Counting House
ALICE sat on the LEM counting house sofa, sipping from a can of diet Coke and reading over her notes. She had followed George around the enormous LEM detector for almost two hours. It had been interesting, but now she felt tired.
The room was a typical temporary office module: vinyl tile floor, diffused-fluorescent ceiling lights, and textured plastic workspace partitions. But it was filled to overflowing with computer displays and electronic equipment which, she now understood, consolidated a minute distillation of the vast information processed in the multi-story pile of electronics trailers that comprised the electronics stacks down below.
She sucked at the straw and turned as George, across the room, put away his cellphone and walked toward her.
“Roy’s done with Jake, but he apparently has another emergency,” he said. “Belinda suggested that you come to her office tomorrow morning, so that the two of you can work out your interview schedule and probably get in to see Roy. Is that OK?”
Alice nodded. “Sure,” she said, “no problem. I’ll be in Waxahachie for a while. I’ve rented a house there for two months. I’ll spend a couple of weeks here at the SSC doing interviews, then write the Search article and perhaps work on a book project, too.” And I’ll finish the damned thing before I leave, she thought.
“Very good,” said George. He seemed pleased.
“I’ve been reading over the notes I made while you were telling me about the reason for building the SSC,” Alice said. “Can I check them with you to make sure I have it straight?”
“Sure,” said George.
Alice flipped pages in her notebook. “OK, you people in high energy physics are not satisfied with this QCD theory you presently use, what you called the ‘Quantum Chromodynamics Standard Model’, even though it works well, because it relies on too many arbitrary numbers. Did you say that it has twenty-three adjustable parameters?”
“Yes,” said George, “the quark masses, the lepton masses, some mixing parameters, the interaction strengths, and some other things.”
“And you need data from collisions at high energies which should lead you to a new theory that will explain where the masses and strengths come from. You think that the SSC will provide that data because ...” She frowned at her notes. “I’m not sure I caught this part. Something about GeV temperature and boiling water and a change of ‘phase’, whatever that is.”
George smiled. “In high energy physics we measure temperatures in energy units like GeV instead of Celsius or Fahrenheit.. There’s a special temperature, which we believe is around 400 GeV, 400 billion electron volts, where space itself changes its properties in a second order phase transition, going from the ‘normal’ vacuum of the early Big Bang to a frozen-out vacuum condensate where particles have the masses we measure. ‘Phase transition’ just means space changes its properties, like ice melting or water boiling. The ‘second order’ business means the change is very smooth, with no conspicuous jumps or bumps.”
Alice nodded, reading her notes. “And you believe the universe made this change early in the Big Bang, after the first millionth of a millionth of a second, and that the SSC will get you to the same temperature.”
“Yes,” said George, “exactly!”
“What I don’t understand,” said Alice, “is why you need the SSC data. If the theory tells you so much about what you’re going to measure, why don’t you just calculate it?”
George laughed. “You sound like a member of the SSC Program Committee. The scenario I just told you comes from an analogy with the theory used in condensed matter physics to explain superconductivity and related phenomena. In principle, particle theorists could use the same theory, except for a few ‘minor’ problems. They don’t understand the nature of what is being ‘condensed’ from the vacuum, or the underlying forces, or the correct mathematical formalism to use. Therefore, anything they do is a stab in the dark. They need data to set them on the right path. Until we get that data here at the SSC, or perhaps at CERN, we’re stuck where we are, with a paste-up theory that doesn’t really explain the fundamental nature of the universe.”
Alice nodded as she wrote. “And why is it important that it be done now, instead of, say, waiting ten or twenty years until we have better technology and can better afford the expense? As I recall, that’s what some Congressmen who opposed the project were suggesting.”
George pursed his lips. “You reporters ask nasty questions,” he said. “When the SSC construction was started in 1988 there was a team of people available to build it who had experience from Fermilab and SLAC and Cornell and were ready to move on to the new project. Building accelerators is an art. If you wait ten or twenty years, it becomes a lost art.
“The same can be said for the people like me who build the detectors and analyze the data. The manpower for the enormous effort needed to successfully build a detector must come from somewhere. That manpower and expertise has been built up in this country since the 1950s, and if Congress had inserted a ten or twenty year delay that would have been lost. The trained people would have gone elsewhere, done other things. They would have been unavailable, perhaps retired or even dead, by the time they were needed.”
Alice frowned. “You believe that the SSC could not have been built at all, if it had been delayed and hadn’t been started until, say, 2010?”
