Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10 (15 page)

 
          
DISCOVERING
THE SIMPLEX

 
          
The
words cleared: there began a sequence of images accompanying a spoken text,
which to Hesper's mild surprise was voiced by Mo himself.

 
          
"The
foundation of modern physics," the voice said in cordial, instructing
tones, "was established by Vargo Gridban two thousand years ago. He it was
who replaced the picture of space and matter then prevailing, involving several
types of fundamental particle with several kinds of forces acting between them,
with a scheme requiring only one type of elementary particle and one
fundamental force.

 
          
"Gridban's
work began with the observation that the space-time in which we live is so
constituted that, while it could accommodate forces of repulsion, forces of
attraction ought to be impossible in it. Yet attractive forces—gravitation,
electro-magnetism, nuclear binding force—do appear to exist and are responsible
for both the small and large scale structures in our universe, from atoms to
galaxies. Instead of simply accepting the existence of these forces, as
scientists before him had done, Gridban came to the opposite conclusion and
accepted their impossibility. It followed that gravitation, electromagnetic
attraction, and nuclear force could only be
apparently
attractive: they might even depend on a completely opposite type of
phenomenon for their effect.

 
          
"Gridban's
own special contribution was in the field of gravitation. The supremely subtle
set of experiments he proposed established two things. First, that gravitating
bodies fail to obey the Newtonian law of action and reaction. That they
superficially appear to obey it is due to the acceleration of a gravitating
body being independent of its mass. In fact the motion of a satellite, to take
an example, is due solely to the presence of its primary. It does not
contribute to that motion by reacting to its own influence upon the primary.

 
          
"Second,
Gridban was able to demonstrate diat there is actually no connecting causal
link at all between gravitating bodies. That is the reason for the failure of
Newton
's third law: gravitating bodies are not, in
fact, acting on one another.

 
          
"Eventually
Gridban was able to prove that gravitation is a residual phenomenon, not a
positive force. The road was opened to our present knowledge of space and its
relation to matter.

 
          
"Space
is kinetic, not static in character. It consists purely of relationships
between material particles, and fundamentally there is only one relationship:
every particle in existence attempts to recede from every other particle at the
velocity of light. The recessive factor between any two particles is known as a
recession line. The structure we call 'space' consists of a mesh of recession
lines. Between lines, in the interstices not on any route between particles, no
'space' or anything else exists.

 
          
"Actually
the spacetime we live in is of a rather special kind. You are probably already
acquainted with the following geometrical facts: on a one-dimensional line no
more than two points can be selected so as to be equidistant from one another;
on a two-dimensional plane, as many as three points may be equidistant, forming
the apices of an equilateral triangle; in our real space of three dimensions as
many as four points may be equidistant, forming the apices of a tetrahedron; in
a four-dimensional continuum a fifth point could be added to form a pentope;
and so on. For each extra dimension one more point can be added. Such a
configuration of equidistant points is known as a simplex, and each simplex
exemplifies a particular dimensional set.

 
          
"Originally
existence was without spatial dimension as such, or to put it another way, each
particle in existence introduced a new dimension. The configuration of
existence was that of a stupendous simplex, made up of an infinite number of
particles all equidistant from one another and all receding at the standard
rate—through 'recession' here becomes a rarefield concept, since there were no
such entities as time or distance to measure velocity by. The Simplex, as this
primordial state is called, still exists, but it has become flawed. Through
causes unknown a small part of it has collapsed into three dimensions, and
this flattened 'facet' constitutes our universe.

 
          
"It
is postulated that there may be other flattened facets on the Simplex. If a
means of entering the Simplex could be found we could presumably travel to
these other universes. Not only
that, but a route through the
Simplex would
make all points in our local universe equally accessible,
since the Simplex does not recognise relative distances. So far this old
scientific dream has resisted all efforts to bring it to reality.

 
          
"The
forces of nature that make our universe what it is are all consequent on the
collapse of matter into three dimensions. Particles that have to share
dimensions occlude one another and break the recessional relationship between
other particles. A degree of fragmentary disunity then begins to occur in
nature.

 
          
"The
arising of relative velocities below the standard recessional rate is the
first result to flow from this. The situation for a material body in the
three-dimensional realm is that it is surrounded, at the limit of its Hubble
sphere, by an opaque shell of particles receding from it at the standard
absolute rate, the velocity of light. But any other body lying within the
Hubble sphere will eclipse a part of the circumferential shell, so that each
body will receive fewer recession lines from that part of its general
environment in which the other lies. The asymmetric distribution of recession
lines produces an opposition among them, ending in a modification of the
apparent rate of recession between the bodies themselves. Seemingly the bodies
recede at a slower rate in proportion to the deficiency in recession lines. In
reality, of course, it is the space between them that has altered.

 
          
"If
the bodies are sufficiently close—as close as the galaxies of our local group,
for instance—the recessional pressure of the Hubble shell prevents them from
receding at all. Instead, it begins to push them towards one another. This
phenomenon we know as gravitation, the first of what are sometimes called the
'attractive forces,' though it is really only a screening effect. For reasons
which will be covered later, the induced motion becomes
an
acceleration
instead of a velocity, and the strength of the effect
follows the law of perspective.

