Don’t Mess with God
Dr. Ethan Rigatoni, distinguished professor at UT and Nobel Laureate for his work in subatomic physics, was elated, but exhausted. After waking up at 2:13 am from a exhausting dream that left his bed soaked in sweat, Ethan had grabbed a cup of coffee, gone to his desktop and worked with Mathematica for three hours before coming to the conclusion that he had solved the riddle of the Einstein field equations by a single, simple, equation. This equation, containing the essence of the God enigma that Einstein had searched for his entire life and not found, and that most of the theoretical physicists had been searching for and were not finding--that is, until now. It made Ethan shudder to think of it. He found himself covered with sweat again from his frenzied hours of exertion with the computer mouse and keyboard and utter awe and fear of what this meant to both him and human kind. Rigatoni retired to his shower to cool off, wash off the grime of exertion, and try to calm his mind, racing at the speed of light.
Rigatoni was young, only 32, but then, only young men without the clutter of past failures and achievements blocking the ability to break through into thought processes previously unknown can come up with discoveries of a lifetime, a decade… a millennium. Only young men come up with equations like Einstein had with: E = mc².
As Ethan watched the sun come up over Town Lake from his loft making himself a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage to recover what he had lost in the marathon during the night, he thought about his ex-wife and kids, safely ensconced in the three-bedroom ranch that they had scraped together the money for by borrowing from both their parents during the economic downturn. What would they think of him now! After all the drama over how he was neglecting the kids and spending so much time at Waxahachie with that "bitch." Now that that little affair was over, it seemed so trivial and unimportant. The bitch in question had received a fellowship at Caltech and left even before the divorce was final. So Ethan had only himself to share his triumph with. He had to hold it in. He had to prove it. Any leak to the press would be disastrous if the formula proved to be untrue or flawed. Ethan still had a lot of work to do before he could truly claim credit for a discovery.
The same downturn that made it possible for the young Rigatonis to buy a fixer upper near the campus of the University of Texas also made it possible for the resurrection of the Waxahachie Supercollider. After billions were spent on the first project, it was abandoned and virtually destroyed--buried. Three things brought the project back: the need for new infrastructure, the need for good paying construction jobs, and a real need to come up with a way to produce fusion power so that fossil fuels could be quickly abandoned. The race was on against the possibility of economic collapse and continued devastation caused by the changing climate. The abandoned site was picked again for various reasons that made it more viable originally: near population centers and adequate airports, stable ground conditions with little chance of earthquakes, adequate power to power the magnets, and several nationally prominent universities in the area, the foremost of which was the University of Texas.
With Switzerland, followed closely by France and several other countries in the race for sustainable fusion, the United States was playing catch-up. With Libertarians in charge of the government and the purse strings loosened for research, a combined public private project was launched to resurrect the Supercollider and make it the premier installation for high-energy physics research in the world, currently held by CERN in Geneva.
Along with more senior scientists, Dr. Rigatoni had spent the better part of his early career not studying nuclear physics, but assisting the construction of the huge supercollider. At first as a graduate student assisting the project director, and then later, moving up through the ranks to becoming one of the key principal scientific advisors working closely with the contractor. All hardhat stuff with little science. It took 15 years in all, five more than originally planned, to complete the project, at a huge cost overrun, but earlier that year the device was up and running and being tested as Ethan held that cup of coffee on his balcony wistfully watching sailboats on the lake and contemplating what his next move would be. He decided not to do anything right away, but to continue to work on the project and figure out a way to work in his necessary experiments without any fanfare. Ethan returned to his computer, created a backup DVD of his calculations and made sure that his hard drive was backed up on Time Machine. He sent no emails to anyone and dared not to. Too easy for the secret to slip out. Still, he was consumed with excitement as Ethan left that morning to fight the traffic getting out of town, headed for another week on site at Waxahachie. Once on the Tollway, Ethan switched his extended range natural gas-electric coupe to "automatic" and let the guide rail embe dded in the pavement take him safely to his destination. An hour that Ethan put to use thinking to beautiful music before he had to take over and drive again. Before Ethan knew it, he was parking under the awning of the temporary building that served as his office and sleeping quarters during his long work weeks on the supercollider site.