George shrugged. “I told you I’m not a very good prophet. All I can say is that the hypothetical people who would start to build the SSC in 2010 would not be the same people who actually built it, and they would surely have far less experience as accelerator builders. There were enough design glitches and startup problems with the SSC as it was. I’m sure that, starting the project in 2010, there would be a lot more.”
George paused while Alice wrote in her notebook. He smiled, then looked at his watch. “I’m afraid I have to attend a meeting in about fifteen minutes,” he said. “Anything else I can tell you about?”
“Yes,” Alice said. “Next question. I gather that the SSC Laboratory has invested quite heavily in telepresence and has some leadership in that field. Why?”
“Well, let’s consider my own case,” said George. “The SSC laboratory is 2000 miles from my university. In the old days, if I wanted to do physics here I’d have to pack up and come with my colleagues, graduate students, and postdocs and either live here most of the year or make nearly weekly trips here. I’d have to spend many days just flying back and forth between Dallas and Seattle, and even more in residence here, away from my classes and most of my students. There was no real alternative. The cost of large particle accelerators is so great that there can be only a few of them, and those who want to use them must rearrange their lives accordingly. My wife divorced me a few years ago because she didn’t like the rearrangements and finally couldn’t tolerate them.”
Alice noted that detail. “Like the astronomers who used to travel to Australia or Chile to use telescopes that could study the southern sky?” she suggested. She had interviewed some Florida State University astronomers for the Democrat some years ago.
“Exactly,” said George, “fifteen or twenty years ago, no one thought the situation would ever change. But then came the miracle of bandwidth.”
“Bandwidth?” asked Alice. “That has something to do with communication frequencies and TV channels, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed,” said George. “Over the past few decades the bandwidth, the range of frequencies available for communications and the transfer of information, has been increasing by a factor of ten every five years. There’s a principle that enough small quantitative changes can become a big qualitative change, enough small improvements can add up to a technological revolution. That’s what’s happened with bandwidth. It started with TV conferences. We’d link into other laboratories to listen in on their seminars and group discussions. But as the bandwidth got better and we got fiber-optic links that eliminated the satellite-link time delays, we developed telepresence. Instead of watching on a TV monitor, you can go there with telepresence and experience what is happening on the spot. You can walk into somebody’s office and ask what’s going on. We even have some electronic blackboards where you can scrawl equations and diagrams by telepresence or use robot hands and arms to do the same thing.
“If you had walked into my office several hours ago,” George continued, “you would have seen me sitting in a black recliner wearing what look like wrap-around sunglasses. We call them “magic glasses”. Lasers from the side-pieces bounce off the front lenses and draw pictures directly on the retinas of my eyes. The unit also has sensors that detect my head and eye movements and points the cameras on the remote accordingly. Because the cameras move when I turn my head, my eyes see just what they would if I were looking at the same scene directly. The vision center of my brain is fooled into thinking it’s all real, and I get an amazing feeling of ‘presence’ that has to be experienced to be appreciated.”
“But if you’re wearing glasses, why did I see your face on the remote without glasses?” Alice asked.
“There’s a TV camera mounted above the couch that scans my face and head, and the magic glasses monitor my eye and eyelid positions. A computer synthesizes a representation of my face from the data and reproduces my features on the remote’s headscreen, with the magic glasses electronically removed. That way the people I’m talking to can see my lip movements, my eye motions, and my facial expressions and react to them. I get 3-D stereo sound from the earpieces, and I wear data cuffs that detect my hand and arm movements. The cuffs buzz when I put my hand through a ‘solid’ object, and I’m now conditioned not to do that.”
Alice heard soft footsteps to her right and turned. A well dressed man with oriental features stood next to the sofa. “George, have you seen Hans?” the man said. “I think he’s hiding from me.”
Alice had a roommate in college who was addicted to the Taiwanese cinema, and she recognized the man’s guttural vocal mannerism as those of a Chinese alpha male “bossman”. She smiled and looked closely at then newcomer.
“We saw him down in the electronics stack an hour ago, Jake,” George said. Why don’t you just call him? He always carries a cellphone.”
“I was about to have Sally do that,” said Jake, “but I will bet you that he doesn’t answer. Do you know what he did? He told SDC people that they could tune a test beam through our detector tonight.” Jake took a cellphone from his pocket and dialed. “Sally? This is Jake Wang,” he said into the telephone in a completely transformed voice, urbane and courteous. “Would you please try to reach Herr Doctor Professor Hans Koch? Tell him that he is urgently needed in the LEM counting house. Thank you very much, Sally.” He hung up.
