The Ultimate Reprieve Page 4
“I have no trouble postponing decisions but I don't see how being indecisive makes me a good decision-maker.”
“Haste makes waste. Don't confuse being decisive with being a good decision-maker. Decisive people are apt to make snap judgments and omit the postponement step plus several others in the process. If you wait until the proper moment you might discover new relevant facts before prematurely committing to a course of action. But procrastinating until it's too late is even worse.”
“I hope you're not referring to my decision about romance versus career.”
“Well you're not getting any younger. But, you are in luck; by narrowing your romantic alternatives to one, namely me, you have inadvertently begun a process. Also you are about to gather an important fact, I like you too. Plus I'm not yet attached to or dating anyone in particular so you haven't waited too long, although I am a little partial toward Jim Haskins.
“But the next step you need to take is the most important and also the hardest. It's one nobody can help you with — setting priorities in important categories, only one of which is romance versus career. As a bonus you will learn a great deal about yourself. Setting priorities is akin to developing a philosophy of life and constantly revisiting them is akin to self-examination. If you haven't already begun you'd better get moving. Your earliest preferences, formed before you are capable of evaluating them, aren't random. They are those of your parents and unless you revise them periodically as you mature you will turn out like they did. This wouldn't be bad in your case, but suppose your parents were bigots or drunks or …”
Ben could no longer refrain from interrupting. “You like me?” he blurted with an expression of sheer joy. “Fantastic! I'm not worried about Jim, even if he does have ESP.”
“You should be. I'm drawn to intelligent men and he's probably smarter than you.”
“He's not exactly brimming with personality.”
“Is that so? A little humility would do you good. I think you might change your mind if you got to know him. I'd like to be a fly on the wall if you two traded opinions on serious matters. The conversation would most likely sparkle with ingenuity and vitality. Both of you are deep thinkers, good listeners and articulate. Working together you might even come up with a scintillating new idea worthy of publication.”
“I do have a few thoughts that could use clarification. Perhaps I'll take you up on your suggestion.”
“Incidentally, I've probed him and he seems much too indifferent towards you to have bothered to plant the manuscript in your apartment.”
The waiter reappeared with the appetizer, two hefty salads and a sizzling platter of pizza. Ben heard little else Jenny said for the rest of the evening and forgot all about the manuscript. He was completely absorbed with planning his next move toward cementing a relationship with her before Jim got the upper hand. All of a sudden it was quite clear to him that romance was a higher priority than career!
Upon returning to Jenny's doorway they kissed passionately after which she reluctantly turned him away, “I have too much work to do to ask you in.” This wasn't entirely true, but she wanted to project an image of decorum. As Ben left with a jaunty step buoyed by knowing he had won her affection, she thought to herself, “But next time for sure!”
9
A Fruitful Friendship
Jim's phone rang, a rare occurrence. He always screened his calls, but on the chance it was Ben he decided to answer this one.
“What do you think about time travel?” asked a voice at the other end.
“Haven't really thought about it. I suppose it's possible. Who is this?”
“Ben Davis. Jenny told me you were the smartest guy in the class, so I thought I'd bounce some ideas off of you. Are you busy? I could be there in twenty minutes.”
“You don't waste any time do you?”
“Jenny taught me procrastination is unwise. Besides, my thoughts on the subject aren't sudden, they've been nagging at me for a while and I can't seem to get it quite right. I'm desperate for help. Even Professors Richardson and Ryan couldn't answer my questions.”
“And you think I can?”
“You may be able to point me in the right direction. Two heads are better than one and the physics faculty is too busy solving the energy crisis to have any extra time for me. We might come up with something big. I think I'm close. We could work as a team and publish our findings jointly. You have nothing to lose.”
“All right, come on over and we'll see how it goes. I have a couple of hours to kill.”
Ben arrived exactly twenty minutes after hanging up and started right in. “Where do tachyons come from? The professors aren't sure.”
“Neither am I. Some ethereal place like the probability space of quantum theory, I suppose. Do you like Jenny?”
“We can talk about her later. I think tachyons come from the future.”
“Then the future would have a real existence concurrently with the present. That alone would be remarkable. Why do you think so?”
“Two reasons occurred to me today following Professor Richardson's lecture. First, the equations of expanded relativity theory, with G substituted for C, prove that light cone borders are surrounded by an adjoining layer of tachyons that, I believe, must be situated in our future. Second, dark matter consists of tachyons that have permanence, unlike quantum tachyons that appear only briefly.
“Suppose, as the Professor proposed, the big bang created only a vast assemblage of tachyons, nothing else. Over time, some would slow down as they collided with each other and lost kinetic energy whereas the rest, having not yet collided with anything, would continue along at original speed. Then our universe would consist of interspersed patches of former tachyons that have slowed below light speed and combined to become visible particles embedded in a larger universe that also includes the tachyons that haven't yet done so and endure as dark matter or vacuum fluctuations.”
