E’Cila in
A Satire by Clarence L. Dulaney
©3/15/2000 By
Clarence L. Dulaney
Chapter 1
"E’Cila" said Mother, "You must wake up and finish your studying for your "History of Physics" test". E’cila stirred a bit and mumbled, "I was studying heavy". Her mother said, "Heavy, schmeavy. Why don’t you go outside and walk around a bit? You always seem to do your best studying when you are moving about," E’Cila grunted something incomprehensible, and walked out into the beautiful Spring day. The tulips that Mother had worked on so lovingly were in full bloom, as were the lilacs with their delicate fragrance. Honeybees were buzzing furiously among the bushes.
Although E’Cila’s test covered both the 19th and 20th century physics, she was most concerned with the 20th century because of the effect that the products such as lasers and computers had had on the standard of living of the era. Also, her instructor, being a pragmatic man, stressed the practical application of physics somewhat to the detriment of the theoretical aspects of the science.
E’Cila was really having trouble getting fully awake, particularly because it was sunny and there was almost no breeze. Then too, the buzzing of the bees was most hypnotic. Suddenly she fell into a hole she had no idea was in the yard. Very quickly she rolled herself into a ball, because she felt the immense pull of gravity.. Although she knew there was no such thing as a black hole , she took no chances. Certainly she was fully awake before she hit the brick walk at the bottom of the hole. After a close examination of her limbs, she realized she had only one small bruise on her right arm, and the supergravity had evidently caused her to be about 20cm taller before she had been able to roll up.. She was lying on a yellow brick walk. Each of the bricks had the letters GIBC incised in it.
She heard noises in the distance, and occasional shrieks, seemingly of happiness. She tried half-heartedly to get up the hole, but soon decided to investigate the noise. There was sort of a hallway with odd appearing walls. They were of a pearly color, and translucent. There were occasional hints of red, green, and blue in the translucence. The hallway turned slightly to the left. Directly ahead was the source of the sounds, a large open area that was extremely bright and colorful. She noted rapid motion, and the shrieks were more frequent. She couldn’t tell exactly who or what was making the noise, because the movement was so fast.
Directly between her and the open area was a large
bench, blocking the entryway. At the bench, was a white- bearded old man. On his shirt was printed "Der
Alte". These letters,
and the rest of his clothing were of bright colors, and flashed rhythmically.
The colors did not seem to form any regular, predictable pattern. The man was
throwing dice one time after another. Finally, he looked up, and said, in a
surprisingly tiny voice, "Hello E’Cila. How are
things in the real world? I know you would like to enter
CHAPTER 2
About that time, two rather odd characters appeared on the other side of the table. One was a fearsome-looking Boar, and the other a handsome man wearing coveralls with "Wave Mechanic" embroidered over his chest pocket. The Boar said, "Old one, why do you tease this lovely young lady? The old man said, "I was just about to let her pass." Aside he said, "Keep an eye on the Wave Mechanic. He fancies himself as quite the Lady’s man" E’Cila thanked him, and proceeded down the brick path with her new-found escorts.
They saw what was making the noise E’Cila had heard at the Old One’s
Table. There was a parade of sorts proceeding down the main road of
The Plank was dancing and singing a song as he marched along. His followers seemed to be trying to create as much disorder as possible. They, too were singing and playing all sorts of instruments, with no apparent tune. Something about Crazy Ludvig, entropy and statistics seemed to be the subject of their song. They also seemed to be denouncing the idea of molecules. On each of their tunics in bold letters was STERCUS ACCIDIT.
The Boar said, "Their leader is Mad Max from
Mad Max’s song was delivered in a pleasant baritone.:
"You picked flowers- well, so have I
Let them be, then, combined
Let us exchange our flowers fair
And to the brightest wreath them bind "
As the followers passed, they threw strings of
beads at the bystanders. E’Cila hung a string over
the Boar’s ear, and put one around her neck The Plank
stopped to pay his respects to the Boar, who introduced E"Cila.
She explained that she was from the real world. She asked the Plank, "Did you
compose your song?" Ja,
he said, It was an exchange with Arnie Herbstfeld. He was talking something about picking blooms I
had planted." "Excuse me", he said., I
must hurry and catch up with the band," as he danced off. "He could
have gone to
The Wave Mechanic had a box with a small cat in it. At intervals, a bell rang, and the cat would keel over dead, and a few seconds to several minutes later the cat would jump up, obviously alive. E’Cila said to the Wave Mechanic, "May I call you Erwin?" He said, actually it is Ervin." "All right Ervin, is the cat alive or dead, or in some uncertain state?" Ervin said, "I have never seen him other than alive or dead. When he is dead he is stiff as a log, and gets cold. When he is alive, he scampers about if he is let free." "Boar says that he is in an indeterminate state, but I don’t see it." The boar, mumbling, said the state of the cat depended on whether it was being observed, and that observation caused its wave function to collapse. "Ervin refuses to accept this fact, " said the Boar quietly. Ervin said, "You should listen closely to what he says, he is a very intelligent man. If the brewery hadn’t given him a job, he would have become an indifferent professor," As an aside, he told E’Cila, "Everybody calls him "Big Bore" behind his back."
