Quantum radio, p.2
Quantum Radio, page 2
The next slide showed a table with subatomic particles and their counts.
“I wrote a computer algorithm to analyze the data generated from run three—specifically, to look for unexpected patterns. I wasn’t sure what I would find. But I kept tweaking the algorithm until I found a pattern—and something else. What I believe are non-original exotic subatomic particles.”
One of the managers from the finance department held up his hand. “What exactly are you saying here?”
“I’m saying that I think more is happening during these particle collisions than we think.”
The man frowned. “What does that mean?”
“The purpose of the LHC experiments is to crash particles together and look at what they’re made of—the smallest building blocks of the universe. I think some of these collisions are doing more than simply breaking apart particles. I believe the collisions themselves are acting upon the fabric of our universe in a manner we don’t fully understand.”
Ty held up a sheet of paper. “One of the great questions in science is whether our universe is a closed system. In particular, where did all of the matter and energy in the universe come from, and where will it all go? We know all matter and energy in our universe originated with the Big Bang—but what happened before that? And what will happen at the end of the universe? I think I may have detected part of the answer.”
He took a pencil from the lectern and stabbed it into the paper. “My working theory is that the collisions in the LHC are breaking open particles, but they’re also causing our universe to become porous—for the smallest, smallest fraction of a second. I believe some of the subatomic particles we’re detecting here at CERN aren’t originating from the source particles we crashed together. We thought they were before because the machine and the detectors weren’t sensitive enough and the computing grid couldn’t hold sufficient data. That’s changed. I think the truth is that some of the particles we’re detecting aren’t from our world. They’re from somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“That’s the question.” Ty paused a moment. “Well, actually, a better question is where—and when? Our understanding of the very nature of space-time is incomplete. Therefore, we only know that these exotic subatomic particles I’ve identified are coming from elsewhere. They could be from somewhere else in the universe, or they could be coming from right here, but from the future or from the past.”
The room was utterly quiet.
Ty took a deep breath and steeled himself to deliver the news he believed would be the biggest scientific discovery in human history.
“But that’s not the most remarkable part. The real scientific mystery is that these particles have a pattern. They aren’t just random noise. It’s organized. What we’re detecting is a data stream.”
Ty stared at the audience. “I think what we’ve built here at CERN is far more than a particle collider. The ring buried under our feet is detecting quantum data. It’s tuning in to a broadcast across space and time, a message being sent via a sort of… quantum radio.”
3
Ty had expected to be grilled on his discovery.
He had mentally prepared himself to be on stage for hours defending his findings, fielding questions, and debating the merits of his theory.
None of those things happened.
The scientists in the auditorium, for the most part, said nothing. They didn’t want to discuss his theory. They wanted to see the data.
Extraordinary claims, after all, require extraordinary proof.
Most of all, Ty’s colleagues wanted to repeat his experiments, to run his algorithms and get the same outcome. That inspired confidence: a new discovery that was verifiable and repeatable.
The audience filed out of the room, some on their way home, others staying to work the night shift. Ty’s boss, Mary, stepped onto the stage and held out her arms to hug him. She was about the same age as Ty’s mother and every bit as nurturing.
“It went well, Ty.”
“They didn’t believe me.”
“They will. In time.”
He nodded.
“It’s a big deal, Ty. Might even garner you the Nobel.” Mary smiled. “There could be a slight bit of jealousy in the room. I bet a great many of them wish they had come up with it. Chin up, now.”
*
Outside, the sun was sinking rapidly behind the Jura Mountains.The sound of laughter and smell of barbecue filled the air—the by-product of the informal after-work gatherings that were common at CERN, where post-doctoral fellows and staff regularly mixed with Nobel laureates and theories and experiments were devised and friendships were made. It was a part of the magic of CERN that Ty loved. On any other night, he would have been tempted to wander over and see if he knew anyone and had any interest in the conversation. But tonight, he had something else in mind.
He took out his phone and dialed Penny, the German graduate student he’d met at a small café six months ago.
The same nerves he’d felt on stage returned, though now they were mixed with a sort of excitement. Ty had been unlucky in love. As such, he had avoided dating for most of his adult life. Like a kid who had fallen off his bike and skinned his knee, he had been cautious this time around, taking it slow, careful not to get hurt again. Penny had been fine with that.
“Hi,” she answered, sounding surprised.
“Hi.”
“I thought you had to work.”
“I thought so too.” Ty glanced back at the building. “Things wrapped up quicker than I thought.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah. I think so. Actually, today was sort of a big day.”
“Oh, do tell,” she said playfully. Ty could imagine her smiling, holding the phone with one hand, setting her textbook aside and curling up on the narrow bed in her studio apartment as she ran her other hand through her long brown hair.
“I’d love to. Over dinner.”
“I can do dinner.”
“Great. And to give you a cryptic preview, the topic of tonight’s talk will be quantum radio.”