 
          
"At
very
close range, the recessional
pressure is magnified to become the nuclear binding force. This also will be
covered later in the course.

 
          
"A
second major area of effects arises as a by-product of what has just been
described. What happens to those recession lines connecting particles whose
recession has slowed or been reversed? All particles lying within the Hubble
sphere are attempting to recede from one another at the standard rate but are
constrained from doing so. Recession lines joining these particles are
undergoing strain; they respond by acquiring a compensating lateral component.
These 'strain lines' form their own special kind of space, the space of electric
charge.

 
          
"So
we see that our three-dimensional realm really consists of a hierarchy of
interpenetrating three-dimensional spaces. First there is absolute or inertial
space consisting of a single standard velocity; this space is exuded by the
Hubble shell. Within that relative space arises, containing a range of
velocities. And as a by-product of relative space, interwoven with inertial
space, is the strain space of electromagnetism, a space independent enough to
create its own particles consisting solely of electric charge.

           
"Our introduction now is ended
and we are ready to go into the subject in more detail. Please indicate which
aspect interests you most: the historical, the mathematical, or the
philosophical."

 
          
Hesper,
however, gave no answer. She had fallen asleep.

 
          
Mo
was considerate enough not to rouse her. She woke two hours later, and feeling
refreshed, decided to see more of the city.

 
          
After
leaving the apartment she began to ascend. Early evening had turned to late
dusk. Light had come on all over the moving city: shaded pastel light in the
sidewalk eateries and drinkeries, sharp light that blazed on the tesselated
plazas, pillars of light that rose up and down the moulded yellow towers. Up
Hester went; up moving helter-skelter rampways, up slowly climbing city squares
that were gradual elevators, up the gentle slopes of flying boulevards,
avoiding, in her eagerness for new impressions, the fast lifts that could have
lofted her in seconds, until she found a place where the panorama of Mo and its
changing landscape were displayed below.

 
          
Pleasant
it was to sit on an overhanging terrace, protected by a balustrade of genuine
carved oak, sipping the drink that was brought her, enjoying the cool air and
taking in that panorama. She had ignored the talk that was all around her as
she climbed, being more interested in the smells of various foods from the
grills of countless establishments as the Mohists flocked to their evening
repast. But now, as she relaxed, she sensed among the others sharing the
terrace with her a feeling of anticipation, almost of dread. The feeling seemed
incongruous in a people so placid and good-natured, and for that reason alone
it filled her with foreboding. She was about to speak to an elderly man at the
next table when the cause of their dread appeared on the horizon.

 
          
At
first it could, perhaps, have been another moving city, but soon it bulked too
large for that and could only
have been a peculiarly
arc-shaped mountain
of a yellow-puce colour. And then, as the time
inexorably passed, it became too huge for any mountain.

 
          
The
moon was rising. It was the moon.

 
          
Up
it came, and up, more and more of it. It had closed the remaining distance to
Earth in an amazingly short time. A hush fell over the moving city, a hush that
lasted for hours while gradually the moon rose and became a vast plate that covered
the world like a lid—though Hesper, an experienced space traveller, easily
discerned its sphericity. No one spoke or moved, except to sip at the drinks
that continued to be served by the dutiful waiters, both robot and human.
Instead, everyone's gaze and consciousness became transfixed by the new, solid
sky that passed over.

 
          
The
sun illuminated the face of the satellite throughout from below the horizon,
its light filtering round the atmosphere, though the moon's disk eventually
darkened towards the centre. The yellowishness of its early approach quickly
vanished and it became first dazzlingly white then greyish and grained. Easily
visible were the great craters gaping upside down, the ancient splashes of
lighter dust that rayed out from many of them, and the vast flat plains.
Visible, too, were signs of the past works of man: furrows from mining
operations, fine lines that were transport networks.

 
          
By
midnight
the entire disk had lifted itself clear of
the landscape, a satellite ceiling hanging so low it was as if one could reach
up and touch it, and leaving only a narrow rim of blackness to all points of
the compass. Hesper realised it was so close it must be grazing Earth's upper
atmosphere. But how could this be? Long before now its approachxshould have
heaved up such tides in sea, land and air as utterly to destroy everything upon
the planet. Not only that, the satellite should be beginning to break up as a
result of even greater tidal stresses induced in it by the larger body. It was
a long way inside Roche's limit.

 
          
And
having
come
this close, its trajectory should be one
ending in direct collision, and that bare minutes away. Instead, this the most
stunning spectacle ever beheld upon planet Earth was gliding silently and
leisurely by, creating no disturbance and blithely ignoring the laws of
physics. Sometime after
midnight
its apparent diameter began slowly to
diminish, so that by dawn, when it was sliding down the opposite horizon in
answer to Earth's turning, it was noticeably smaller. It was receding back into
space, having given the planet a near miss.

 
          
It
was, Hesper thought as the Mohists, indeed all the inhabitants of nightside
Earth, stirred from their captivated vigil, just as if Earth and its moon had
ceased to exert any gravitational influence on one another at all.