“Interesting. You are suggesting that anything faster than light lies in our future since it must be further along the spacetime continuum than the slower moving matter of our visible universe. Dark matter tachyons must have existed for eons. How do you explain the existence of tachyons that only last for an infinitesimal time?”
“The difference between them is that short-ived tachyons are isolated individuals whereas dark matter is a low-density conglomeration of them. I surmise that a universal process, one less extreme than collisions, operates to gradually retard the speed of all tachyons, other than gravitons, to subluminal speed. Under its continual influence, the bulk of our visible world will steadily increase and that of the invisible universe steadily decrease as tachyons periodically get trapped passing from the latter into the former. Eventually all dark matter will vanish, gravitons flowing from ordinary matter will be the only tachyons, the visible universe swollen to its maximum size will be all that's left and the future will merge into the present.”
“Entropy could be such a process. We know it will cause ordinary matter to continually and gradually lose kinetic and thermal energy until nearly all motion ceases. I see no reason why it shouldn't be a slowing factor for dark matter as well.”
“I hadn't thought of that! Jenny was right, you are smart.”
“To summarize your argument, a quantum tachyon is an isolated individual that hovers around light speed as it enters its last stage of tachyon existence. We can detect it if it crosses the threshold and suddenly becomes visible, after which it may remain in our universe or briefly disappear again into the future. But like dark matter it too has existed unnoticed for eons.”
“Exactly. If I'm right and tachyons exist in our future and enter our present upon slowing then when they arrive they have essentially moved backward in time.”
“Yes. They will have traveled from our future, which is their present, into our present, which is their past.”
“So in theory we should also be able to travel from our present into our past. If they can do it, why couldn't we?”
“That's a giant leap. There are many reasons. To begin with, your argument contends that tachyons can only travel backward in time after having first traveled into the future. So we would have to be able to travel into our future as well. But in your hypothesis it took a unique event, the big bang, to provide the impulse needed to catapult them into the future and a recurrence would destroy our universe. Anything less powerful may not suffice.”
“I've thought of that and also a related problem. Even if we could be propelled into the future, a backward journey in time may only be possible as the return leg of such a trip, in which case we could return to the point from whence we began but not into our past.
“However, although these are formidable difficulties, I'm not ready to concede. If a tachyon can travel into its past then at least there is nothing inherent in the structure of spacetime that would preclude other objects from being able to do it.”
“Mass can be converted into energy and vice versa per the equation E = MG2. But the old equation E = MC2 still accounts for all the converted energy we can detect and nobody has yet figured out what happens to the excess.5
“Perhaps the principle of conservation of mass-energy can somehow be expanded to include time in a manner consistent with observation. If so, the excess energy might be changed into time; after all, quantum theory tells us that there is a strong connection between the two. Such a transformation on an enormous scale may have triggered the big bang itself. Then on a much smaller and less destructive scale mass could theoretically fuel a time machine. Also the mass-to-time ratio might be such that accruing a useful span of past time, say a couple of centuries, would neither require more disposable mass than is available on Earth nor entail a cataclysmic event.”
“Well what do you say? Shall we collaborate to first supply a rigorous proof that tachyons come from the future and then, if we succeed at that, figure out if time travel is possible?”
“All my current classes are sterile and uninteresting. I've never really succeeded at anything and this would really be something! It's a long shot but I'm willing to try.”
“Great! I'll call you tomorrow.”
On his way home Ben was so engrossed with thoughts about tachyons, time travel, dark matter, Jim's ideas and most of all Jenny that he almost forgot about the manuscript awaiting him. When he saw it lying on the kitchen table he decided to suspend all further thoughts about the day's events, including Jenny to the extent possible, and give the manuscript his full attention. Opening a bottle of his favorite zinfandel, he settled into bed and began reading in earnest.
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5 The excess is given by MG2 – MC2 = M(C + Δ)2 – MC2 = 2CMΔ + MΔ2, where G = C + Δ. This quantity is nearly imperceptible because Δ is very small, but not negligible (because C is large).
Part II
The 24th Century
1
Are We Gods?
Jenny Davis was in a cheerful mood as she shed her Academy uniform, sprightly donned a revealing yet tasteful lilac sarong, and strolled into downtown Seattle.
Trains atop monorails glided noiselessly and effortlessly along their magnetic supports. Electric walkways transported pedestrians at speeds up to ten miles per hour toward dozens of different destinations. Traffic lights were noticeable by their absence as self-propelled vehicles furnished with the latest guidance systems carried commuters safely to work while they reclined in a plush back seat and watched local news on TV; they sped smoothly along without ever coming closer than ten feet to any potential obstruction. In an overhead gas station, helicopters docked to refuel at pumps resembling multi-tentacled octopi perched atop a five hundred foot platform boastfully advertising ‘the lowest prices in town’ from a bright orange neon sign visible for miles.