Silence stretched out so long Ty thought she had hung up. He took the phone from his ear and stared at the screen, watching the seconds of the call tick up. The line was active. She was still there.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
Penny’s tone was flat when she spoke again. “I’m here. What did you just say?”
“Dinner.”
“No. Your discovery. What did you call it?”
“Quantum radio. I know it’s a sort of quirky name, but it makes sense once you understand it.”
“I’m sure.” In the background, Ty could hear her moving around quickly, as if gathering her things. “Actually, I just remembered that I need to study tonight. Dinner’s no good.”
“No problem.” Ty couldn’t help reading more into it. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Completely. Sorry, Ty, gotta run.”
The line went dead.
Ty stood there, replaying the call in his mind.
Quantum radio.
He shouldn’t have even brought it up. Penny didn’t want to hear him drone on about his experiments over dinner. Who would?
Ty donned his helmet and pedaled his bike into the warm August night, out of the CERN complex.
Usually, the bike ride home was one of Ty’s favorite parts of the day. It was a way to clear his mind. But today, that was a challenge. As the green fields and low-rise office buildings and apartments passed, his thoughts kept drifting back to the call with Penny. Something was off about it.
Five minutes into his trek, the tram passed on its way to CERN. When he’d first moved to the area, he had lived in a hostel for a few months and taken public transportation, which was free to anyone staying in a hostel, hotel, or campsite. He still rode the tram in the winter, but he preferred to bike the rest of the year.
There was a big push at CERN to bike to work, and Ty had to admit that it had been good for him. It was really the only exercise he got, and it had improved his mental health too. Most of his colleagues who lived in France still drove to work, but the truth was that having a car was far easier on the French side of the border. Driving in Geneva was a challenge, but parking was a true nightmare. As such, he now owned a bike and a Unireso pass, which got him access to all of Geneva’s public transport networks (trams, buses, trains, and even the mouettes, the yellow transport boats that operated on Lake Geneva). Between his bike and the Unireso pass, he could get anywhere in Geneva quickly and easily.
At his four-story apartment building, Ty dismounted his bike and trudged inside, exhaustion finally catching up with him as the adrenaline from the presentation faded and exertion from pedaling took its toll.
Ty’s building, like so many in Geneva, was fully occupied. It had been built in the seventies and hadn’t changed much since then. It was worn but clean, and the owner seemed to have no interest in updating it. He was, however, maniacal about the move-out inspection (Ty had heard horror stories about the fees charged to other residents for even the most minor damage).
Still, Ty was glad to have found the place. The property market was competitive, and supply was tight (most listing agents didn’t even bother to post pictures of the interior of available properties, and showings were often left to the current occupants; the best places typically went within hours, or days at the most).
Before moving to Geneva, Ty had heard how expensive the city was. Having grown up in Washington, DC, however, the price shock wasn’t that bad to him. Things were expensive—especially groceries and health care—but his CERN salary was more than adequate.
Most of all, his lifestyle was what kept his finances in check. It wasn’t that he was frugal. He simply didn’t do anything besides work and sit at home and read. Well, with the exception of going out to dinner or hiking with Penny, but based on the last call, he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be doing that.
His biggest expense was flying home to DC for the holidays, and even with that cost, he had managed to save a little bit.
In the apartment building’s entrance hall, Ty found one of his neighbors waiting by the elevator, jabbing the button to call it, a perturbed look on her face. Her name was Indra Tandon, and she worked as a travel coordinator at the international headquarters of Médecins Sans Frontières, commonly known as Doctors Without Borders in the English-speaking world. Her husband, Ajit, was an interpreter at the United Nations and often worked nights at dinners and late meetings. Their only child, a son, named Ramesh, sat beside her in a motorized wheelchair. From the dinner conversations in their flat, Ty knew that the Tandons could afford a better apartment, but they were saving for two very important reasons: to cover the cost of any potential new treatments for their son’s cerebral palsy and to send money home to relatives in India.
“Hi, Mrs. Tandon.”
She turned and gave Ty a weary smile. “Hello, Tyson. How are you?”
“Good. Everything okay?”
“Yes. Fine.” She motioned to the closed elevator doors. “I think it is broken again.”
She took out her phone and glanced at the time, then at Ramesh, who was staring at the floor. “I’m sure Ajit will be home shortly.”
From her tone, Ty wasn’t convinced she believed that. And he knew she wouldn’t call him, because Ajit would indeed come home to help, and it might cause a problem at work, and Indra would end up feeling guilty about it. Ty knew this because it had happened once before, eight months ago.
“Mind if I help?” Ty asked. When Indra grimaced, he added, “I could use the exercise.”
She gave a sharp nod. “Well, if you insist.”
“I do.”
Ty bent down to eye level with the boy, smiling. “What do you think, Ramesh? Up for helping me exercise?”
Ramesh smiled back, and his voice was soft when he spoke. “Sure.”