They passed a spigot in the wall labeled MOLEHILLBIER in large, flashing letters. "There is his sponsor". Said Ervin. "Have a beer." He poured out three glasses, and gave the Boar a straw. The Boar drank daintily. As E’Cila sipped her beer, she asked, "May I call you ‘Nils’?" "Close enough" said the Boar between sips. .
She asked, "Tell me about the atom and the ‘jumps’". "Ja, the cursed jumps", said Ervin. Said Nils, " I have always liked the little solar atom. Lately, I have had moments of doubt about the jumps, they seem to be so ‘determinant’ but the spectral lines are very sharp,". The discourse trailed off to nothing, and E’Cila had to listen intently to catch the latter part.
While she was paying close attention to Nils, Ervin sidled up and pinched her. "Stop that". said E’Cila. I will hit you if you do such again". "To apologize, I would like to invite you to a small, intimate dinner this evening. We have so much in common", he said. "Not on your life", she said, " I have a fiancé in the real world".
"What about your wife?" said Nils. "Don’t tell her for goodness sake", said Ervin.
The Boar called their attention to the opening of the Gamma Ray’s Microscope Show. "Get us another beer, and let’s go in so we can get a good seat."
CHAPTER 3
As they went into the large dark theater, they were handed a pair of goggles that had completely opaque lenses. The attendant told them that they would be informed when they should be put on. They were seated in front of what appeared to be a huge telescope. In a few moments, Gamma Ray appeared. He had a bit of trouble with the sound system but finally began to describe the upcoming show. Calliope music began to play. He said, "What you are about to see is incredible. This is the only troupe of trained electrons and positrons in the Universe." "One can only see the tiny performers in the light of gamma rays, for which I have developed the goggles you have. "Remember not to take the goggles off when the gamma rays are on. Another innovation of this show is to allow you to see the action in ‘instant replay slow motion’". "All the gyrations of the Spectacular Shimmying Chorines may be clearly seen." "Now, the show is about to begin." The sound of the gamma ray generator starting up was heard.
Gamma Ray said, "put your goggles on now. " Hold your hand up if you do not have a pair." "The show will not start until everybody has their goggles on." As a ruse, a loud firecracker was set off. Several people took off their goggles to see what caused the racket. "Aha", said Gamma Ray, " If the gamma rays had been on, all of you would have been blinded immediately."
Everybody settled back down. The rays were turned on, and the electrons were seen. It was unbelievable how fast they shimmied. Gamma Ray told the observers how to adjust the slow motion effect, and the features of the individual electrons could be seen. All the electrons were female, and seemed to be identical.
About that time, the positrons came on stage. They didn’t wiggle nearly as much as the electrons, and seemed to have some sort of particles clinging to them. Gamma Ray said, "See the neutrinos hanging to the positrons." Their positive charge causes the attraction." The electrons began to shriek as the positrons chased them. Because of the neutrinos, the positrons could not move as fast as the electrons, but occasionally one would corner an electron. The result was instant annihilation of both particles, with formation of a gamma ray.
The positrons were seen to be all males and quite handsome. The electrons left the stage, and the positrons proceeded to put on quite a show, featuring exceptional feats of strength and skill. Then the electrons came back, and engaged in remarkable high speed interactions.
Gamma Ray then said, "The show is now over", as the gamma ray generator shut down., "You may now remove your goggles"
E’Cila then asked if she could meet Gamma Ray. "Certainly", said Nils, as they walked toward Gamma Ray. He shouted, "Hello, my old friends." "Who is the lovely lady with you?" "She is E’Cila and is a physics student from the real world.", said Edvin. E’Cila said, "I’ll bet your real name is Verner." "Right", he said, "and you even pronounced correctly.". Verner began to sneeze. "Gesundheit" all said. "Cursed allergy", said Verner. E’Cila asked him to tell about his development of "Matrix Magic" She explained that her instructor had stated that he believed that Nils had received Edvin’s Particulate Wave paper to referee, and that Verner had decided to develop a new type of mathematics involving imaginary, non-commuting matrices to, as the instructor put it, take back the initiative that Edvin’s Differential Equations based ParticulateWave theory could have gained. "Ja", said Edvin, "I wondered about that myself." Verner sneezed several more times in rapid succession. Nils said, "Not to criticize." "I did not referee Edvin’s paper, and anyway Verner had thought about Matrix Magic long before, just after Le Duc’s paper came out." "We will talk to Le Duc later." "At any rate, the two systems were found to be the same, basically, so that the calculations based on Edvin’s differential equations could be, and were, used to great effect."
Verner excused himself, explaining that he had to do a bit of work on the gamma ray generator before the next show.
