The Infinite when it was Two Digits Old

by Allen Fleishman

  David shuffled his feet for a few seconds, the seconds turned to a minute, and then he looked up. He had tears in his eyes. “The hard drive I gave to Professor Schwartzman, I can’t sell them. If I charged 2 million dollars, no one would buy it. If I sold them for seven thousand dollars, people would eventually open one up and find a giant diamond. It’d wreck the South African economy, not to mention, cheapen every engagement ring that ever existed. I couldn’t do that. I gave it to Professor Schwartzman. I would never try to bribe Professor Schwartzman, NEVER. The database, I collected it since I was nine years old. You never know what piece of information is crucial and what’s trivial until you need it. I, I, ah, just collect things. I would never sell it.”

  Windseig sat there glanced at Maurice then back at David and waited. Twenty additional seconds passed, while Arthur and Maurice stared and waited. David looked first at Maurice then at President Windseig, tears were welling in his eyes, “I just, just wanted to talk to someone. I’ve been hiding ComHead, me, for all my life. He’s, I mean, I’m a shadow, a series of words on a screen. I’ve only had my Dad to talk to. I wanted to talk to someone. Someone who wouldn’t run away or worse. Even at school, I’m hiding. To my roommate, to this girl I know, to everyone. I’m hiding. My Dad thinks, and I agree with him, that if I let my guard down, the villagers will come after me with pitchforks and torches. That I’m a monster. A terrible monster that I need to hide. I thought Dr. Schwartzman could understand me.” David was crying.

  Maurice, who was standing near David, approached him, took David’s hand, brought him to his feet. He looked into the boy’s red watery eyes and hugged him. David began to sob louder. Maurice, who was facing Arthur, raised his eyebrow and gave the president a small nod to back off. The president nodded in agreement. After a minute, the professor and boy separated.

  “Sorry Professor, I didn’t mean to cry. It’s just, it’s just …”

  “No problem. You’ve been holding that in for years, it had to come out. Why don’t you sit down.”

  The president took out a box of tissues and handed them to David.

  Maurice continued in a softer voice, “I should tell you I discovered a terrorist cell that looked like they were making an atomic bomb with the centrifuge device you used to make the diamonds.”

  David looked up and made his half smile, “Yeah, I intercepted your e-mail. You see, it had my name on it. So I re-addressed it to the CIA and Israeli agents who I’ve been dealing with. I changed my name to the code-name I use when dealing with them and I changed the message so they’d know it was from me. It’s now a race between the Israelis and Americans to raid the warehouse.” David smiled, “My money is on the Israelis. They already have someone watching the building.”

  Maurice was about to say something, stopped, then after an awkward silence, “You know David, those programs are really remarkable, especially the one that integrates the information.”

  “You think so, Professor?” David perked up. “I wrote them when I was nine; it was kinda fun to have someone to talk to. Did you talk to Miss Crabtree? She was my teacher persona. The information integration was a thing I put into the computer one afternoon. I’ve been shuffling that info around for years, so I threw it out onto a stand-alone computer. I needed a front-end to run it. Nothing much. My dad also uses it, all the time.”

  President Windseig stood, letting David know that the conference was over. “David, you know I’m going to have to tell your dad about this.”

  “Yes sir, actually Dad already knows. He’s been chewing me out for the last five minutes, ‘told you so’, sort of stuff. But he’s expecting your call.”

  “You’re talking to him now?”

  David unhappily nodded yes.

  YEAR 17.6 RUN! HE KNOWS MATH.

  President Windseig stood at the front of the class. Dr. Barnes, head of the physics department, David, and three other boys, all seniors, were in the room. David was wearing a sweatshirt which had a terror stricken man facing backwards but running away, in the background others were fleeing, it said ‘Run! He Knows Math.’ Windseig said, “I have a special treat for this class. As you know, we usually have a special physics seminar based on various topics that Dr. Barnes sets up. I have invited a visiting professor to join us this time on Tuesdays. He’ll be videoconferencing with us. David can you help set this up?” David sat at the terminal and manipulated the mouse. A picture of an older man appeared facing a microphone. “Hello is this on? Is this on? ”

  The man appeared to be in his late sixties. He was balding with his white hair combed over his bald spot. There were some deep wrinkles on his forehead and a few liver spots were on his cheek and hands. His skin had a dark olive, Mexican appearing like complexion. He wore a white shirt and plaid bowtie.

