one point or the other, every one of them had complained that Marc was taking up too much space with all his equipment, and that his experiments were generating too much noise, light and heat for them to be able to concentrate on their own work.
“Where should I sit?” Cheryl asked.
Marc cleared up some space on one of the desks in the corner, and pulled up a couple of chairs. They sat down, while she took out a fat calculus textbook and notepad from her backpack.