CHAPTER 4
The three walked along into a forest with large oak trees. Since it was springtime, the trees were just about leafed out with delicate, yellow-green leaves. Abruptly, they came upon a gate across the path. A rather chubby wolf was obviously patrolling the gate. Edvin said, "Volfie, what are you doing out here in the forest?" Volfie said, "I have a job. The owner of this forest and the Duc want me to keep out undesirables." "Because of my reputation in exclusion, I was picked", said the wolf. "I know you two, and might let you in, but this young lady is entirely too zaftig to be hanging out with the likes of you." "Excuse me sir, said E’Cila, "I am a physics student from the real world, and would like to know more about your neutrinos. We saw some of them in Verner’s show, May I call you Volfie," "Please do", said the wolf, with a smile. All the time he was gnawing at his claws. Volfie said, "The neutrino was necessary to explain the Conservation of Energy in Beta emission, verstehen? "Yes", said the girl, "But how could it carry off energy when it later was supposed to have no mass?" Said the wolf, "That sort of got out of hand. It is tough to distinguish a particle with no mass and no charge that moves at the speed of light from a photon." "You will have to talk with my friend Enrico about that," He opened the gate and said, The exclusion is lifted. Pass in peace. "Tell Le Duc I said hello"
They walked further into the forest. At one of the
trees with large, overhanging branches, Nils said,
"this is Le Duc’s tree, I wonder where he
is." About that time a large eagle-owl flew in and landed on the nearest
branch. "Hello", the owl said, in a deep voice. Nils
said, "Greetings Duc, or should I say
Prince?" "Non just Duc, said the owl. E’Cila remembered that such owls are called ducs in
"Duc, " said E’Cila, "We were just talking to Volfie about neutrinos" He sends his regards, by the way." "At one time you had a theory about light being carried by neutrinos, since they were supposed to have no mass." " My question is, what distinguishes neutrinos from photons in the first place." Duc nodded his head a few times, and then said, "Well, they have a spin for one thing. There was some trouble with polarization of the neutrino light, so I abandoned it." E’Cila then asked, "Tell me about neutron diffraction" Duc said, " I am sure neutrons act as waves, and thus could be diffracted. There would be some problem with detecting them, since they have no charge." "There are von Laue patterns supposedly from neutrons, but they are not true."
The Duc rang a small bell that was hanging on the branch. Servants appeared from inside the tree. The Duc asked his guests to stay for Tea, and they readily agreed, having had no lunch. The servants brought out a sumptuous spread, including particularly appetizing desserts. The butler sounded a horn, and Volfie came bustling up to join them. Edvin said, "You don’t look like you need any of the desserts." "Speak for yourself", said the wolf.
After the repast, the three travelers decided to go see Herr Stone.
CHAPTER 5
At the very edge of the woods, there was a clearing, and there a large rock and a black lad were talking animatedly. They appeared to be talking about spatial singularities, with the Stone saying "They just don’t smell right." "I’ll bet the particles that you say go to make up the singularity have to move faster than the speed of light. The black lad said that his singularity was not rotating.
They stopped their discussion when they realized they had guests. E’Cila noted the Stone had a large 1 printed on it in india ink. "My name is E’Cila and I am a physics student from the real world What can I call you?", she said "Call me Al, and the lad is Karl" was his reply. "Tell me about your singularity, Karl", said E’Cila. He said, "From Herr Stone’s General Theory, it was obvious that there could be a body massive enough that light could not escape from it. If it had the mass of our sun, the body would have a radius less than 3 km." "The mass should collapse into a singularity with zero radius," " Unfortunately, I was called back to the Russian front, and could not pursue my thesis further. " E’Cila said, "Wouldn’t the singularity make the density infinite?" Karl noted that it would.
Al then told Nils that he had a new Gedanken Experiment for him, although this one could actually be tested directly, much like Edvin’s cat. Al said, "Put a coin in a small box. According to your precepts, if observed, the coin may or may not be in the box when it is opened. " "That is true", said Nils after a moment of thought. "Probability Theory has it that there is a finite chance that the coin can "jump" outside the box". "Confounded jumps again". mumbled Edvin. "Nein", said Al, "you confuse physical probability with mathematical probability." "Physically, ponderable bodies cannot magically appear in some new place." "On the other hand, from Gauss’ bell curve, it could be argued that even at the extremes there might be a finite probability of the coin being outside.", said Al. "Not to criticize", said Nils, "but the Gauss curve does apply." "The Old One does not throw dice, as I have noted many times.", said Al. E’Cila and Edvin winked at each other behind Al and Nils’ backs. Al said, "I guess you will tell me that a ten tonne machine, bolted to the floor of a building could "jump" outside the enclosure." "Come back next week after you have thought about it, and tell me I have at last bested you.", exulted Al. Nils was definitely chagrined, and was mumbling to himself, as he paced up and down in the clearing. He was so absorbed that he almost ran over E’Cila.