Ethan's graduate assistant, Roosevelt Thomas, was waiting when he pulled up. This was a bit uncharacteristic for Thomas who was always notoriously late and constantly distracted by his cell phone and dictating to his texting strip. It was none of Ethan's business what Rosie's private life was like, but when it cut into work time, it was his business, and that bothered Ethan a lot. Ethan had often had to bring the brilliant young man back to the reality of the dull work at hand--repeating the same process over and over to get the magnets all working in synchronicity and to make sure there were no security or safety breaches. The other choice he had, Gloria Del Carmen Gomez from Ecuador, was as brilliant at theoretical physics as Rosie, but was also so vivacious and strikingly beautiful that Ethan did not want to go through what he had with the bitch who had to go nameless for her own protection. Thomas lacked the focus of Gomez, but Ethan had no trouble with the questionable sexuality of the young man as long as his mind could contribute to the undertaking. Ethan would not tell Rosie of his accomplishment yet, but his graduate assistant would probably be the first to know.
Rosie's demeanor was unusually buoyant for a Monday morning. "Hi, Doc. I had a great weekend. I bet against the Texans and won! Bought myself a new car. How do you like it?"
Ethan hadn't noticed the car before, but noticed now that it was a flamboyant retro-mod of an earlier muscle car, clearly not becoming a nuclear physicist and against Ethan's admonishment of Rosie buying cars while he was still paying for his education. Still, the retro-mod looked very nice and could have been a good investment if it would be kept well… Very unlikely in Rosie's case. "So, a new car? So that's why you're so chipper this morning. Wanted to show it off to me… Huh? Well, I don't know what you paid for it, but it looks like a keeper as long as you maintain it well. Cars like that tend to go up in value over time. You have a garage for it, don't you?"
Rosie winced. "You know my complex doesn't have garages. I'm trying to park it on the street just outside my apartment every night where I can keep an eye on it through the window."
"I'd figure a way to get a garage for it if I were you." Kids these days didn't seem to know how to keep things very long. The old man in him was already showing at 32.
"Okay." Roosevelt Thomas had no intention of spending money on a garage for any car. But he did want to keep the car looking nice and wasn't sure if he could avoid vandalism and graffiti, rampant in his cheap apartment neighborhood. Even with the built-in security system and ignition lock out switch under the rear tire fender panel, it could be stolen. Parking the car outside his window was also no guarantee that he would see it being vandalized or stolen. Had to install a camera in the window and a tracker chip in the car.
After brewing another couple of cups for the thermos for the road, the two set off in a contractor furnished vehicle for a spot where they were adjusting one of the superconducting magnets about 15 miles away. These huge magnets could only be tuned physically by using very large wrenches. After arriving at one of the several entrances to the tunnel, Ethan and Rosie passed security and walked down the steel walkway three floors down to the main collider ring tunnel. There was a freight elevator, but that was only used to carry equipment, not people. Working on the collider was an intensely physical process with a lot of climbing stairs and walking, very good for both of their health. This time, to save time, an electric golf cart awaited them to move further down the tunnel to where the work was going to be done. The carts were convenient, but had to be parked down a side tunnel at every entrance nearly 200 yards from the main tunnel because once the main ring was energized, the batteries in the cart's batteries would be fried without shielding. Still, the carts had to be stored in a copper lined parking area with other electrically powered maintenance equipment. Without the carts, walking distances were great. This was just all part of standard operating procedure in the extremely high tech environment with extremely low tech components in the huge project arena, stretching for miles.