  Windseig, sat down near a microphone, “Yes, we hear you fine. Can you hear us?”

  “Five by five, do they still say that? No matter, I hear you fine, but I can’t see you. Durn contraption.” He stood up and adjusted something out of line of sight and then he returned, “Yes, I see you too now.” Dr. Haines reached in front of himself, beyond the view of the camera, and obviously started to scratch his crouch. The seniors started to snicker.

  As all eyes were on the remote monitor, they missed the impatient shake of the head from Windseig to David. Windseig mouthed the words, “Stop that. Make Haines look more believable.” David gave a crooked mouth smile and sat up.

  Dr. Barnes spoke, “I’m not familiar with your work, Dr. Haines.”

  “Of course not,” replied the image on the monitor. “I’m on Sabbatical. I’m not allowed to be doing this, Charlie Haines isn’t my real name. Silly rules. You can call me Charlie. I hope we are all prepared for the topic of discussion: Gravity. I gave you all a reading list. I’ll quickly go through what we now know about gravity, from Newton, to Einstein to Nordström to Bekenstein’s tensor-vector-scalar modification of Einstein. I’ll also cover some recent string theory conjectures. I’ll quickly hit the primary equations and the assumptions behind them this week and the next two weeks. After that I’d like to try to expand beyond them.”

  The rest of the two-hour session included equation after equation presented on a white board filling half the monitor. Haines had some class notes that he rarely referred to. A paper copy from a printer provided another version of the screen for Barnes and his students. At the end of the two hours, Professor Charles Haines looked as fresh as he started. Professor Barnes looked exhausted.

  Haines said, “Thank you for the opportunity to teach this class. I needed to try out some new ideas. This is a good seminar. See you all next week.” Haines walked off-screen and the picture on the monitor disappeared.

  After the class ended and the four students left, Barnes walked with Windseig to his office. “That professor is phenomenal. My best professors at UCLA couldn’t touch that guy. He not only went through field theory, but he did it with tensor algebra, and elegantly summarized three hundred years of knowledge in two hours. I couldn’t follow all of it, but I’ll be reading and re-reading his notes. I’m only concerned that Mark, Robert, and Jeff will be left in the dust. They’re good, but they don’t have the math background. As to that boy David, he never even opened a notebook. I doubt he’ll be able to keep afloat in the class.”

  Windseig smiled, “Perhaps you’re right.”

  ***

  Over the next five weeks, the three seniors dropped out. David’s new sweatshirt said, ‘I read a treatise on anti-gravity, I couldn’t put it down.’ Others said, ‘The gravity of my brilliance, weighs on me’, ‘Repeal the Law of Gravity. NOW.’ David now was working with Drs. Barnes and Haines discussing the dynamic equations. Three papers appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Physics, written by Dr. Barnes and Charles Haines. The first paper was entitled, ‘On a Unified Theory of Gravity’. David declined co-authorship, due to the small part
he played in the paper. In an unprecedented move, the journal allowed a pre-print to appear on the web. Initially the paper received little comment, as few physicists understood it. On the side, David was starting an article called “The Grand Unified Theory of Everything, Except Women”.

  David never bothered to write down his notes on the two new branches of mathematics he originated, or the profound changes he made in Matrix Algebra extending it from two to n-dimensions. Without the ‘intermediary’ steps, using his new branches of mathematics, the equations in his published physics articles were only partially able to describe gravity.

  ***

  Meanwhile, a new division of CompuHead industries was founded. It was called ‘C H Electricity’. Before Thanksgiving, the first gravity reflector generator was built. It supplied power to the electrical grid. Initially, it was only a small amount, by the end of two months, the town of Larchmont, NY was getting all of its power from C H Electricity. None of the engineers and technicians working at C H Electricity had any idea how the huge heavy drum kept on turning. There were no motors. The smarter ones realized that the electrical lines were exporting energy and not making the drum turn.