E’Cila said, "Al, how is your work on the Theory of Everything coming?" "Not well", said Al, "Even Riemannian and Minkowskian geometries do not answer all the questions." "Also, I have tried all sorts of abstract matrix calculus to no avail." "I have not given up, but I don’t know where to turn next,", said Al. "If Karl had been able to study more mathematics, he may have been able to help me, but the war stopped that", said Al, with a sigh.
"We must go see Auntie Matter and PAM",
said Nils. It is getting late, and we may be able to
have supper there. She makes the best apple pie in
"Don’t forget next week", said Al. Nils mumbled even louder. It seemed like E’Cila made out something like "Annoying old man", but she may have been wrong.
CHAPTER 6
As the three approached Auntie’s house, they were overtaken by Volfie. He told them that he had just gotten off work at the exclusion gate, and had been invited to Auntie’s for dinner. Even though he had over-eaten at Le Duc’s Tea, he could not pass up such an invitation.
The walk into Auntie’s house was lined with a beautiful garden of flowers and shrubs E’Cila had never seen before. The house itself was immense, made entirely from the same yellow bricks of the walk. Auntie was a rather stout woman of about 50. She was standing on the Veranda, and waved to the four. "Pour yourselves a Molehill, and sit, "she said. It will be a few minutes before supper. She asked, "Who is the lovely young lady?" "I am E’Cila, a physics student from the real world", she said. Just then a young lady of 20 or so came running up. "I should have guessed Volfie was about", she said. "Hermione and I were working in the laboratory when our Robber’s tube broke for no apparent reason." "Ach, Pammy", said the wolf, I am no jinx." He was still chewing on his claws. "Our apparatus is always perfect until you show up", said the girl. "I am going to ask Auntie to make you come in from the road opposite the laboratory." "I will do that from now on", said Volfie.
The girl told E’Cila that the PAM stood for Paula Adriana Matter, but everybody called her Pammy. E’Cila said, ‘I have a question." I do not understand about your negative energies." "That is a statement, not a question", laughed Pammy. All the others joined in the laughter. "That comes about because of negative mass, because the velocity enters as a quadratic", said Pammy. "What about momentum of the positron?", asked E’Cila. "Since the velocity can be a negative vector, could the momentum be positive?" "Yes, but it is usually negative with a positive velocity", said Pammy.
"I seem to remember a story that Nils is supposed to have told about an elephant hunt", said E’Cila. Pammy laughed, "Yes, ‘uncle’ Boar was chiding me about my long-winded explanation of holes in an electron sea being equivalent to positive electrons. (Which he didn’t particularly believe.) He said if I told this story at an elephant watering hole, the elephant hunters would have time to sneak up and tie ropes around the elephant’s legs." ,said Pammy. Auntie said, "Volfie got in the fun also.’ "He proposed as his Second Principle, that if Pammy’s reasoning was correct, her electrons should fall very rapidly into her protons. This would cause gamma rays to form, thus causing her to disappear in a burst of energy." "She certainly has always been very energetic", sail Volfie.
About this time, the cook called that dinner was served.
After dinner, since they all had eaten too much, the cherry pies were saved for later. They all gathered on the veranda. Auntie had a new "Probability©" game that was very tricky and complicated. It required a computer with 3D graphics. There were possibilities of cubic, octahedral, dodecahedral dies. One could play with either numbers, letters or partial pictures on the faces. The object of the games were to guess what was on the hidden face, what the pattern was, or what picture could be made from the smaller pictures on the die faces. Play was fast and hilarious, with the droll comments of Nils, and the attempts of Volfie to top them. It was obvious that the memories of Pammy and Volfie were much better than the rest, so they won most of the games. Finally, Volfie got hungry for the cherry pie, and the game was getting a bit boring to the losers, so cherry pie was served. E’Cila had never tasted any as good in the real world.
Auntie invited all to stay overnight, and was accepted by all but Volfie, who had to go to work early. He expressed his regrets, particularly at missing Auntie’s legendary breakfast of waffles., served with homemade cherry jam.
After breakfast, the three adventurers took their leave. "We don’t really know where to go now", said Nils.. "We have seen just about everybody in this section." "I understand there is another section, where they are always having a party, but don’t know how to get there", said Nils. "That is a par(i)ty that they have, and I know where a tunnel is", said Pammy. "Come along."
CHAPTER 7
The four walked along the wall of
She gave Nils a hug, and
kissed him on the snout. He turned a bright pink, and had tears in his eyes. E’Cila said, "Don’t get any
ideas", and kissed Edvin on the cheek. He
blushed also. Pammy, kissed and hugged both also.
Both girls asked Nils and Edvin
to give all the inhabitants of
The tunnel was brightly lit, and there were quotations about various aspects of physics at intervals. They did not seem to be in any particular order of subject or of importance, but they were interesting enough that the girls read them all.