Ethan checked his watch. The alarm told him they had precisely 79 minutes to be out of the tunnel before the next test, the only one of the day. At several other points on the ring, other scientists on the team were making similar adjustments. Ethan and Rosie applied huge 6 foot long wrenches to the adjusting nuts and, pulling ever so gently yet firmly, moved the huge Hadron magnet weighing several tons a few microns to the setting the computer established the day before. The superconducting magnets had to be perfectly aligned for the plasma to reach the required velocity nearing the speed of light. The test they were conducting today was expected to reach 20% of the speed of light. Much higher velocity would be needed to test out Ethan's theories and the equation. Ethan promised himself that he would wait patiently for that day to arrive. But his thoughts churned trying to put it out of his mind. Things were moving way too fast. That day would come very soon now. His patience was running out and his fear was increasing. The idea of success bothered him as much as failure. Nathan wouldn't know if the theory was correct or not until he conducted the test.
With Ethan deep in his thoughts, they drove the cart silently back to the stairway, down the side tunnel to the copper clad room where they parked the cart and walked back to the stairway. Safely out of the tunnel 15 minutes before the test was to begin, they gave the signal to the security guard that they were the last ones out, and the guard pushed the button closing the two doors blocking entrance to the tunnel before the test could begin. It was all electronic, but they could hear the large door at the top stairway close with a loud "thump" like those of bank vaults and prison doors. Fortunately, if anyone was still inside, all they had to do was push a large red button on the lower door and it would open letting them escape. All this was designed to keep all sorts of dangerous situations out and yet make it relatively safe for those inside. Five minutes before the tests, they could hear the sirens faintly from down inside the tunnel warning any stragglers to get out. It was unsure whether the massive magnetic fields would hurt humans, but any piece of ferrous metal would burn right through bodies and might even be either attracted or hurled away from the pulsing magnets. In any case it was, "Everybody out!"
The sirens were a signal for Rosie and Ethan to repair to their vehicle and grab their laptops. The Supercollider had its own secure network, and they tapped into the network to observe the test, both from the control room and from the numerous cameras designed to capture results from the tests. This test was primarily a velocity test, but there was a target, a chamber with lithium in it, for the electron beam to penetrate. With the magnets cranked up, and the entire 54.1 mile ring energized, the test began. Electrons were fired into the ring by laser and picked up speed as they moved around the ring like microscopic race cars in a circular track. Only instead of reaching a terminal velocity of friction and air resistance, the vacuum and near absolute zero of the inner chamber of the ring enabled the plasma to continue to accelerate to incredible velocities in a few short minutes. About 15 minutes into the test, the stream was diverted into the target where high speed, high definition cameras caught the action as well as many devices designed to measure energy in, energy out, and the contents and atomic values of all of the results from the test.
The velocity alone, now about 20% of the speed of light, deemed the test a success. Later analysis showed that some new elements were created during the bombardment. Two of these were radioactive and further proof that charmed quarks existed and elements of string theory were verified. Ethan and Rosie drove back to their quarters for the week, excitedly discussing the results of the day's test, and at one point, calling Dr. Wesley S. Higginbotham and congratulating him on his experiment that day. Higginbotham was the lead scientist at the site and one smart cookie. Much honored and revered in the high-energy physics community, little that happened in the field passed him by. Wes was considered to be the one who would make the breakthrough to sustainable fusion. When the two returned to their quarters, the researchers spent the rest of the day going over the data and verifying it. Tomorrow would be another test.
And so it went on for another three months. Ethan shuttling back and forth from Austin on weekends and sometimes staying there to teach classes during the semester, while Roosevelt shuttled back and forth to Dallas and sometimes came to Austin, staying with Ethan to help him with his classes. And then there was the occasional conference or symposium that both would go to. One of the perks of working in high-energy physics was getting to travel the world and work with other researchers in places like Japan, China, Australia, South Africa, Siberia, the South of France, and Geneva, Switzerland. Everyone the world over was in a race to create sustainable fusion. There was polite discourse and the delivery of papers with new theories, but it was a deadly serious race with some countries banking on cashing in on being first. It was like the atomic bomb or space race all over again, but involving many countries rather then the two superpowers during the thankfully cold war of the last century. There were only a few scientists in the world that understood the mathematics behind Ethan's discovery. He still presented papers, but he came up short of his already known conclusions in every one of his presentations, and didn't present if he knew that there might be someone in the audience who could take his work and extrapolate his discovery from it. It became all the scientific cloak and dagger stuff he hated. Ethan enjoyed sharing his work and it ate a hole in his stomach not to share this marvelous find. But he dared not. Premature release and failure would ruin his career. He was too young for that.
