Love Story: In The Web of Life (11 page)

"Not to me, so far." I added. "I spent most of
the morning trying to get my head around some of his
concepts."

"Don't feel bad, you're dealing with a graduate
level subject that requires lots of course units and a degree in
mathematics or physics. The point about talking about all this
is:

"First, Minkowski is a reputable source for
ideas, a mainline mathematician, someone who is more than a peer of
Einstein, not one of the kooks on the Internet, the self proclaimed
mathematicians, pushing some incompetent theory unifying
physics;

"Second, something can be true in physics
although it can't be visualized, especially imaginary
dimensions.

"I think the problem you will have in
convincing a jury will be getting them to believe in
eight-dimensional space. The Scopes trial was about Biblical
beliefs versus scientific beliefs. The Rocky Butte trial will be
about a belief in visualizable reality versus a higher dimensional
reality: science as taught in high school a generation ago versus
modern physics."

"Yes." I agreed, "But my cup runneth over Let's
go have lunch and talk about something else for a
while."

Captain Ahab's is one of those theme
restaurants from about twenty years ago, with antique diving
helmets, worn ropes, fishing nets, and oars decorating the walls.
Our table was made of a recycled boat hatch, covered with epoxy
over a variety of seashells. I thought the informality of the
restaurant would be a welcome break from our stern office
surroundings and a good place to talk and develop
rapport.

We chatted as we read the menu and ordered.
Candice declined my suggestion of wine. "Only on very special
occasions, and, besides, I'm working today," she said, rolling her
piercing blue eyes and chuckling."

"I guess I should abstain if I am going to try
to keep up with you this afternoon," I added. "Tell me what you do
when you are not being a mathematician or teacher?"

"We live right on the edge of the mountains of
the Angeles National Forest in Altadena. We hike there or going to
the Sierras when we have time."

"We?' I said quizzically.

"My significant other is Tom Watson. He is a
Hollywood-type arranger and composer. He works at home most of the
time on scores for films. We have lots of flexible time to enjoy
being with each other. He also counsels people, helps them with
their problems. We also meditate and have many close friends who
are spiritually oriented. We have a wonderful life
together."

"That's wonderful! I like your distinction
between 'do' and 'have'," I observed.

She added, "I like to talk to attorneys, they
listen to you. Many of my students seem to be in some other
space-time when I talk to them. So, what do you do when you are not
being an attorney?"

"I spend a lot time in the desert in a place
called CrystalAire. It is over the mountains, north from where you
live in Altadena. I have a sailplane and a little mobile home at
the airport. I often soar for hours a day. From the porch of my
mobile, I can see a hundred miles on a clear day to the southern
Sierras. I must say I have learned to really enjoy the desert, the
open space, the flora and fauna."

There was a pause. I felt that she was waiting
for the "we" part.

Then, she continued, "My grandfather was a
Native American. When I was little, we visited him in Oklahoma for
a few weeks in the summer. We used to hike together, and sometimes
we would sit and watch the soaring birds. He said you could learn a
lot from them. Those visits contributed a lot to who I am. I
learned to appreciate the connectedness of us to
nature."

"How did that lead to a career as a
mathematician?" I inquired.

"Part of mathematics is the search for unity. I
think I got that appreciation from my grandfather. My grandmother
on the other side of the family was from Louisiana and was a
shamanic sort of person, real old school, with lots of ideas about
magic. She taught me the magic of how to make up my mind about
something, following intuition or my heart, and then letting it
happen. That also is of value as a mathematician, allowing yourself
to be vulnerable."

'Vulnerable? That is having a weakness that
someone else could exploit,' I said to myself.

She paused and looked at me with the expression
I saw in Dore and Colson when they were sizing me up. I felt her
mind switch gears.

"Enough about me. Tell me more about you. It
sounds like the soaring thing is important to you. Do you take
people for rides? Were there pilots in your family?"

"No. My father had a hardware store in a small
northern California logging town where I grew up. My mother was a
schoolteacher. They raised me with Midwestern Baptist values.
Definitely, no shaman in the family.

"About five years, ago someone gave me a glider
ride for Christmas. They clipped an ad from the L.A. Times. I tried
it once and was hooked. Soaring is esthetically very much like boat
sailing, except a lot more is happening. Most sailplanes are
designed to carry only a pilot. It is not a social sport. They have
two seat gliders for pilot training and giving rides.

"The International Aeronautical Federation has
established badges, sort of medals, for different flight
achievements, such as flying for five hours at once, gaining
sixteen thousand feet of altitude, flying five hundred kilometers
and things like that. I am working toward making an ultimate
flight, achieving all badge goals in one flight. That flight will
take skill, and a day with perfect weather. The trick is to be
there, ready to go when that perfect day appears.

"Sometimes, I can't make it back to the airport
and have to get retrieved by a tow plane or a ground crew. There
are survival hazards in landing in the middle of nowhere in the
desert when it is about one-hundred degrees."

Candice's eyes grew wide with interest or
amazement as I talked excitedly. "You are passionate about this
soaring thing! The possibility of ending the day on the desert in
the middle of nowhere is an interesting vulnerability."

Lunch came, and we chatted only about the meal
and food for a while.

I felt that I had to question Candice about
vulnerability. "I am a little puzzled about your use of the term,
vulnerability. I always think of it as a weakness that someone can
exploit. In presenting a legal case, there may be logical or
factual vulnerabilities in your arguments that can be attacked by
the opposition. If a person had a burglar alarm installed in their
house, and the kitchen door was not included that would be
vulnerability. How does that pertain to being a
mathematician?"