- "If the
equations that govern the dynamical behavior of a physical system do not
change when some transformation is made on the system, then for each such
transformation there must exist some physical quantity that is itself conserved,
meaning that it does not change with time." EMMY NOETHER
- "What do we
mean by "understanding" something? Imagine that the world is
something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are
observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all
we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long
enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of
the game are what we call fundamental physics. Even if we knew every
rule, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in
the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited.
If you play chess you must realize it is easy to learn all the rules, and
yet it is very hard to select the best move, or to understand why a
player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so….We must limit ourselves
to the more basic question of the rules of the game. If we know the
rules, we consider that we "understand" the world.
,,,,,,RICHARD FEYNMAN
- "…….the
symmetry between the weak and electromagnetic forces could be restored if
we could raise the temperature of our laboratory above a few million
billion degrees. At such temperatures the symmetry would be no longer
hidden, but clearly apparent in the particles of the standard model. (Eg.,
at these temperatures the electron and the W and Z particles and all the
quarks would be massless.)" ……………STEVEN
WEINBERG
- "……the
orthodox Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics requires the
existence of a macroscopic world of observers and measuring apparatuses, which
in turn is explained in terms of quantum mechanics…………………..MICHAEL REDHEAD
- "Physics is
not about how the world is, it is about what we can say
about the world" NEILS BOHR
- "The
remarkable thing is that spontaneously broken gauge symmetries are not
entirely hidden. As I have described, the effect of a background
"condensate" of particles in empty space is to make the W and Z
particles appear heavy, while keeping the photon massless."
- "I simply do
not know how to change quantum mechanics by a small amount without
wrecking it altogether."……STEVEN WEINBERG
- "Of course it
may be that when, in a thousand years, the electronic computers begin to
talk, they will speak a language quite different from ours and lock us up
in asylums because they cannot communicate with us. But our problem is
not that we do not have adequate concepts. What we lack is a sufficient
understanding of the unambiguous use of the concepts we have……..NEILS BOHR
- "….protons and
neutrons are made up of a central core of positively charged matter,
about which are two shells of mesonic material.
…the proton and neutron are bodies of considerable complexity, not pointlike or ‘elementary’ as previously supposed."……ROBERT HOFSTADTER
- "The glory of
mathematics is that we do not have to say what we are talking about"
……….. RICHARD FEYNMAN
- "If the reader
is mystified at what Heisenberg was doing, he or she is not alone. I have
tried several times to read the paper that Heisenberg wrote on returning
from Heligoland, and although I think I
understand quantum mechanics, I have never understood Heisenberg’s
motivations for the mathematical steps in his paper. Theoretical
physicists in their most successful work tend to play one of two roles:
they are either sages or magicians. ……… It
is usually not difficult to understand the papers of sage-physicists, but
the papers of magician-physicists are often incomprehensible. In this
sense, Heisenberg’s 1925 paper was pure magic."………STEVEN WEINBERG
The girls particularly noted the quote from Emmy Noether. "At least one woman was quoted", said Pammy. "I guess you could deduce conservation of energy from her quote". said E"Cila.
They came to the end of the tunnel, and noticed the paths were of red brick. They had the letters KGltd on them. A young girl asked if they knew their spins. Both said, "No." The girl attached an apparatus to E’Cila’s thumb, and said,, "Spin 1", and stamped her right hand with a red 1. The girl said, "The only 1 we have left is King Richard." "To keep the parity of the party, you must go with him," "He is one of the Fine Men." In the meantime, another girl had measured Pammy’s spin as -½, and introduced her to Mr. Swinger, who immediately whisked Pammy onto the dance floor.
The first girl asked E’Cila’s name, and presented her to King Richard, who was indeed a Fine Man, close to 2 meters tall, and quite handsome. "She said, "I am a physics student from the real world." He said, "I won’t hold that against you. Do you know how to dance the Kew Emm?" "Actually, it makes little difference, because nobody knows how to dance the Kew Emm." "The participants just seem to make up the steps as they go along, and the music is discordant also.". They went out on the dance floor, to be jostled at every turn by the waves of dancers. The King said, "That is merely due to the "collapse" of each wave function as it is observed."
E’Cila was glad when the jostling and particularly the raucous music was over, and they sat down at a large table to be joined by a contingent of people who seemed to be seeking favors from the King. There was Elia and Bethy, The Wigman and a young friend, Pammy and Swinger along with Wineman and Aleikum the harem girl. A little later, they were joined by Captain Higgs and WaZoo. While they were settling down, E"Cila asked what use was made of the "quotation tunnel". The King said, "When one of our guests misbehaves, we put him in the tunnel to sober up. Usually one trip seems to suffice." She also asked him about the letters KGltd on the bricks. He laughed saying the inhabitants said it stood for "Keep going like the devil".