Ethan purposely avoided trying to get experiment time on the Supercollider so as not to attract attention to what he was doing. There were several researchers on the team that were constantly bickering over who would get to run the next test and Ethan stayed out of that because he knew they were all adding incrementally to what the research at the facility could eventually come to, but it was small potatoes compared to his experiment. Rigatoni only needed one experiment to prove his theory, but he proposed a couple more just to keep the team members from wondering why he wasn't eagerly seeking experimental time. Over the three months he ran two rather ordinary experiments as the supercollider ramped up to plasma speeds nearing 50% the speed of light. According to his calculations, Ethan would need 80% the speed of light to prove his theory. With the two routine, mundane experiments completed and reported to the scientific community in joint papers with other members of the team, Ethan's cover was working quite well. As far as his personal psyche went, he was literally coming apart at the seams… Drinking himself to sleep, only to wake up two hours later in the middle of the night with the formulas running through his head like some nightmare that he was trapped in. Rosie noticed that Ethan looked a bit more haggard each day and finally asked him about it.
"Hey Boss (Thomas often referred to Ethan as "Boss."), I'm worried about you. You look like you've been burning the candle on both ends. You smell like alcohol in the morning and look like shit. What's going on? Have you got a girlfriend?"
Ethan hesitated, but then decided that it was time. "Roosevelt, (Ethan never called Thomas by his formal name, always, ‘Rosie.’) I've been keeping something from you that has nothing to do with girlfriends, although sometimes I wish it was as simple as that. About four months ago I had a dream, and in that dream I came to the conclusion that I could solve the Einstein enigma. I got up in the middle of the night and on the computer, and, while I couldn't believe it, I solved the damn thing!"
"You came up with the God equation? Geez… That's unbelievable! Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you with it."
"You know, Roosevelt, I couldn't do that. It's even scary for me to tell you now, but I've been losing a lot of sleep over it and I knew that you would catch on sooner or later that something was going wrong with me. Nothing is going wrong, it's just that I have to wait so long before I can verify whether my calculations are correct. I've been waiting for the Supercollider to catch up with me and my calculations. If what I have concluded is correct, this is the discovery of the century and weighs heavily on me, making it very hard for me to sleep these days. I thought I could knock myself out with a couple of martinis every night, but that only puts me out for a couple of hours and then I go over and over and over the calculations in my head until morning and I have to get up and go to work with you and the others."
"That's the kind of sleeplessness I'd like to have!" Rosie showed all of his brilliant white teeth or a grimace depending upon how you looked at it. There was a certain amount of jealousy in his tone. Discoveries like that were for young men like him, not old, over the hill 32-year-old professors like Ethan.
"Well, it's been a kind of a hell for me… What with all the anticipation and delay before I can prove anything and write an article… I will include you as a co-author if you help."
"Help? How could I not? Even if your idea is a flop, I'm for it all the way. I'll do whatever it takes to make this happen. Maybe some of that Nobel Prize you are going to get will rub off on me." Rosie winked.
"A lot of professors have made their fame using the discoveries of their graduate students and never given the students any credit… Basically stealing the good work of their young, bright and energetic protégés. It's a well-known, but well kept, secret that universities keep a tight lid on. Academic reputation and all that rot. If this discovery is what it I think it is, it's time that everyone gets credit because everyone on the entire earth will benefit from unlimited power at virtually no cost. I just can't imagine what that will do to the world where there'll be no need to rape the environment just to make it comfortable for humans. No longer to respond way too slow and stupidly and to live anywhere they want regardless of the environmental cost. I want to share the discovery with everyone, but don't know how to do it. And, I'm getting ahead of myself…. I don't even know if the theory will work or not. Right now, it's just a mathematical equation. I have to have some proof…"
"I'm here for you, Boss. Whatever you need doing, I'll do it. Just tell me what you need and I'll make it happen so that we can find out if you have done it… Made the discovery of the century. Just the thought of that blows my mind."