  Half the personnel at C H Electricity were security. Their primary job was to remove overly ‘curious’ workers from the premises. Eventually a four inch thick concrete building completely encased the generator, only the thick electrical lines out gave any idea of its purpose.

  ***

  Windseig scheduled David for special senior seminars in Theology, Computer Science, Chemistry, and Music.

  Windseig hosted the Theology seminar. He once asked David what his thoughts were on the nature of god; David shrugged and said, “Never thought much about it.” In the theology seminar, there were two teleconference attendees; one was Rabbi Schlomo Cheimski from the University of Tel Aviv. He was a noted author on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The other was Chet Haskell, a virtual unknown. Although Arthur Windseig had once learned Hebrew, he spent weeks re-learning it, especially ancient Hebrew. Chet Haskell and Rabbi Cheimski had spent weeks discussing how the meaning of the words had shifted from the ancient context of other adjacent languages to their current form. Cheimski, Windseig, and Haskell retranslated the Old Testament.

  ***

  “This is, Arthur Windseig”

  “Dr. Windseig, this is Professor Morgan. I’m, I’m sorry. I can’t continue teaching Chin Hsiu music.”

  “Is he giving you problems? I …”

  Morgan interrupted, “No, he’s a sweet child. It’s not him, it’s me. I come up with a theme, like five notes, for Chin to start with. He then starts playing, he creates a manuscript. But, but it’s perfect, the first draft is perfect, it is done as fast as he can play, it’s perfect. He creates music in the style of Mozart or Mendelssohn masterpieces. So perfect, I would have staked my reputations that they were undiscovered works. I’ve had students all my life, but Chin, well, he makes me feel so inadequate. I thought that old story of Salieri and Mozart was just that, a story. I can’t take it anymore. He makes me feel so inadequate. Any style of music, any instrument, any composer, he improvises and does a better than perfect job. I’m sorry, I can’t go on.”

  Windseig quickly spoke, “But Professor Morgan, we all dream of the day we can teach a brilliant, gifted student.”

  “But, but I have nothing to teach him, nothing at all. I’m completely inadequate. I-I-I’m sorry.”

  ***

  Maurice and David worked completely as a team. Maurice had uncovered various software features of the C H drive, which he co-authored in journal articles. Maurice also replaced his bulky monitor-eye and large video camera, with a hearing aide like device with a light thin tube that housed both the microphone and camera. Other wireless cameras replaced shirt buttons, especially on his collar and sleeves.

  Maurice noticed a ‘funny’ button identical in appearance to his camera button that David had glued onto his shoes. David gave a lop-sided grin and shrugged as Maurice wordlessly removed it.

  Maurice and David, under a pseudonym, produced a series of papers on ‘Turing Revisited’, ‘Language Translation – Beyond idioms, and toward comprehension’, ‘A dynamic, reorganizing framework for computer design of Massively Parallel Processing’, ‘A recursive algorithm for using quad and higher dimensional parallel processing units in operating system structure’, and ‘A three-dimensional approach to miniaturization of computer architecture’. They published a paper with Peter Fledging ‘An Organic Powered Bio-computer’. In the latter, Peter was able to build a 5 kHz demonstration computer, powered from a potato.

  A new subdivision of CompuHead Industries came into existence later that summer, with Peter and Maurice as its principals. They developed an organic computer, the size of a baby carrot. The computer ran at 10 MHz and had a 16-bit computer word size. This first organic computer was slightly slower than the final version of the now ancient IBM PC AT.

  Unbeknownst to either Schwartzman or Fledging, a prototype was placed into a beagle along with a miniaturized 1.2-carat diamond C H drive. The CPU chip itself was not made of silicon, but a diamond, with carbon nanotubes linking the different elements. The chip was 50 times faster than traditional chips, used a tenth the energy, and generated far less heat. No metal was used.

