Ball Lightning

“Of course! We’ve predicted that the most valuable use of this project will be the construction of a high-efficiency air defense system comprising a vast lightning field blanketing a city or some other protected target. Enemy planes will attract lightning when they enter, and under those circumstances the targeting issue you mentioned becomes unimportant. Sure, if land is used as one of the poles, then you could also hit land targets, but there are additional problems with that…. We’re really only performing a feasibility study for the concept and are looking for inspiration in the most basic areas of research. If it turns out to be feasible, we’ll turn to professional organizations like your own for the implementation specifics.”

I exhaled. “Are you in the army?”

She introduced herself as Lin Yun, a doctoral student at the National University of Defense Technology, who specialized in air defense weapons systems.

The storm stopped, and the setting sun radiated golden light through the gaps in the clouds.

“Look at how new the world looks, like it’s been reborn in the thunderstorm!” She gasped in admiration.

I shared that feeling, although it was unclear whether it was because of the storm or the girl in front of me. At any rate, it was not a feeling I had experienced before.

* * *

That night, Lin Yun, Zhao Yu, and I went for a walk. Before long, Zhao Yu got a call to return to the station, so Lin Yun and I continued along the path up the mountain until we reached the Skyway. It was late, and the Skyway was shrouded in a light fog through which streetlamps shone hazily. Nighttime on the mountain was quiet, so still that the clamor of the world below seemed but a distant memory.

When the fog lifted somewhat, a few stars emerged in the sky, their light reflected immediately in Lin Yun’s eyes. I gazed spellbound at the reflected starlight before quickly turning to look at the stars themselves. If my life were a movie, then what had been a black-and-white screen had burst into color today on the peak of Mount Tai.

In the night fog on the Skyway, I told Lin Yun my deepest hidden secret. I told her about that nightmarish birthday night so many years before, and I told her about the thing to which I had decided to devote my entire life. This was the first time I had told anyone.

“Do you hate ball lightning?” she asked.

“It’s hard to feel hate toward an unknowable mystery, regardless of how much disaster it may bring. At first I was only curious, but as I’ve learned more about it, that curiosity has transformed into total fascination. In my mind it became a doorway to another world, a world where I can see the wonders I have been dreaming about for so long.”

A winsome breeze picked up and the fog dissipated. Up above, the glittering summer star field stretched across the heavens, and far off down the mountain, the lights of the town of Tai’an formed their own star field like a reflection in a pond.

In a soft voice, she began to recite a Guo Moruo poem:

The distant streetlamps are lit,
Like countless glittering stars.
Stars emerge in the heavens,
Like the lighting of countless streetlamps.

I continued:

I think in the wafting air,
There must be beautiful street markets.
And objects laid out on those markets,
Must be rarities like nothing on earth.

Tears welled. The beautiful night city quivered for a moment through my tears and then resolved to an even greater clarity. I understood that I was a person in pursuit of a dream, but I also understood how unimaginably hazardous the road I followed was. Yet even if the South Gate to Heaven never emerged from the fog, I would keep on climbing.

I had no other choice.

Zhang Bin

Two years as a doctoral student passed quickly while I built my first mathematical model of ball lightning.

Gao Bo was a remarkable advisor, whose forte lay in his ability to induce creativity in his students. His obsession with theory was paired with an extreme distaste for experimentation, which could be insufferable at times. Without any experimental basis whatsoever, my mathematical model became totally abstract. But I did successfully defend my dissertation, and received the assessment, “A novel argument that evinces a strong mathematical foundation and deft technique.” The fatal lack of the experimental side of the model naturally provoked considerable debate. As the defense was concluding, one panelist taunted, “One last question: How many angels can fit on the point of a pin?” to a burst of laughter.