"First, we'll have to get busy making some heavy water (deuterium oxide or D2O). I'll put you in charge of that. In order to be authentic, I'd like you to go to the Gulf to get your water so that we can verify that the molecules came from seawater. We will have to modify the pickup to do it, so we'd better get busy." There was a distillation tower on site, so extraction was not a problem.
Energized by the discussion, the collaborators finished downing their last coffee and headed out to the workshop next to the collider laboratory about 10 miles away where they would fabricate the equipment to be mounted on the pickup that they would drive to the Gulf of Mexico where they would get the seawater they would use in their experiment. They found a suitable tank there, an old stainless steel milk tank of the right size, sterilized it, and, in no time at all, had the tank mounted on the pickup. Judging the weight of the seawater in the tank, they added extra springs to the pickup and heavy-duty shocks. Noting the weight limits on the truck and the power of its engine, a small block V-8, Ethan cautioned Rosie to only fill the tank halfway to avoid overloading the makeshift hauler. He also cautioned Rosie not to make any fast turns because the tank, while quite low, still gave the truck a high center of gravity and did not have baffles. Any quick movement to one side or the other could have the weight of the seawater turning the truck over.
Making sure that he had his cell phone handy and a handful of DVDs of his favorite tunes, the next morning Rosie set off for his day-long round-trip to the Gulf and back to gather seawater for the experiment. Rosie's first trip was uneventful, but it was a long hard haul, a 12-hour round-trip, and he wasn't looking forward to making that trip too many times, especially with heavy traffic going through Houston. During processing the first seawater, the debris nearly fouled the processing equipment, and they only got a milliliter of heavy water. At that rate, it would be months before they would have enough and Rosie would have to make many trips, something he wasn't looking forward to. They decided to take a different approach.
Ethan called a nearby dairy and persuaded the owner to rent him an 18-wheeler milk truck to make the run and get the seawater volume they needed. Based on the results from the pickup, Ethan estimated that the truck would have to make four trips to get enough seawater. Ethan also hired a driver to keep Rosie company and to drive the truck because Rosie was not licensed or trained on 18-wheelers. However, since the brand-new truck had an automatic transmission, power steering and brakes, and all the comforts of a SUV, Rosie quickly caught on and became an expert driver under the other driver's tutelage after a couple of trips. However, without a chauffeur's license, Rosie could not drive the truck without being in danger of being picked up by DPS. They were stopped a couple of times by truck inspectors who were mighty curious about their load of seawater. Rosie had to carry official documentation from Ethan to verify that they were hauling plain ordinary seawater for a experiment rather than some kind of smuggling or other subterfuge that would be highly interesting to Homeland Security.
The four trips went by quickly in a single week. The processing, with filters added to remove seaweed and small organisms took longer, another two weeks, resulting in 100 mL of pure D2O for experimentation. The experiment that Ethan planned did not require that much, but he wanted to be able to compensate for any failure and not have to go through the process of creating heavy water again and raise concerns among his fellow scientists of what he was about. When asked, and he was, Ethan simply shirked his shoulders nonchalantly and said, "Oh, just some heavy water experiments I'm working on." That was all it took to satisfy his colleagues' curiosity. What he really needed, and he didn't tell Rosie, was super-heavy water, tritium oxide (T2O), radioactive and much rarer than D2O. Fortunately, an old roommate of Ethan's from Texas A&M was manager of the Ontario Power Generation's Tritium Removal Facility. Ethan called George Montgomery at the plant and told him that he needed some tritrium oxide for an experiment he was conducting. When asked how much, Ethan replied, "Not much, George, 1 mL will do."
Montgomery responded, "I think that could be arranged. It's too expensive for you to purchased some, but I believe I can release that amount to you for research without too much difficulty. You know, for experimentation and old times sake." George winked and belly laughed on the screen as he reflected on his own joke. It pays to have connections at times like this. Ethan tracked the package on the Internet, and made sure that he met the UPS truck when it arrived three days later with a small package marked with the radioactive sign on the side. Ethan took the package into his office and stored it where it would be safe until the experiment. He didn’t tell Rosie that the D2O was subterfuge, a smokescreen throwing others off Ethan’s track.