“I don’t think it matters if they tune through our detector, Jake.” George said. “The end calorimeters are rolled back, and we could use a little beam down the pipe to check the veto system.”
Jake froze and seemed to grow larger. “What?” he shouted. “Just who took out the end calorimeters?” He looked upward, as if seeking the source of his cruel fate. “Who gave permission to roll back the end calorimeters! Do I have no one but fools and charlatans working with me on this experiment? Can I not turn my back for one fleeting moment without having someone roll back the end calorimeters? George, I thought I could trust you. What could have possessed you to allow these imbeciles to roll back the end calorimeters?”
Alice turned her head away, suppressing a snicker. She found it hard to believe this performance had not been staged for her benefit, perhaps to deceive her into believing that mad scientists could be found outside late-show sci-fi flicks.
“Jake,” said George, “didn’t anyone tell you that the protection diodes needed to be changed in about a thousand of the calorimeter scintillators?”
Alice noticed that George’s voice was now unnaturally soothing and well-modulated. He sounded almost like a funeral director.
“I’m sure it was reported in the setup group meeting yesterday,” said George. “We can’t start the new run until the diodes are changed, and that means rolling back the calorimeters and working on them. That is what’s going on now.”
“I see,” said Jake. “Somebody must have told the SDC people that our calorimeters were rolled back. That explains a lot. Why can’t my people keep their mouths shut? Why don’t they ask me before talking about our private affairs to other groups. How can I run this experiment when nobody asks me before they do these things.” He gestured again, but the aura of high drama was rapidly dissipating.
“By the way, Jake,” George said, “there’s someone here that I’d like you to meet.”
Jake halted in mid gesture and pivoted toward George, then toward the sofa where Alice was sitting. Alice suddenly felt uncomfortable in his gaze.
“Alice,” said George, “I’d like to present Professor Jake Wang. Jake, this is Alice Lang. She’s a professional science journalist here to do a cover article for Search Magazine on the important new physics that is being done here at the SSC.”
Alice started to protest that she was only a freelance writer and had no reason to believe that her story would be a cover article, but she didn’t have the chance.
Beaming, Jake strode around the sofa and took her hand. “Miss Lang!” he said. “I am an avid reader of Search. We are so delighted and honored to have you pay us a visit.” He turned his head sideways and gave her a long look. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
“Uh, why, of course!” Alice said, confused by Jake’s sudden focus on her.
“You have come here to visit us at a time that must have been arranged by the fates. We are on the brink of the most momentous discovery of our new century. The Higgs particle, the very mysterious and elusive boson that breaks the symmetries that make our wonderful universe what it is, this magical particle is about to reveal itself to us. The great detector below us, which I personally designed, will deliver this new key to understanding God’s creation into our hands. It must be of great significance that you have come here at just this time, this turning point in the history of science.”
Jesus, thought Alice, he’s trying to write my story for me, right here on the spot. She imagined the reaction of the Search editors to Jake’s hyperbole. “That’s quite fascinating, Professor Wang,” she said sweetly.
“Call me Jake, please,” he said.
“OK, and I’m Alice,” she said. “Uh, Jake, I heard what you said about, um, disclosing information. I hope you won’t mind if I interview some of the scientists working on your experiment in the next few days. I can assure you that I’ll treat anything I learn as privileged. I’ll also be sure to check the scientific details for accuracy and sensitivity with you before I use them in my article for Search.” Saying this made her feel deceitful, but it was nevertheless true as far as it went.
“Alice, we have a deal,” said Jake, smiling and took her hand in his very dry cool one. Then he turned, walked over to a man wearing yellow coveralls, and began an animated conversation about computer chips.
Alice looked at George. “Wow,” she said, “so that’s Jake Wang.” She was considering how she could work him into her novel, perhaps in a personal encounter with a giant mutant fire ant.
George nodded, then looked at his watch. “One more thing before I go off to my meeting. Would you be interested in having dinner with me tonight? I’m getting a bit tired of SSC cafeteria food, and I was thinking of finding a nice thick Texas steak.”
Alice pursed her lips and thought for a moment. She was here under false pretenses and should keep her distance. On the other hand, she liked George. “Sure,” she said finally. “I’d enjoy that.”