Quantum (7 page)
Authors: Tom Grace
South Bend, Indiana
‘This mass is ended,’ Father Blake said from his place on the gilded altar of the basilica. ‘Go in peace.’
With that final pronouncement, Sacred Heart Basilica, the ornate centerpiece of the Notre Dame campus, filled with music. The vaulted ceilings and carved recesses shaped each note as it emerged from the organ pipes, transforming ‘Amazing Grace’ into a triumphant edifice of sound.
A phalanx of priests and altar servers accompanied the polished oak coffin down the main aisle, a somber procession in honor of Raphaele Paramo. Pew by pew, members of Paramo’s family and those who held him in regard as a friend, colleague, or mentor filed out into a perfect summer day. High in the carillon, the great seven-ton bell named in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua pealed out its solemn thunder.
‘Thank you for such a lovely service, Joe,’ Paramo’s widow said, clasping Father Blake’s hand in both of hers.
‘It was my pleasure, Dorothy,’ Notre Dame’s President replied. ‘Raphaele was a good man and a true friend.’
‘Yes, he was,’ she agreed, knowing both descriptions to be true. ‘Excuse me, Joe, but I see someone I have to speak to.’
Dorothy Paramo waded through the milling crowd, leaving her children and grandchildren beside the limousine that was to carry them to the cemetery.
‘Professor Newton. Mr Kilkenny,’ the diminutive woman called out. ‘A word, if I may?’
Kelsey dabbed the corner of her eye with a handkerchief, then smiled bravely at the approaching widow. ‘Of course, Mrs Paramo. And please call me Kelsey.’
‘I prefer Nolan, ma’am.’
‘Very well, but in return you must call me Dorothy,’ she replied, a faint smile appearing momentarily on her face. Then the sadness returned. ‘The police told me what happened the day my husband was murdered. Nolan, they told me that you risked your life to stop the men responsible for this tragedy.’
‘I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.’
‘It could have been far worse. My only consolation is that the two of you and Ted survived. Did you know that Raphaele and I thought of Ted as a son? Burying a spouse is a sad eventuality, but a child is meant to live on after the parents are gone.’
‘Ted will recover from this,’ Nolan said reassuringly.
‘My prayers are most certainly with him. I was wondering, can you both stop by the house after the reception?’
Kelsey looked at Nolan, who nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Good, I have a favor to ask.’
Nolan followed the silver Buick, driven by Dorothy Paramo’s eighteen-year-old grandson, into the farm country just outside of South Bend. They stopped at a brick Victorian home with a weathered aluminum mailbox bearing the name
PARAMO.
Nolan parked his SUV behind the Buick and followed Dorothy Paramo and her grandson into the house. Once inside, the young man bolted up the stairs, intent on trading his blazer and tie for a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt.
‘This way,’ Dorothy Paramo said, leading her guests through the parlor toward the rear of the house.
She turned the crystal knob and opened the raisedpanel door that led to a small room lined from floor to ceiling with books. The only furnishings in the room were a couch, a small desk, and a chair.
‘This is where my husband came to think. Please, have a seat.’
Kelsey sat with Nolan on the couch as Paramo’s widow sat in Raphaele’s chair. A gnarled pipe, unsmoked in almost twenty years, still sat near the corner of the desk.
‘Raphaele always said that physicists came in two flavors: thinkers and doers. Einstein was a thinker; Fermi was a doer. In his collaboration with Ted, Raphaele was the thinker and Ted was the doer. My husband was an accomplished thinker and a gifted instructor; teaching physics was his avocation. Raphaele knew his limitations, physically and mentally. In both regards he knew he wasn’t up to the challenge of tackling Ted’s discovery.’
Dorothy Paramo swiveled the chair and leaned forward to open one of the desk drawers. She withdrew a thick clasped envelope from inside the drawer and set it upon her lap.