Wes Higginbotham, on the other hand, was more than curious and began needling Ethan about what he was doing with the heavy water. When their paths crossed during weekly meetings and at tests, Wes would give him that look like he was onto something and say things like, "How's your little playing with God experiment going? What's up Doc? and, I hear you have a secret?"
To every snide remark, Ethan would reply, "My sex life is none of your business, or Wouldn't you like to know?" Snide for snide. These encounters bothered Ethan and added to his sleepless nights. Ethan wondered if something had slipped out. He wasn't sure, but he suspected that Rosie had something to do with it.
The week before this ribbing all started on the weekend, Rosie was at his favorite hangout with a few of the other graduate students and had a little bit too much to drink. Like all graduate students, there was some shoptalk and some bragging going around the table about what their professors were doing. Feeling a bit full of himself, Rosie challenged the other three guys, among them, Luke Foster, grad assistant to Dr. Higginbotham, that he was working on something phenomenal with his boss. The others laughed it off, knowing about the heavy water and thinking that Rosie was just being "full of it," but Foster took him aside later and in low tones, asked Rosie to level with him. Thomas, always feeling a bit the outsider having just barely squeaked into the program and grateful for being able to work with Dr. Rigatoni, wanted so much to be part of the "team."
Upon Foster's in his face insistence, Rosie finally gave in and asked under his breath, "Can you keep a secret?"
Foster was absolutely sure that he could. He was good at keeping all kinds of secrets. "Of course, Buddy, you know I'm good for my word." Luke smiled at the thought of it discretely like a Cheshire cat. Little did Rosie know…
"Well, as long as you don't spread it to anyone else, we think we are on the verge of… well… you know… the answer to…"
Inpatient, Foster whispered back, "You're talking about controlled fusion?"
"Yes, but please keep it quiet. I don't want to get in trouble."
Roosevelt wanted to be part of the elite group of graduate students working at Waxahachie that would ensure him contacts for his future career in high-energy physics. By confiding in Luke Foster, the leading student among the elite group, he hoped to curry favor that would carry him beyond his graduate studies and into his career. What Rosie didn't know, was that Foster had reached his high status by more than his intellect. Luke was a master of deception and had certain sociopathic tendencies that had carried him through all of his education. Foster wasn't immune to using cheating, bribery, blackmail or thievery to get ahead. That's why he approached Rosie on the side when Rosie was drunk, knowing that Rosie felt left out--easy pickings. Now that he had the story, Luke Foster knew how to use it.
The very next day, that Monday, back at the Supercollider, Foster wasted no time in informing his boss, Dr. Wesley Higginbotham, what he had heard. "Dr. Higginbotham, I heard something I think you would like to know." Foster blurted out as soon as they were in his small office together and Luke was sure no one could hear them.
"Really, what did you hear?" Higginbotham was curious. He could always rely on Foster to give him the latest scuttlebutt. In the high-stakes game of high-energy physics, it always helped to have more information than the other guy. It was he who outed the “bitch” that resulted in the Rigatoni divorce. Jealousy ran big in these circles.
"Oh, just that Prof. Rigatoni was onto something big, according to his grad student, Roosevelt Thomas. Rosie didn't go into detail and I didn't press him, but I thought you’d like to know."
"Why that conniving bastard, Rigatoni! I suspected something was up. Since his divorce, Ethan hasn't been much to work with, always moping around. Lately, he seems to be off by himself working on projects that he's not sharing with anyone, looking more run down than ever. Sure hope he isn't colluding with the French. Thanks for the info. Keep your ear to the ground. If you hear anything else, let me know." Prof. Higginbotham shook his head in disbelief and muttered under his breath in a way that not even Foster heard him, "I sure hope that bastard isn't onto something big--that's my territory." Higginbotham vowed to himself to get to the bottom of it. Little did he know, that Rigatoni was already far ahead of him.