Ty released the strap on Ramesh’s wheelchair and lifted him up, holding the boy tight to his body. He ascended the marble stairs carefully, and by the time he reached the fourth floor, his legs were burning and his forehead was damp with sweat.
In the Tandons’s apartment, he gently set Ramesh on the couch and whispered, “That was fun, wasn’t it?”
Ramesh nodded quickly. “Yeah.”
“Will you stay for dinner, Tyson?”
“I’d love to, but I have some work to catch up on.”
“Then take some chicken biryani with you.”
“No, I can’t—”
“Now I must insist, Tyson. You look too thin as it is.”
4
At his door, Ty was surprised to find a small package lying on the floor. It was marked Swiss Post, but the sender was listed only as “Shipping Center” with an address in Reinach, Switzerland.
He wasn’t expecting anything—and certainly wasn’t used to Swiss Post delivering boxes of this size to his apartment door when he wasn’t home.
Inside, he put the package on the dining table and set the food Indra had given him in the microwave. He was famished. Soon, the smell of chicken, rice, and spices filled the one-bedroom apartment.
His place was, in short, a mess. The IKEA bookcase next to the door was filled to the brim with nonfiction books. So was the floor. The volumes sat in stacks, like makeshift walls of a book maze in his living room. The coffee table was littered with professional journals and two decaying take-out boxes.
The walls were covered in articles he had torn out and pinned there, sometimes with yellow Post-its with his notes.
The kitchen wasn’t much better. Plates were piled up in the sink (the dishwasher was broken). Bottles of supplements and prescription medications lined the wall like chess pieces.
The supplements and medications were part of Ty’s years of personal health experiments. He was constantly looking for new ways to enhance his mental clarity and energy—to hack himself, in a way.
The first row of bottles contained his current pill regimen.
A notebook beside the bottles recorded the observations of his experiments. Each row held a date and data consistent with any science experiment, which was exactly how Ty had come to regard his health.
As the timer on the microwave ticked down, he twisted the pill bottles open and downed the tablets for tonight’s scheduled doses.
He had to admit: the apartment really was a pigsty. Even more than normal. His last attempt at cleaning up had been a month ago, when Penny had come over. He thought he had done a decent job. Penny… well, she had been less than impressed.
“What happened here?” she had asked.
He glanced around. “What?”
“Ty, this place is a mess. It looks like a police stakeout.”
“Really?”
“Actually, it looks like a police stakeout conducted by a serial killer who is, in fact, unbeknownst to him, actually in a padded cell in a mental institution. It’s that crazy in here. We’re going to my place.”
“Why?”
“Because part of Netflix and chill is to chill—and I can’t relax in here.” She put her bag down. “In fact, we’re going to sort this out right now—I don’t even think I can relax at my flat knowing yours is in such a state.”
And with that, she had set about cleaning up Ty’s apartment, like the whirlwind force of nature that she was.
Ty was smiling at the memory when the microwave beeped. As usual, he had overheated the dish—he could barely touch the plastic container. Popping the top released a plume of steam hot enough to take half his face off.
With some finesse, he set the plastic container on the dining table and stirred it with a fork, trying to disperse the heat.
When it was still hot enough to burn his mouth but not enough to matter, he dug in, eating as he always did: quickly.
And as usual, he took out his phone.
No calls or texts from Penny.
Instantly, he regretted looking. He wished he didn’t care. But he did. Particle physics was a lot easier than dating. Science made sense. People didn’t.
He checked his email, half expecting to find follow-up questions from the attendees at his talk. He found none. That was odd.
When the pace of his eating—or rather, shoveling the food in his mouth—forced him to take a breath, Ty ripped open the package he’d found at his door.
It was an alarm clock. A cheap one.
That, he hadn’t expected.
It already had batteries, but the time wasn’t set. It simply blinked 12:00 a.m., which annoyed him enough to set the time: 7:09 p.m.
Maybe it was a gift from his mom or sister? He was always late for things, and they hated that. Maybe this was a reference to that. Or possibly a gag gift from a college friend? A way of saying time was running out? If so, it was sort of lame in his opinion.
He considered calling his family to ask about it, but it was 1:09 in the afternoon in DC, and they would be at work. The clock wasn’t worth interrupting them. He’d call on Saturday.
When the plastic food container was empty, he washed it out in the sink. He realized then just how tired he was. He didn’t know if it was the stress of the presentation or the weeks of long hours building up to it, but all of a sudden, the only thing he wanted to do was lie down.
He typically read a novel before drifting off to sleep, but tonight, even that was too much effort. He slipped off his shoes and stretched out on the bed, not bothering to pull the covers back. He put his wireless headphones in and tapped his phone to start an audiobook.
As he lay there, the story drew him in, deeper and deeper, as if he were falling down a well. He knew he needed to get up and brush his teeth and wash his face. He made a compromise: he’d just brush his teeth. He was too tired for anything else. He’d get up and do that—in a few minutes. Just a few minutes more.
*
Ty woke to the sound of a long droning.