The Wigman was interesting. His attire consisted of a long frock coat, with wigs of all shapes, styles, sizes and colors attached to it at every possible spot. He did not seem to be trying to sell any of them. His friend was carrying a box which could be opened at either end. E’Cila wondered if he had a cat in it, like that of Edvin. She asked him , "May I ask what you have in the box?" He said, "I have a particle in here, or at least I think I do." "The Wigman has hired me to catch a particle in the box, and when he leaves, to open one end of the box and let it out. I am supposed to observe what happens and answer any questions he may have. He always has asked the same question, so far, "Did you see a flash of light?" " The answer has always been yes"." He never said why he wanted to know.". Later , E’Cila asked the Wigman for a black wig, which he cheerfully gave her.
Elia said, "I have found an interesting shift in my microwave, and Bethy has been able to explain it by simply neglecting everything except the slant of the table on which it sits." Swinger said, "That is all well and good, but there are an infinite number of other things that should be taken into consideration. Then by dividing by infinity, one can get a theoretical picture." "Bodies can appear from the empty space about the microwave and disappear before anyone can see them or know they are there." Everyone cheered and yelled "Hear, Hear, make them all Nobles." The King proceeded to do so, giving each a ceremonial gold chain with a medallion on it. E’Cila wondered why the ghostly bodies wouldn’t be as likely to shift the microwave uphill as downhill, but said nothing.
Captain Higgs asked if anyone had seen his Bos’n. "I need him to give some mass and backbone to
my crew, mainly WaZoo here and his cousin ZaWoo." As he spoke WaZoo
kept floating out of his seat to be restrained by a rope in the Captain’s hand. Wineman and Aleikum said that they were interested also, because they
had a theory that the bos’n knew how to make their
neutrons to change into protons. "Help us find the Bos’n
and we all can become Nobles. "We think heavy
bodies need to be involved in the process, and that they may appear out of thin
air like Swinger’s bodies about the microwave."
"That is, if a means can be provided to spontaneously break the
symmetry." All shouted, "Hear, hear. Make them Nobles right now, and
let us go hunting Captain Higg’s Bos’n."
This was done. King Richard then told all to go with him to see King Hawk,
since he was actually King of a bigger territory (on the
CHAPTER 8
When they arrived at the
"If you were not already a King and a Noble, I would make you one for that excellent speech" , said Hawk. "I would like to see this wondrous person also, because I have some questions about super cannons crackers for our par(i)ty party."
"His energy is reputed to be trillions of times that of simple seamen, so it will take a huge detector." Said Richard.. "You are welcome to use the machine.", said King Hawk. "All I ask is that you do not try to run the machine with theorists.", said the King "Oh no,", said Richard, "We have experimenters that can interpret the fanciest conglomeration of squiggles in the detector." Said the Hawk, "My people are using solid state detectors read by computers. Takes the human failings out of detection, and makes it easier to find those 1 in a trillion events, they say." "However, you are welcome to crank up the old hydrogen bubble chamber if you like.", said Hawk,
There was soon the whirring and buzzing of large machinery. This kept up all the rest of the day. When they shut down for the evening, the experimenters requested yet more power for the next day. King Hawk called for a holiday, and for the use of only emergency power. About ten AM one of the experimenters came running excitedly to where the Nobles were waiting. "We may not have found the bos’n, but we have found his missing topper.", said the man breathlessly. He showed them a glass photographic plate with a bunch of roughly concentric circles. and some "v" shaped lines. "There it is, plain as day", he said. E’Cila looked at Pammy. "That looks just like an unexposed glass plate that I developed (by mistake) in a metal tray last summer", said E’Cila.
"Jack up the power as high as possible, and keep looking", said King Richard.
The experimenters came back with no results. The
detectors just were not powerful enough, and they had blown all the fuses in
The first park they encountered was
SYMMETRY IS THE BASIS OF ALL PHYSICS proclaimed one sign. One game flashed two pictures for one second. The player was required to tell what would be required to make the two objects symmetrical,
SYMMETRY IS BEAUTY claimed another sign. A popular game exhibited various wave equations and Matrices. The object was to pick out the symmetrical equations and to guess how the unsymmetrical expressions could be made symmetrical.
BROKEN SYMMETRY TREORY OF BETA DECAY REPLACES "UGLY" THEORY BASED SOLELY ON EXPERIMENTAL DATA See the results of the BEAUTIFUL theory.
In another game, the player had to guess if a particle was an electron going forward, or a positron going in the opposite direction, by the effect of a magnet on the motion. As the game progressed a number of other particles were introduced, and all the particles were allowed to move in three dimensions.
The next park concerned QED. There were exhibits illustrating how virtual particles were produced in the "vacuum", and how these particles transmitted the effects and disappeared before the universe knew anything about them. All that was necessary was to obey the Uncertainty Principle. It was shown that even massive particles could be created as long as anti-particles (or zero charged) were created as well. E’Cila said, "All this is well and good, but it appears that only repulsive fields and forces could be developed." "Secondly, a major problem with such a system is that Entropy is forgotten." "In every energy exchange, entropy must increase, and the energy would rapidly decrease to zero, since an infinity of occurrences would be necessary." "This certainly would obviate the necessity of renormalization, since there would be no energy left to deal with."