Jenny possessed much more than her quota of good fortune — incisive mind, financial prosperity, adoring mate, rewarding career, slender yet ample figure, warm and friendly emerald green eyes, flowing jet black hair and, as of yesterday, perfect health. Life was good now that her cancer was in remission, even though six months ago her private doctor had diagnosed that it was incurable by conventional methods and recommended the Academy's bio lab as a last resort. Being the only public facility with government sanction to provide non-traditional treatment for a few specified diseases, the lab offered DNA transplants as a promising, but as yet untested, cancer cure.
The infuriatingly long delay in condoning transplant trials for willing terminally ill patients was occasioned by evolutionists who claimed that, by depleting the gene pool, human genetic engineering would thwart nature's plan to keep us sufficiently vigorous to survive severe environmental changes. Resistance only began to thaw significantly when Diane Alvarez published a cogent counterargument in a seminal 2307 work. “In fact the history of life on our planet suggests that the effect of genetic engineering would be just the opposite of what evolutionists predict. The creatures best equipped for environmental change are insects; they will likely be the last surviving multi-cellular organisms on Earth. Evolution brought their coping mechanisms to near perfection long ago and, being satisfied with her handiwork, has nearly halted genetic variation in the hardiest species. Most now replicate with minimal mutation, if any.
“On the other hand, minor genetic differences threaten us with self-destruction: even petty ethnic disputes can lead to war or genocide. Moreover, our feeble race, which has struggled to withstand the various diseases that have already ravaged us, is now confronted with AIDS and bio-terrorism. Insects will certainly outlast us unless we can find a way to catch up. Genetic engineering may be such a way.”
Rogers’ treatise cleared the path for DNA transplants. Technological research flourished in the ensuing decade and quickly advanced to the point where human trials were the logical next step. But before this could be permitted the moral issue as to which attributes should be preserved and which eliminated had to be resolved and theologians reasonably asked, “Who among us is qualified to make such decisions?” As people grew tired of suffering they began to insist that surely our collective human experience could provide guidance, “At the very least, genetically induced hereditary defects that cause severe disease, mental illness and/or debilitating deformity are candidates for elimination.”
Eventually congressmen were forced to listen to their constituencies. In 2321 they passed a landmark bill granting experimental biogenetic treatment of the aforementioned defects, but balked at including other ailments for the time being. Such was the state of affairs when Jenny applied to the lab and was admitted as its first patient. Yesterday she became its first success when her cancer was put into permanent remission a mere four months after treatment began.
As familiarity with genetic engineering increased, Congress relented and expanded its use as a panacea for all kinds of suffering. Eventually the technology was perfected to the point where it could indeed preempt or cure nearly every fatal disease by injecting dying cells with young healthy genes. Annual physical checkups at the Academy's lab became standard procedure for nearly everybody who could afford it. Although blanket testing was expensive and extremely unpleasant, these inconveniences paled in comparison to the reward of detecting and painlessly curing any asymptomatic morbid malfunctions surreptitiously lurking within.
Life expectancy increased dramatically. People were projected to live a robust three hundred and fifty years and anyone under a hundred was considered to be a mere youngster. Furthermore, the experts were optimistically forecasting that old age would eventually become altogether non-existent — a desirable goal now that the use of non-invasive birth control techniques has become routine throughout the occupied world, rendering overpopulation an idle threat.
Buoyed by this tantalizing prospect people were beginning to feel godlike. They reasoned, “We are approaching immortality. Moreover, technology has progressed to a stage where we can circumvent almost all foreseeable natural catastrophes and this nearly complete control over the earth's env
ironment is a form of omnipotence. What more is required of a god? Perhaps omniscience?
“But not even God could be aware of places, events, or entities (maybe even other Gods) were they to exist outside His ken6. Thus He would have to deny that He knew He knew everything, proving that the concept of omniscience is self-paradoxical. Furthermore, if not even God can know He is supreme then the trifling fact that we comparatively insignificant creatures don't know whether or not we are minor deities shouldn't deter us from at least assuming that we are.”
This penetrating analysis forced theologians to bow to public opinion and soften their stance. “Perhaps we are gods. But we should still posit the existence of a yet higher Being in order to gain spiritual and emotional strength through contemplation of Him.” So, religion continued to thrive among the common folk. But it became less widespread among deep thinkers, who believed it would be presumptuous to assume He would take any great interest in the miniscule portion of this vast universe occupied by humans, quite possibly among the least of His creations. On the other hand they also realized it would be equally presumptuous to assume there is no God merely because He is inaccessible to our feeble sensory and intellectual capabilities.
Religion became more palatable to the highly educated when a new one, Eclecticism, arose and flourished early in the century. By preaching tolerance and admitting all peoples into its fold it nurtured peaceful coexistence and was largely responsible for a considerable thawing of international tension in subsequent decades. The primary stimulus accounting for the emergence of Eclecticism as the religion of choice throughout nearly 60% of the occupied world by the end of the century was the diligence of its founder, the indefatigable Reverend Dylan Bryce, who never passed up an opportunity to sermonize, whether from pulpit, soapbox, balcony, stage, or any other facility with suitable acoustics. His deep resonant baritone voice, permeated with passion and eloquence, mesmerized any audience.