Candice though for a minute and then replied.
"When I write papers, there are a couple of ways I can go. I can
write a paper that is armored with footnotes and references to
prove I was not doing anything innovative. And, if I worked at a
university with a rigid review process, I would submit it to a
faculty review process to further assure that I had not done
anything the technically conservative head of the department would
disagree with, and then I would submit it to a peer review journal
and spend another two years dealing with comments and objections,
some of which were from technically conservative guys who don't
like new ideas, and then it would be published.

"There is very little vulnerability in going on
that route. Few will criticize a paper that has been so expertly
scrubbed and there is little danger to one's academic
reputation.

"Or, if I teach at a state college, where the
emphasis is more on teaching, and they kind of let me publish what
I want, I can write a paper and publish it in any of the high
quality journals that don't have the innovation squeezing peer
review process. Then, I can move onto something else.

"There is a vulnerability in this process
because, if you openly do something innovative, you are open to
personal and professional criticism from many people. I publish
what I believe in, and if people disagree with me that is their
problem. If the work is useful, some people will build on the
ideas. If the work is of no value, it will be
forgotten."

She said with some apparent pride, "I have been
doing papers on the implications of complex eight-dimensional
Minkowski space for more than a decade. The Colson Foundation
decided the subject was useful for explaining things like ESP and
remote sensing.

"My students often scoff and object to my
broaching the subject of ESP in discussions of eight-space. I tell
them they can believe it, or not believe it as they wish, but
eight-space will be on the final exam.

"Many of my papers reflect my grandfather's
heritage by taking on subjects outside the normal scientific realm
like ESP.

"By the way, when Einstein submitted his paper
on Special Relativity to the university as a doctoral thesis, it
was rejected by the 'old white guys' in the university as too far
out."

I thought for a minute and then said, "I
understand your philosophy here on the subject of professional
papers. I am not sure how this would work in a trial. We always try
to present an invulnerable case."

Candice replied, "Tom, my significant other,
counsels many people on vulnerability. It is a frequent topic in
our house. I have learned the value of being vulnerable in personal
relationships."

"I don't understand," I admitted.

"It is somehow easier for women to understand
than men. For example, I have told you a lot about my personal
life, like how I feel about my Native American heritage, its use it
in my everyday life, my philosophy of teaching and writing papers,
and why I teach at a state college instead of a major university. I
have exposed much of who I am and how I feel. In doing so, I could
have been risking your judging me, or somehow changing my
relationship with the Colson Foundation. That is vulnerability. I
felt that I was safe with you. It is important that, if we are to
have an extended professional relationship, you know who I really
am and what is important to me. I didn't want to work with you for
a few weeks, and then have you judge that I was irrational because
my grandmother was a witch doctor. I don't have time for
that."

She gave me a soft smile that seemed to say, 'I
am your friend.'

I replied with a smile, "Your gamble, if it
were that, paid off. I understand a lot about you and think we can
work wonderfully well together."

I contemplated starting to tell her some more
about myself. Then, the check came.

"We should get back to work," she said. "Ready
for some more mind stretching mathematics?"

At my office we returned to the conference room
and Candice began describing her movie.

"The Colson Foundation asked for me to write a
movie script for an animation short film, for a TV show, a NOVA or
Discovery Channel kind of thing. I'll try to describe it for you.
You will have to try to visualize it. I wrote the script, and then
turned it over to a professional screenwriter. The animation has
been done, and the film is in final editing. I am supposed to
review the final cut this week. I think it will be ready when the
trial comes up."

Candice described the movie [included here as
an appendix] to me in detail and then said. "What do you
think?"

I replied, "I think that is an elegant
explanation of an esoteric subject, quite suitable for a
sophisticated audience like those that watch NOVA or the Discovery
Channel. I understood it fully because I have had a lot of
mathematics. I am sure that many of today’s high school students
would understand it. But, it might send a jury, particularly those
who 'hate math,' into a spin of confusion."

"The jury doesn't need to care about or
understand those mathematics. They do need to know that a valid,
scientific, paradigm exists for the many kinds of information
shortcuts we use and observe. I could submit the movie as evidence
and have you testify that the theory presented by the movie is
valid. Maybe one of the jurors will understand the movie and
convince the rest of the jury it is OK."

Candice said, "Maybe we should 'cut to the
chase,' explain what it all means. Let's try this. In
four–dimensional reality, if Bob is in New York and his wife,
Alice, is in San Francisco, we could calculate their separation,
using their GPS coordinates, latitude and longitude, to be about
2,500 miles. Their
information distance is
not the same
. If Bob dialed Alice on her cell phone,
they would only be separated by the time it took their voices to
travel through the telephone network, a fraction of a
second.

"
In Minkowski's
eight–dimensional space,
if Bob is in New York and
Alice is in San Francisco, they are still separated by about 2,500
miles. However, there is a shortcut through those eight dimensions
that is
zero miles
for
mind-to-mind communication. If Bob sends thoughts of love to Alice,
because of their bond she can instantaneously get them. They don't
need to use the cellphone.

"We all have something I call the
'
Magic Mirror of The Mind,'
that operates through the shortcuts in eight–dimensional
space. In fairy tales, some witches or sorcerers have magic mirrors
that they can command to get information for them. You remember,
'Mirror-mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?' Well,
the one we all have is more limited. We can say, 'What did I have
for breakfast?' and our Magic Mirror of The Mind makes an
information shortcut in space-time, from where you are now, to when
and where you were having breakfast
You
might think it is a memory stored somewhere in your brain, but it
isn't.
Scientists with their MRIs can pinpoint areas
in the brain active when you try to recall breakfast. However, they
have not found any area that has the possibility of storing all the
zillions of bits of information you can recall. This is a new idea.
There is not much research on this yet because we think it is
simply a memory stored somewhere in our brain. This shortcut idea
does not fit the current four-dimensional scientific
paradigm.