Two buildings resembling an Oriental Temples were in the next park. The first had a sign PRINCE MARA’S TANHA , and under that COME IN AND BREAK ALL THE 5 MORAL RULES There were belly dancers shimmying in front of the large door. The barker shouted, "Come in great Nobles, Come in. The girls inside wear even less. Invent your own sin. Forget pain. Learn the ways of pleasure." A few of the Nobles and ordinary people were tempted.
The other building was much quieter. It had the
letters QCD over the doorway. Inside, Prince Cosby and the Noble Yessman were extolling the virtues of the Eightfold Way.
After a short lecture, E’Cila was able to talk with
the Prince. She asked, "Did you know that quark meant "nonsense"
in German when you proposed it for the basic particle?" "Yes, it was
in the middle of a beer party, and somebody was quoting the passage from "Finnegan’s Wake" when I said that a quark would be a
fine name for a new particle. A graduate student from
Most of the Nobles drifted to the games of chance. All the games were based on the cycles of color transformations brought about by symmetry breaking by gluon transfer between red, yellow and blue quarks in a boson. The boson was required to have no color at all times. That is, there must always be one quark of each color. The quarks were restrained to the very small volume of the boson by "asymptotic freedom". This principle holds that the forces between the particles decrease as the energies increase. The exchanges of gluons take place extremely rapidly. The object of one game was to observe the condition of the particles, clockwise from the leftmost quark and record this, and allow the particles to spin, stopping them after 10 seconds, and observing the order of the colors again. Bets were placed and paid off at a thousand to one for the correct order, and at ten to one for the correct reverse order, but the order must be correct for each of 100 different bosons.
The Prince explained that this was the main way of
financing the
As the Nobles left the
"We want to be free
But we can’t get out
The harder we try,
The closer we get
They call it Asymptotic Freedom"
"Nobody has seen us
But they guess
Our colors and charges
By shooting at us
We want to be free
Supposedly
We have Asymptotic Freedom
But we’re not free."
CHAPTER 9
The Cam District Registry was just outside the gate of the QCD park. Here, one who discovered a new symmetry (particularly a broken symmetry), and/or a new particle could register the same, and become a Noble. Since regular symmetry is much easier to find than broken symmetry, that discoverer only got a certificate, while discoveries involving broken symmetry were honored by a parade.
The technician, named
The next park was a large stadium. A sign over the entrance said, TODAY’S GAME THE DARK MATTER CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE UNIVERSE Come and see the Wimpsters play the Machsnichts. Everybody Welcome.
The announcer explained that the two teams were made up of All-Stars from the Wimp and Macho Leagues. "Because of the size difference of the Wimps who are ten times the size of the Machos, There are equal numbers of the two types of "Dark Matter" on each team." "The game is about to start, and since it requires an x-ray microscope to see the particles, I will describe the game, play-by-play."
Then began an extremely rapid-fire description by the announcer. Suddenly he stopped the patter, and announced the game had been suspended. Apparently the new Noble had been able to touch some of the Machnichts players and give them supermass, so much so that they had broken through the field and disappeared.
The technician,
Pammy told E’Cila, "I’ll bet that the particles escaped through wormholes into other universes."
Next along the pathway was a billboard announcing a lecture to be given in the Great Hall of Cam by King Richard. The subject was KING RICHARD EXPLAINS SUPERGRAVITY, OR 5 PLUS SUSY IN N-DIMENSIONS. The time was 2:PM, which was just about 10 minutes away, so the girls proceeded into the Great Hall and found a seat, although there was such a crowd that they were near the back. Apparently, King Richard had quite a reputation as a speaker.
Introductions were made by King Hawk, who stated
that King Richard was in great demand as a lecturer, and he was proud to have
him keynote the
CHAPTER 10
The park was almost deserted, since most of the
crowd was either in
E’Cila said, "Do you want to get out?" Both said, "Yes." The girls got up very close to the pane, and told them where to put their feet. At first, it was "one step forward, and one step back", but E’Cila was able because of her heritage, to see dimensionally, so that slowly the two were able to reach the pane, and step through. Both said they would like to sleep for several days, and then get together in an attempt to "compactify" their string theories.
E’Cila said to Pammy, "Do you think that Dayton’s
Particle could make me heavy enough to create a wormhole in the walk?" Pammy said it was worth a try, but she couldn’t
be sure the wormhole would lead to her home. E’Cila
said that she would be happy to get out of the black hole, and possibly if she
repeated "Home is the place to be", she might get home. So the girls
went off to look for
"E’Cila", said Mother, you were about to run into that fence post until I touched you. You have been walking about aimlessly for over an hour." E’Cila said, "Mother, you would not believe what I have experienced, and all of the physicists I have seen." Her mother said, "What happened to your hair, girl?," "Oh"’ said E’Cila, that was a present from Dr. Wigner." Mother said. "I would swear you are taller than you were an hour ago You really must tell me about your walk."