As soon as the heavy water had been synthesized in the towers, and the collider had reached velocities reaching 90% of the speed of light, Ethan felt sure that he could use the collider to perform a simple experiment and share it with the world. The matter cannon, used to inject small capsules of matter into the plasma stream, had already been tested by other experiments, and, based on his calculations from hydrogen bomb data, was more than adequate. But he wouldn't know until after the experiment how much energy would the released. So Ethan scheduled it--his breakthrough experiment. His time slot was only a week off, but it was the longest week of his life while he and Rosie spent the time in the workshop preparing equipment for measurement of the upcoming experimental results. It was hard to believe, but Ethan's sleepless nights were even worse as he fended off any inquiries about his work and tried to think of everything that might go right or wrong.
The experiment used only 1 mL of heavy water, "just to be safe." The experiment was set to commence at 10 am. During the two hours before, Rosie and Ethan had worked feverishly to make sure that everything was in place. At the last minute, when Rosie was off doing something else, Ethan replaced the D2O capsule with the T2O capsule in his lab coat. Fifteen minutes before 10, when the alarm went off, they retired to the shielded control room to run the experiment. According to protocol, others were there, but only in a backup capacity for operating all of the recording equipment and other activities associated with tests or experiments. Each professional researcher had his own staff and generally kept secret his or her collaborators activities until published and verified by the rest of the community. From the look of Dr. Ethan Rigatoni that morning, you would've thought that he had been in a car wreck or something worse. His hair was all messed up and looking like he hadn't washed it; sweat beaded on his brow and dripped off his nose as though the air-conditioned room were outside in August; his eyes were all bloodshot with dark circles around them from lack of sleep; and, worst of all, his usual rock hard steadiness seemed to be gone as Ethan began to throw switches and set up operations for the experiment to come.
Everyone in the room noticed Ethan’s condition and wondered why this ordinary, routine, experiment was causing Dr. Rigatoni so much grief--or was it a result of his divorce and problems at home? George Grant, operations chief of the Supercollider, just had to ask. He walked over to Ethan and whispered, "Dr. Rigatoni, you seem a bit disheveled this morning. Is there anything I can do? Are you all right? We wouldn't want to do anything dangerous this morning, would we?"
"I'm okay, George. It's just that we got behind on this experiment and I had to work day and night to be ready. I'm ready now and can't wait to get started. You can crank her up."
"Okay, just asking. We could have easily rescheduled if you needed to. But I'll abide by your wishes and get this thing going." With that, Grant signaled his crew to begin the acceleration process. Switches were turned on and even inside the protected room one could feel the power of the huge machine outside warming up and sending a message through the shielded concrete walls of the Ring. There was no need for goggles or even any personal protection because of the isolation of the control room running everything electronically including the monitors for watching the experiment because there were no windows on the experiments, only cameras.
When the plasma in the Supercollider had reached the required velocity, the countdown began for the insertion that would last about a nanosecond and sensors would pick up all the required information for Ethan to make a determination whether he was on the right track and continue with larger amounts of T2O to see if the calculations of the amount of energy released and sustained would be correct. Output over input only had to be sustained for a few milliseconds beyond insertion for the equation to be verified. Rosie and Ethan held their breath as the countdown began: 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-…
As the capsule entered the plasma stream, it elongated several miles along the ring, and then, like an over stretched rubber band, retracted, compressing the T2O and causing a fusion reaction like a solar flare on the sun. A chunk of North Texas Earth crust the size of Rhode Island blasted into space to the Moon, immediately knocking out satellite transmission over North America and much of the rest of the world. The hypersonic shock wave spread out and knocked over most buildings as far away as Chicago and New York. Everything living in the path of the shock wave, that is, everything east of the Rocky Mountains, was immediately destroyed by concussion. The blast exposed and bounced off the fluid, but extremely dense molten core like the rubber core of a golf ball, the reverberation causing tremendous cracks in the Earth’s crust everywhere with Biblical volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis putting every living thing on the planet in immediate peril.
The moral of this story? You can mess with mother nature and she will recover, but when you mess with God…
Copyright 2014 © Ronald W. Hull
1/27/14
