Supermassive (Part the Second)
(DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE FIRST PART, POSTED JUST PREVIOUS TO THIS)
And now, old chums ... Part 2:
This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer. Well, I want to be a writer.
There is a theory I like that states: Anything that can happen will happen. Not here, but “elsewhere.” A scientific theory that there are an infinite number of universes, which means anything that can possibly be conceived of, does in fact exist. This is a fiction writer’s dream. Think of the possibilities of that. That means that somewhere, in another universe, I’m an accomplished fiction writer. That also means I’m a homeless junkie, a tap dancer, a refrigerator repairman, a dragon, and anything else I can possibly imagine. A brilliant physicist, for instance. And there are infinite universes in which every experience I’ve ever had played out differently. When my Varsity Hockey team lost in the playoffs to Orchard Park two years in a row – we won. When I graduated Magna Cum Laude from undergraduate college – I struggled hopelessly and flunked out in less than a year. When I crashed my truck into a tree and a roommate caught me trying to cut my wrists in a drunken craze – I died. Literally, it’s only a matter of taking, for instance, “X” and turning it into “-X.” A simple application of reversal.
And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”
* * *
I’d managed somehow to overlook the growing suspicion among my colleagues that I was somehow dangerous. I failed to see their point.
A word or two on my work would be useful at this stage, I think.
As you already are aware, I, Michael Sherry, am a physicist. That’s the “short” of it. My research centers around structuring the Universe. Well – not “the” Universe, but the outermost dimension in which everything is contained. I mean everything. You follow?
Maybe a little background would help. When scientists first uncovered the difficulty with gravity – namely that whenever one tries to apply the rules of Quantum Field Theory to General Relativity, gravity is apparently unable to fit into this scheme – they realized a new universal theory was needed. This led to String Theory, or the idea that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are strings that can be open like hair or closed like loops. This, ultimately, was a disaster. There were five of them. It is hardly a good thing to have five versions of a theory when you’re trying to posit it as a “theory of everything.”
One interesting aspect of the String Theories was their proposal of space-time in ten dimensions – a stretch, it seemed, at first, but consider that six of the dimensions are curled up very tightly so as to escape our comprehension. M-Theory took the next step.
11th Dimension.
And yet space-time still appears ten-dimensional. Well, that is because they exist within the 11th. We can’t “see” the 11th because it is outside of our comprehension – AKA our Universe. So, to put it simply, our universe is floating around inside an outer membrane which contains, in theory, an infinite number of universes.
This is where my work comes in. There is a theory that the universe is moving from organization to chaos. My research concentrates on a personal theory that EVERYTHING is moving from chaos to more chaos – infinite universes, the Eleventh Dimension, and all. Not just this universe.
This is what began my association with Dr. Jeff. Since Supermassive Black Holes might well be the endgame for everything – and since they’re entropy is incalculably high – it seemed a natural partnership.
But how to study such a thing? It should be theoretically impossible to comprehend something that is located outside of our physical universe. In other words, we’re only capable of operating within the confines of physical laws as they exist here. So how can we hope to capture something whose entity is beyond and around our physical laws. In other words – how do we study what is not here, but there?
Impossible.
Well, not necessarily. Consider – there are, in theory, an infinite number of other universes. An infinite number. Sounds like a throwaway term for “a-hell-of-a-lot-of” to your average non-physicist, but to the mathematically functioning mind of a scientist the concept is a nightmare. The idea that no number can be assigned. No theory or law made applicable. An infinite number! Don’t they realize what they are saying?
We did. And we embraced it. An infinite number means, to put it gently … anything goes. Infinite, by definition, means that anything one can possibly imagine exists. It does exist. Not some variation, or something very similar. No. If you can conceive of it, then it is out there. Somewhere.
So, we reasoned, in order to study a separate universe, all one has to do is read a book. Look at a drawing. Watch a movie. Go to sleep and have a dream. Are you getting this? It is all out there because of the illimitableness of parallel worlds. Write a poem, watch an opera, listen to a song.
Fiction, therefore, was the answer. The key to discovering truth rested in lies. This lends new meaning to the notion that the poets are the unelected spokesmen of a society. A society, it turns out, that exists farther away than they could possibly have imagined. But it does exist.