‘Of all my husband’s papers, these were the most dear to him. Whenever a particular problem vexed him, he would invariably return to these. They were his inspiration. These are letters – a correspondence he had long ago with the greatest mind he’d ever known. Raphaele never talked about the man; their correspondence was over a year before Raphaele and I met. Once, shortly after we were married, I snuck a peek, thinking they were love letters from an old girlfriend. Except for a few personal notes, I didn’t understand a word. Raphaele was quite amused when I told him what I’d done, then he explained how important the letters were to him. He said they were ‘a brief glimpse into the mind of a genius.’ I don’t know what happened, but their correspondence ended abruptly. This is something that hurt Raphaele deeply.’
Dorothy paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. She closed her eyes, trying to quell the emotions rising within her.
‘A terrible thing has happened. My husband is dead, and our sweet Ted is lucky to be alive. He’s going to have a hard time recovering from all this, and I don’t want him to give up. Here’ – she handed the envelope to Kelsey – ‘I want you to take these to Ted. Raphaele wanted him to have them.’
‘Shouldn’t this come from you?’ Kelsey asked.
‘No, they were supposed to have come from Raphaele. He was going to give them to Ted after the lab had moved. He said that these letters contain ideas that might help a younger mind solve the riddle of their work. Ted is at the hospital in Ann Arbor now, and I don’t know when I’ll get up there to see him. The poor man has lost his life-work and his mentor. If these letters are all my husband said they are, I think Ted needs to see them as soon as possible.’
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Nolan and Kelsey followed the blue-and-white directional signs that led them through the first floor of University Hospital. They were there to visit Ted Sandstrom, who had been transported by air ambulance to Ann Arbor after receiving emergency medical treatment in South Bend. Though more than fifty percent of his body was severely burned, Sandstrom’s prognosis was good.
Wending their way through the maze of corridors, the two of them finally arrived at the Burn Unit, which was located in a remote corner of the hospital. When they reached the electronically locked double doors of the unit, the head nurse buzzed them through and had them sign the visitors’ sheet.
The unit was built in a curved, two-story block that jutted out from the hospital’s north face. Twelve singlepatient rooms followed the outer curve. Sealed windows in each provided a view of the Huron River. A glass-curtain wall isolated the patient room from the hallway while providing a direct line of sight for the medical staff. SpaceLab monitors hung from the ceiling, displaying the vital signs of each of the patients.
‘You have visitors,’ the nurse announced pleasantly upon entering Sandstrom’s room.
She quickly checked the IV bags and glanced at all the vitals displayed on the small in-room monitor. Satisfied, she moved on.
‘Hey, Ted,’ Nolan said as they entered.
A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. The sight of Sandstrom’s burned flesh didn’t shock him; he had seen far worse on SEAL missions around the world. Instead, it triggered memories and feelings he had hoped to leave behind upon his discharge.
‘Aren’t you going to ask how I’m doing?’ Sandstrom wanted to know, a bitter tinge of sarcasm in his raspy voice.
‘No, because you’ll either lie to spare our feelings or, worse yet, you’ll tell us the truth.’
‘Nolan,’ Kelsey barked, annoyed by his insensitive comment.
Sandstrom feebly raised his hand. ‘He’s right, Kelsey, I feel as good as I look. At least they’re treating me well, and the pain meds keep the edge off. How’s Dorothy?’
‘She’s holding up very well,’ Kelsey replied. ‘She sends her love.’
Nolan pulled a chair around to the side of the bed for Kelsey and then sat on the chair’s flat wooden arm.
‘Any word on the guys who did this?’ Sandstrom asked.
‘Nada,’ Nolan answered. ‘The police set up roadblocks all over the area but came up empty. The FBI is slowly sifting through what’s left of your lab for any physical evidence, but that’s going to take a while. I’ve asked a guy I know at the CIA to take a look at this as well.’
‘CIA?’
‘Yeah, there’s an international angle to this that the folks at Langley are better equipped to handle than the Indiana State Police. The guys who hit your lab looked and sounded an awful lot like Spetsnaz.’
‘What’s Spetsnaz?’
‘Russian army Special Forces. No one in the Russian government is crazy enough to launch a mission like this on U.S. soil, so it’s more likely that these guys are mercenaries and somebody with very deep pockets sent ’em here. Enough with this talk, though. How about some good news?’
