Broken Symmetry

“Harold, let’s think this through. If the beams have been coming here, then what’s been happening in that other universe?”

Harold’s brow furrowed. “Trick question, right? If the beams are coming here, then they’re leaving there.”

“Which means that they haven’t been able to take any data. No beams.”

A shocked look appeared on Harold’s face. “That means that their experiment, as far as they know, is a failure. And—”

“And their government is probably just as unlikely to fund a failing experiment as ours is,” Roy concluded for both of them.

They were silent for a moment, then Harold said, “They can’t. They can’t shut down their collider. We’re so close.”

“Well, that just may be what they’re doing. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“For the past few months, I’ve been trying to imagine what it would be like for me to live in that universe. What if I had gotten my collider, and then, just as it seems to be working, the beams keep vanishing? What would I do?”

“What you did in this universe. Keep fighting until the bitter end.”

“Right. But what if we were the ones losing beams? I would have called you in to examine the data, and what would you have found?”

It took Harold a few seconds. “The physics of the bridge is the same in either universe. I could probably have developed this theory in the other universe as well.”

Roy smiled. “Which means?”

Harold’s eyes lit up. “Which means that they know about us! So if their collider is in danger of being shut down, they would try to let us know about it!” He snatched the paper out of Roy’s hands, studied it for a moment, and whistled.

“It’s Morse code. See here, where the data begins to get loopy? It’s an SOS!”

“So what does the rest of the message say?”

“Give me a minute. It’ll be easier if we use the computer to graph the pulse length versus time…”

It was more like ten minutes until Harold had completely translated the message. Most of the message confirmed their ideas about the other universe. But it ended on a very ominous note.

Harold read, “ Shutdown scheduled in few weeks. Must present data. Do you have any?’” He looked up at Roy, who rubbed his eyes.

“Well, yeah, we do,” Roy said, “but how do we share it with them?”

Harold got that twinkle in his eye again.

“You mean, how do we signal them back when we don’t have a beam?”

“Yes.”

Harold laughed. “Easy. Same way they signaled us, but in reverse. We set up the detectors to turn on and off very rapidly in Morse code, so when they send a beam over to us, they get a staggered disappearance instead of the usual ‘zing!’ kind. Our communication does depend on their sending us a beam, but we can still communicate. It’s a simple application of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Bell’s Theorem. We’ll just need a SQUID.”

A Superconducting Quantum Interference Device. A tiny integrated circuit cell made with superconductors, about the size of a transistor. Roy nodded. That made sense. They needed to interfere with the quantum mechanical nature of the beams, and both ideas Harold had cited involved quantum interactions. Bell’s Theorem, in particular, involved the quantum nature of information transfer. “If you can figure it out—”

“I can.”

“Then let’s do it.”

9. Spin Up

“I don’t believe it, sorry,” Louis Reichen said.

Kristin jumped up and hit Ray’s desk with her fist. “Damn it, Reichen, look at it! We’ve contacted them! They’re sharing their data! All we’ve got to do is keep the SSC running!”

“Kristin,” Ray said quietly.

This was not the way to convince Reichen, Kristin realized. She mumbled an apology and resumed her seat.

“Thank you,” Reichen said icily.

“Now, as I was saying, I do not believe this.”

“So what do you think?” Ray asked. “Frankly? I think that you and Dr. Anderson are grasping at straws, trying to come up with anything to save your pet project.”

“You’re accusing me of making this up, aren’t you?” Kristin asked.

Reichen turned to look at her. “Not in so many words, no.”

“But you think I’m lying.”

Reichen sighed. “Dr. Anderson, let’s say that I do think you’re lying. Most likely, I would say that, in desperation, you have come up with some scheme for convincing me to keep the collider running. But I’d much rather not have to put such a thing in my report, if you catch my drift. It wouldn’t exactly be to your benefit, and I do have some sympathy for your situation.”

He turned back to Ray. “I’m here to supervise the shutdown of the SSC. I have an order here from the DOE that you are to stop running your experiments immediately.” He took a paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Ray. Ray took it without comment.

Reichen stood up. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks. I’ll try to make the shutdown go as smoothly as possible.” With that, Reichen stormed out the door.

“He threatened me. He actually threatened me.”

“I noticed.”

“You believe me, don’t you, Ray?”

“I believe you now.”

“So what do we do?”