I therefore read, observed, listened and made careful notation of various descents toward chaos. My hope was to find some connection – some commonality between the thousands of “universes.” Something that would suggest a theory behind the growing disorganization of EVERYTHING.
This is, of course, why my colleagues found me dangerous, as it would turn out. The work Dr. Jeff and I were undertaking was threatening to undermine the very foundation of science – the idea that everything has an explanation, the universe(s) operates according to pre-determined physical principles, and only direct study can bring it to the surface. And here I was, apparently a renegade, studying the arts as a basis for universal understanding. I lost my job at the University and patrons of physics refused to fund my work.
Dr. Jeff, who was permitted to continue in the field since his study of black holes still rested in scientific analysis, continued our partnership in private.
And that is what landed us in Duff’s, enjoying chicken wings and a few beers after the Elvis concert
“Alright,” I said, finally. “Alright. Look. Remember when I sent you that email the other day? The one letting you know Elvis was coming back to Buffalo for the first time in almost a decade? Do you remember how it started?”
“The e-mail?” Dr. Jeff asks, confused. “I think it started with my name and then-
“No, I don’t mean the body. I mean the subject line. Do you remember what that said?”
“Oh,” he said, thinking back. “‘Elvis Lives’, right? Something like that?”
“That’s right,” I told him. “‘Elvis Lives.’” I signaled to a waitress that we needed a new pitcher. She came over to retrieve the empty pitcher, and headed off to the kitchen. I reached down and pulled a folder from my briefcase. “Take a look at this,” I told him, extracting a few photocopied sheets and handing them across the table.
He started reading …
This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer.
This failed to impress him.
“What’s your point? What is this anyway?”
“It’s from a book I started reading just after I sent you that email. It’s called Supermassive.”
“So a character has the same name as you?”
“Yes, but look at this.” I flipped through a couple sheets and pointed to where I’d underlined certain lines in pencil.
“Read that.”
He began reading again …
And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”
And now, old chums ... Part 2:
This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer. Well, I want to be a writer.
There is a theory I like that states: Anything that can happen will happen. Not here, but “elsewhere.” A scientific theory that there are an infinite number of universes, which means anything that can possibly be conceived of, does in fact exist. This is a fiction writer’s dream. Think of the possibilities of that. That means that somewhere, in another universe, I’m an accomplished fiction writer. That also means I’m a homeless junkie, a tap dancer, a refrigerator repairman, a dragon, and anything else I can possibly imagine. A brilliant physicist, for instance. And there are infinite universes in which every experience I’ve ever had played out differently. When my Varsity Hockey team lost in the playoffs to Orchard Park two years in a row – we won. When I graduated Magna Cum Laude from undergraduate college – I struggled hopelessly and flunked out in less than a year. When I crashed my truck into a tree and a roommate caught me trying to cut my wrists in a drunken craze – I died. Literally, it’s only a matter of taking, for instance, “X” and turning it into “-X.” A simple application of reversal.
And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”
* * *
I’d managed somehow to overlook the growing suspicion among my colleagues that I was somehow dangerous. I failed to see their point.
A word or two on my work would be useful at this stage, I think.
As you already are aware, I, Michael Sherry, am a physicist. That’s the “short” of it. My research centers around structuring the Universe. Well – not “the” Universe, but the outermost dimension in which everything is contained. I mean everything. You follow?
Maybe a little background would help. When scientists first uncovered the difficulty with gravity – namely that whenever one tries to apply the rules of Quantum Field Theory to General Relativity, gravity is apparently unable to fit into this scheme – they realized a new universal theory was needed. This led to String Theory, or the idea that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are strings that can be open like hair or closed like loops. This, ultimately, was a disaster. There were five of them. It is hardly a good thing to have five versions of a theory when you’re trying to posit it as a “theory of everything.”
One interesting aspect of the String Theories was their proposal of space-time in ten dimensions – a stretch, it seemed, at first, but consider that six of the dimensions are curled up very tightly so as to escape our comprehension. M-Theory took the next step.
11th Dimension.