‘Please,’ Sandstrom said with a desperate weariness.
‘The boards of MARC and ND-ARC had a teleconference this morning regarding the joint venture for your project.’
‘I thought you said this was good news.’
‘I did,’ Nolan replied. ‘Despite the setback due to this incident, both boards have decided to pursue the project. This, of course, depends upon your ability to resume your work after you get out of here.’
‘So, are you telling me I still have a job?’
‘Yep, they still think you’re a good bet.’
‘As bad as this whole situation is, it’s temporary,’ Kelsey added. ‘You’ll recover, the lab will be rebuilt, and your work will proceed.’
‘I know, life goes on and all that jazz,’ Sandstrom said bitterly, his anger and sadness readily apparent.
‘Yes, Ted, it
does.
You and Raphaele made an important discovery, and now you have to follow it wherever it leads. It’s what Raphaele would have wanted you to do.’
‘How the hell would you know what Raphaele wanted me to do? We were a team. We were going to solve this thing together.’
‘Actually, after you moved into the new lab, Raphaele was going to retire.’ Kelsey held up her hand to stop the question she saw forming on Sandstrom’s lips. ‘We had a long talk with Dorothy yesterday after the funeral. She told us that Raphaele felt that he’d done all he could for you, and it was time for him to step aside. Had none of this happened, Raphaele would be telling you this right now and wishing you well. He would also have given you this.’
Kelsey set the thick manila envelope on the edge of Sandstrom’s bed. He stared down at it; across the top was his name scrawled in Paramo’s hand.
‘What’s in it?’
‘Letters. Dorothy said they were Raphaele’s most prized possession. Sometime back in the forties, he corresponded with another physicist. In Raphaele’s opinion, the man was one of the greatest minds he’d ever known. He also felt that something in these letters might help you figure out your discovery.’
Sandstrom’s eyes never left the envelope as Kelsey spoke. There were only a handful of twentieth-century physicists who Raphaele Paramo considered truly brilliant, and as best as Sandstrom could recall, Paramo never mentioned having significant communication with any of them.
‘Who was Raphaele’s pen pal?’
‘We don’t know,’ Nolan replied, just as curious about the letters as Sandstrom was.
‘We were tempted to read the letters on the way back from South Bend,’ Kelsey admitted, ‘but it wouldn’t have been right. These letters were meant for you.’
‘Well, I want to know. Open the envelope and read me one of them.’
Kelsey smiled as she unclasped the oversize envelope. Inside, she discovered a collection of old brown file folders bound together by string. Each folder bore the date of the letter it contained; the correspondence spanned almost two years.
‘I guess we should start at the beginning.’
Kelsey untied the string and opened the first folder. Surprisingly, the paper, which was older than anyone in the room, had barely yellowed – Paramo had kept his treasured letters safe for more than fifty years. The author’s penmanship was fluid and precise, like the work of a calligrapher.
‘Fifteen September 1946,’ Kelsey began. ‘Dear Raphaele… ’
After a few lines about personal matters, the author shifted direction into the realm of theoretical physics. The tone was conversational, as if Raphaele and the author were sitting in a bar having a discussion over a glass of beer. The man would pose a thesis, then let his imagination run wild, challenging his thesis from several different directions.
More than once Sandstrom had to ask her to stop so he could digest what he’d heard. The beautifully written prose was interspersed with mathematical notations and explanatory doodles. The first four-page letter took nearly an hour to read.
“‘— and I look forward to your thoughts on this. Your friend, Johann Wolff.’”
‘Amazing.’ Sandstrom sighed, physically drained by the effort he’d put forward to follow the letter. ‘I’d have to study that letter more carefully, but I’d swear that part of what you just read dealt with interaction-free measurement.’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Kelsey agreed.
‘I’m sorry to be the dumb guy in the room,’ Nolan said, crossing his arms over his chest, ‘but what is it about that letter that has you both so stunned?’
‘If Kelsey and I understand this letter correctly, Wolff was working on quantum optics.’
‘And why is this significant?’