 

  YEAR 17.6 GIVE YOURSELF OVER TO ABSOLUTE PLEASURE

  As David came into his dorm at 11:30 PM, he noticed that Charlie’s door was still open. David was taking off his jacket as he heard Charlie ask, “Got some time for a talk, roomy?”

  Charlie pulled up a chair in their common room. David asked as he sat, “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I’m a bit concerned about ya. I heard what you did to ole Gibson. That news really rocketed through campus. Some of the students are really getting uptight about it. Then I heard that you stopped going to class. In fact, you stopped going to all your classes? Has Fleur spoken to you yet? Did Gibson do anything to you?”

  David didn’t know what to say, then after a moment, “Actually Windseig wanted to be my faculty advisor.”

  “No shit, President Windseig? Did you get into that much trouble?”

  “Actually Windseig told me that since I knew history that well, I could take a test and place out of the required classes. I didn’t drop out of them, but actually placed out. Windseig has me doing independent study for a number of classes.”

  “You placed out? Kewl. So you got permission not to take the classes?”

  David nodded.

  “Gibson must be happy. And you placed out of the required classes? Gee, I knew you were sharp, knowing all the words to Rocky Horror Picture Show, you with your photographic memory, but still. I thought you were another one of us geeks. Grats. You know, you’re getting a rep as quite a mystery man. People asked me about you about you five times this week, and they were the Juniors and Seniors. So you’re still taking classes?”

  “Yeah, independent study and some senior seminars.”

  “Senior seminars? Wow. Now I’m really impressed.”

  Charlie hesitated, and then said, “You know, what you do is really your business. But you’ve only been here for two months and you’re not coming home until midnight, except when you bring that Andrea chick here. I noticed that she leaves your door open. That can’t be right. You seem to be getting quite serious. Before you turn around you’ll be engaged. Do you really want that? Her?”

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  Charlie opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and shrugged.

  ***

  During October and the first part of November, David’s evenings were often spent with Andrea. They ate dinner together, went to on-campus movies or watched TV during the week. To appease her, he ate with a fork, knife and spoon, at least when she was present. When he went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show he was free to eat the pizza with his hands, and no one ever said anything ab
out it, no one. Andrea’s preference in movies was proportional to the number of times she cried. On the other hand, she hated any, and all, guy flicks, or high-brow flicks, or foreign films or films even remotely related to sex. The time David suggested they go to a campus Three Stooges festival, in one of the dorm lounges, Andrea gave David a look that could freeze solar hydrogen.

  David helped her with homework. He also helped her study for her exams. He had an uncanny ability to guess what would be on the tests.

  One warm weekend in early November, Andrea drove David to a riding stable and had David rent horses for a cross-country ride. (“A gentleman pays for the ladies.”) David initially felt uncomfortable being around such large and stupid animals. However, his unhappiness was quickly transformed into misery by the aches in his inner thighs and his bottom after the first three hours. Although Andrea rode, David walked/limped the horse back to the stables for the last four miles. Hilda walked beside him. After returning to the stables, Andrea told David about posting with the horse, moving in synch with the horse, to save much of the discomfort.

  Hilda, who had enjoyed the outdoors, running parallel to the cantering horses, finally told David that “dis female, riding you, she is”.

  On the car ride home, while Andrea chattered about the healthy outdoors and the beautiful horses, David got a transmission from his father.

  Martin: How are you feeling?

  David: My entire lower half aches. I thought I was in good shape.

  Martin: You are, but riding uses different muscles than most sports. Why didn’t you know how to post?

  David: It looked so easy. I didn’t realize I needed to.

  Martin: And Andrea forgot to tell you? A newbie. Next time you’re in a similar situation, RTFM. I’m sure there’s a Dummy’s Guide to Horseback Riding.

  David: You won’t need to remind me again.

  Martin: When you get back to your room, alternate hot and cold compresses and take some acetaminophen. Tomorrow, use the warm compresses, 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off.

  David: Thanks Dad.

  Martin: One last thing son, how many times did she ask you how you’re doing?