EPILOUGE
E’Cila"s father was a descendant of one of the crew members of a spaceship that landed on earth abut a hundred years before this story. The ship was from the planet Unoom, which is directly opposite the earth, behind the sun, with exactly the same orbit, and almost exactly the same size, density and average atmosphere and temperature.
This planet developed two legged animals that became humanoid some million years ago, but has no reptiles nor four legged creatures. Unoom has one continent that extends through the temperate regions. In the far eastern end of the continent, there is a mountain range that is quite high, mostly 4000 meters or higher. There are two passes that are each 3000 meters or higher, and quite treacherous because of the eternal snow cover.
On the west side of the mountains, people developed. Their food is vegetarian, although the Worg plants have proteins with all the essential amino acids. These and other plants grow quite profusely, and are very easy to harvest, so the inhabitants do not have to be creative. Because the plants require large fields to grow, it is important that the population be restricted, so after a certain time it was agreed that women would not have any more than one child in their lifetime, and over time, elaborate systems of taboos were established. One was that women were not to have sex with members of their own clan (as it would be called on earth.)
There were, of course some non-conformists, and some of them found their way across the mountain passes. They found a waterless desert, with no plants or animals. Some of them starved to death, or died of thirst, but some of them were able to melt snow to get water, and made trips back to their previous homes to get cuttings of plants. The desert was fertile, if water could be obtained. So it was soon discovered how to move snow down to where valleys were, and to dam the valleys to make reservoirs. The people were resourceful, so they soon developed metallurgy and glass making. Greenhouses made the desert a paradise. There was an ocean at the east end of the desert, but there was nothing alive in it, and the waters were salty, so that it was of no value to the inhabitants.
After a time, the desert inhabitants, who called themselves E’Korgs, developed measuring sciences such as geometry, and engineering type sciences such as metallurgy, chemical manufacture and construction. There were ample mineral deposits in the foothills of the mountains, along with raw materials for all types of chemicals. In particular, there was a hydrocarbon oil that oozed from the ground near the mountains. It was necessary to develop roads and heavy machinery to exploit the ores, since there were no beasts of burden. The petroleum oil was used as fuel. Since there were roads, people movers were developed. Airplanes quite similar to those on earth were developed.
Life became somewhat easier, so more aesthetic subjects such as art, and music, and sciences such as physics, applied mathematics and astronomy were studied.
About a hundred thousand earth years ago, it was decided to try to go into space to find out if there was life on the other planets of the solar system. Several such ships were crashed before one finally was built that was reliable. On one of the first voyages, it was found that the earth existed, and that it had an atmosphere and liquid water on it. The rest of the planets looked uninhabited and uninhabitable. Several expeditions were arranged to the earth. It was found that the atmosphere and climate were compatible, but there were no bipeds on the planet. On one expedition, tanks were available, and fish were caught. These were taken back to Unoom, and survived in the ocean, providing another source of food.
In the meantime, there were periodic famines in the temperate areas of Unoom, due to overpopulation, the desert people decided to attempt to move some of these people to earth to see if it could provide an outlet for excess population. Several very large spaceships were built, and raids were made in the temperate zones by landing the ships in the zones and forcing numbers of the people into the ships. The populace was terrified, because the crews wore their space suits, and we had been careful to avoid flying over the Temperate areas.
The colonies we planted on earth amounted to about 15, over a period of 1000 years or so. Fossils from these people indicate ages much older than they actually were, since there is only about 10% of the carbon 14 on Unoom as compared to earth, because of much less overall radioactivity.
We would fly by the earth occasionally to see how the colonies were doing. All seemed to be doing fairly well, but at essentially a subsistence level. It was decided to send a colony of the most intelligent of the temperate zone people to try to help the earthmen to develop skills to better cope with their environment. These new immigrants were brought to the desert and taught metal smelting, weaponry (ie, spears, bows and arrows and slings) and the use of the wheel. They were purposely not shown all the modern technology. When these people were placed on the earth, there was a major improvement of lifestyles. The old-line earthmen resented the newcomers, and patiently waited until they were able to understand all the weaponry. Then they fell on the newcomers and wiped them out to a man. They purposely did not kill the women, but used them for breeding stock. The fossils of the newcomers are now called Neanderthals.
As time went by, radio and television, and atom bombs were developed. We decided that an observation post was necessary, so we placed two satellites in solar orbits, at the midpoints between Unoom and earth. We also dropped several intelligence men by parachute from fast, low flying ships. Some of these ships were called flying saucers.
One of our observers found out that a scientist in
©March 15, 2000
Clarence L. Dulaney