‘The significance is not what, but when,’ Kelsey said. ‘Wolff was thinking about interaction-free measurement in the mid-forties. I’ve never seen anything on the subject dating that far back. In the early sixties the guy who won the Nobel Prize for inventing holography essentially said such a thing was impossible. No one was even fooling around in this area until the eighties.’
‘This is cutting-edge quantum thinking now,’ Sandstrom added. ‘Fifty years ago, my God. This guy’s grasp of the subtle nature of potential and probability is amazing. Las Vegas would hate a guy like this.’
‘Shall I read another?’ Kelsey asked as she carefully placed the first back in its folder.
‘Absolutely,’ Sandstrom replied eagerly.
Four hours and five letters later, Sandstrom was ready to get out of bed and go back to work. While Nolan was impressed with the author’s ability to describe incredibly complex phenomena lucidly, for Kelsey and Sandstrom the experience was something akin to an epiphany.
‘Raphaele was right,’ Sandstrom declared, ‘this guy’s thinking was decades ahead of his time.’
Kelsey nodded her head in agreement. ‘I’m just surprised that we’ve never heard of him.’
‘Me, too,’ Nolan said as he put the last few folders back in the pile. ‘Especially since he was here at Michigan when he wrote these letters.’
‘His comments on some of the senior faculty in our physics department sound like they could have been written today. Just change the names,’ kidded Kelsey.
‘Bureaucracies are eternal,’ quipped Nolan.
Still reclining in his hospital bed, Sandstrom stared in wonder at this gift from his mentor. ‘It’s like Wolff was doing stuff in his head that we’re just starting to figure out now using supercomputers. Based on what he showed Raphaele, I think Wolff was working toward a theory of everything.’
‘A theory of everything?’ Nolan asked. ‘Sounds like a Monty Python movie.’
‘For physicists,’ Sandstrom replied, ‘a workable theory of everything is the Holy Grail.’
‘I’ll bite then. What is it?’
‘You want to field this one, Kelsey?’ Sandstrom asked.
‘Sure. The short version goes something like this. Four basic forces are known to be at work in the universe – forces that determine the behavior of everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the universe itself. Current theory predicts that if we were to wind the clock back in time to less than a hundredth of a second after the Big Bang, we should find these four apparently separate forces merging into a single unified force.’
Nolan nodded. ‘I’m with you so far. Gravity, which keeps us from falling off the earth and affects all the big stuff in the universe is theoretically related to the forces that hold atoms and all the subatomic bits together.’
‘Exactly. A theory of everything, or TOE, describes the linkage between all the forces. If we can ever develop one that can survive experimental testing, we’ll have a much clearer understanding of how the universe began, how it works, and where it’s going. Now, trying to tie all four forces together in one shot is incredibly difficult. Einstein spent the later years of his life on his unified field theory and came up empty. Taking it one step at a time, we’ve managed to tie two of the forces – electro-magnetism and the weak nuclear force – together. Currently physicists are trying to tie these two forces with the strong nuclear force – the one that holds protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei. A theory describing the union of the three nongravitational forces is known in the trade as a GUT, which stands for grand unification theory. The next step after a working GUT is developed is a working TOE.’
‘So, based on Wolff’s letters, you think he was piecing together a theory of everything?’
‘Absolutely,’ Sandstrom assured Nolan, ‘and he was at least as far along fifty years ago as anyone is today. I’m seeing glimmers of M-brane theory in these letters and hints at strategies for resolving some of the stickier problems that current theorists are wrestling with.’
Nolan nodded. ‘Can these letters help you with your research?’
‘Who knows? It all depends on how far Wolff progressed with his theoretical work. These letters are just chip shots, snippets; Wolff did his big thinking somewhere else. A guy this bright had to have published somewhere – left some kind of record of his research.’ A gleam shone in Sandstrom’s eyes, and he looked up at Nolan and Kelsey. ‘We have to find Johann Wolff.’
‘Ted’ – Kelsey’s voice carried a touch of concern – ‘even if he’s still alive, he’d be at least as old as Raphaele was.’
Sandstrom smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter. A mind like this has to have left some mark behind – some evidence that he was here. Dead or alive, we have to find Johann Wolff.’