And yet space-time still appears ten-dimensional. Well, that is because they exist within the 11th. We can’t “see” the 11th because it is outside of our comprehension – AKA our Universe. So, to put it simply, our universe is floating around inside an outer membrane which contains, in theory, an infinite number of universes.
This is where my work comes in. There is a theory that the universe is moving from organization to chaos. My research concentrates on a personal theory that EVERYTHING is moving from chaos to more chaos – infinite universes, the Eleventh Dimension, and all. Not just this universe.
This is what began my association with Dr. Jeff. Since Supermassive Black Holes might well be the endgame for everything – and since they’re entropy is incalculably high – it seemed a natural partnership.
But how to study such a thing? It should be theoretically impossible to comprehend something that is located outside of our physical universe. In other words, we’re only capable of operating within the confines of physical laws as they exist here. So how can we hope to capture something whose entity is beyond and around our physical laws. In other words – how do we study what is not here, but there?
Impossible.
Well, not necessarily. Consider – there are, in theory, an infinite number of other universes. An infinite number. Sounds like a throwaway term for “a-hell-of-a-lot-of” to your average non-physicist, but to the mathematically functioning mind of a scientist the concept is a nightmare. The idea that no number can be assigned. No theory or law made applicable. An infinite number! Don’t they realize what they are saying?
We did. And we embraced it. An infinite number means, to put it gently … anything goes. Infinite, by definition, means that anything one can possibly imagine exists. It does exist. Not some variation, or something very similar. No. If you can conceive of it, then it is out there. Somewhere.
So, we reasoned, in order to study a separate universe, all one has to do is read a book. Look at a drawing. Watch a movie. Go to sleep and have a dream. Are you getting this? It is all out there because of the illimitableness of parallel worlds. Write a poem, watch an opera, listen to a song.
Fiction, therefore, was the answer. The key to discovering truth rested in lies. This lends new meaning to the notion that the poets are the unelected spokesmen of a society. A society, it turns out, that exists farther away than they could possibly have imagined. But it does exist.
I therefore read, observed, listened and made careful notation of various descents toward chaos. My hope was to find some connection – some commonality between the thousands of “universes.” Something that would suggest a theory behind the growing disorganization of EVERYTHING.
This is, of course, why my colleagues found me dangerous, as it would turn out. The work Dr. Jeff and I were undertaking was threatening to undermine the very foundation of science – the idea that everything has an explanation, the universe(s) operates according to pre-determined physical principles, and only direct study can bring it to the surface. And here I was, apparently a renegade, studying the arts as a basis for universal understanding. I lost my job at the University and patrons of physics refused to fund my work.
Dr. Jeff, who was permitted to continue in the field since his study of black holes still rested in scientific analysis, continued our partnership in private.
And that is what landed us in Duff’s, enjoying chicken wings and a few beers after the Elvis concert
“Alright,” I said, finally. “Alright. Look. Remember when I sent you that email the other day? The one letting you know Elvis was coming back to Buffalo for the first time in almost a decade? Do you remember how it started?”
“The e-mail?” Dr. Jeff asks, confused. “I think it started with my name and then-
“No, I don’t mean the body. I mean the subject line. Do you remember what that said?”
“Oh,” he said, thinking back. “‘Elvis Lives’, right? Something like that?”
“That’s right,” I told him. “‘Elvis Lives.’” I signaled to a waitress that we needed a new pitcher. She came over to retrieve the empty pitcher, and headed off to the kitchen. I reached down and pulled a folder from my briefcase. “Take a look at this,” I told him, extracting a few photocopied sheets and handing them across the table.
He started reading …
This is all fiction. You need to understand that. My name is Mike Sherry, and I’m a writer.
This failed to impress him.
“What’s your point? What is this anyway?”
“It’s from a book I started reading just after I sent you that email. It’s called Supermassive.”
“So a character has the same name as you?”
“Yes, but look at this.” I flipped through a couple sheets and pointed to where I’d underlined certain lines in pencil.
“Read that.”
He began reading again …
And I’ll start by sitting down at my computer and writing the words “Elvis Lives.”
posted by Il Pazzo @ 8:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home