The theatre was filled with cigarette smoke. As John Baney entered it, he saw two men and a woman sitting comfortably on the cushioned seats staring intently at the large screen. He saw the opening credits ‘Superman V’. Grinning he pulled out his notepad and began to scribble some notes. He walked slowly toward the concentrated viewers and sat a row behind them. The woman turned to look at him and smiled. He nodded back and as the first sounds of the movie echoed through the almost empty hall, the elderly spectators hushed and leaned forward to watch more closely. As the movie progressed, Baney could see that one of the men held a remote control in his hand. At one scene, where superman spewed frost from his mouth, the movie paused and the three bent over and whispered one another. Baney tried to catch what they said but couldn’t. The movie continued and there were several more pauses along it. As the last credit appeared on the silver screen the three rose and stretched. They were tired after sitting for almost eight hours. ‘It’s an interesting movie.’ ‘Yes, we should watch it again sometime.’ Baney rose too, half numb and shook his head: ‘Hello. I’m John Baney, from the Daily News. I scheduled an appointment with you eight hours ago.’ ‘Of course. You’re the reporter. Good. Let’s adjourn to our meeting hall.’
Baney sat on a padded chair and took out his recording machine. The other three sat down around the round table and exchanges glances with each other. ‘You may start, Baney’ opened one of the men. His hair was curly brown, his face clean-shaven and handsome. He wore a suit and an authoritative tie. He had a piercing gaze that transmitted his regal aura. ‘Thank you, Prof. Jackobson. Before I start asking the heavy questions, though, why don’t you tell me about yourselves?’
‘First, I’d like to hear what do you think or know about us?’ asked the other man. His hair was long and blond, and he wore unfashionable round glasses. His clothes were colorful and eccentric, extremely unbecoming of his respectful stature.
‘Well, Prof. Marley, I’ve heard some interesting rumors about the three of you. You are all physics professors and you meet quietly and secretly any time a new science fiction movie comes out. I saw things today that confirmed some of my sources’ suspicions, that you actually analyze the physics of their movies. Why, I cannot say. To put it frankly, sirs and madam, you are an odd bunch and I was sent to learn more about you, If I can.’ ‘I’m glad you’re honest with us, Baney, because we decided to be completely frank with you,’ the woman relaxed in her chair, her long sleek black hair and her naive face gave her a somewhat childish look, though her rounded figure gave her a beautiful feminine appearance. ‘What do you mean, Prof. Carlton?’
‘First, a demonstration, Baney.’ Prof. Jackobson took a pencil and lifted it five inches above the table. He let it go and it didn’t fall. Baney was quite startled. Suddenly, the pencil floated toward Prof. Marley. He took it and threw it rolling and swirling in the air. This time it fell, but landed on its sharpened tip and stabilized that way. The yellow wood didn’t faltered at all. Baney’s eyes were wide open and his imagination was running wild. Finally, Prof. Carlton took the pencil and lifted it above her hand. She let it go and it went right through her palm to land noisily on the table. Baney took his first breath since the demonstration began. ‘I didn’t hear any rumor of you being magicians’ he grinned. ‘It’s not quite magic, Mr. Baney’ Prof. Carlton chuckled. ‘What you saw now was simple physics. What do you know about quantum mechanics…’ ‘Or the chaos theory…’ Or the gravitational and electromagnetic forces?’ Prof. Jackobson completed.
‘First of all, I know they are your three majors. Prof. Marley wrote a book about chaos, Prof. Jackobson won a Nobel prize in gravitation and Prof. Carlton made her Ph.D. on quantum physics.’
‘I see you’ve made your homework, Baney’ commented Prof. Marley. ‘But what do you know about these theories?’ ‘Actually, not much, but now I’m eager to learn.’
‘We won’t give you the whole theory with its intricacies and subtleties’ said Prof. Carlton’ but we would like to give you some general information.’ ‘
‘The Chaos theory’ prompted Prof. Marley ‘deals with complex systems. That means a collection of items too numerable to predict with normal, or what we call linear physics. Such things include the position with which the pencil will fall and the motion of the air around it after it fell. Too many variables exist when I throw the pencil; the forces I apply to it with my hand, the wind that blew through the window. We cannot predict these things.’ ‘But we can control them’ interrupted Prof. Jackobson. ‘Yes, we can. We three learned that once we have mastered the physics’ formulas and comprehended the essence of the phenomena, to control it is just a trick with our intellect, like playing with numbers. For instance, I know the exact formula that represents the humidity in this room. It’s complicated and took me two years to achieve mastery in it, but now I only need to apply an easy solution to it and look.’ Suddenly four drops of water appeared over each of the persons in the room and landed gently on their foreheads. The three professors smiled and wiped it as if they were accustomed to this trick. Mr. Baney was astonished and just let it slide across his face slowly until it reached his mouth. He licked it and indeed, it was a drop of fresh water.
‘You probably know all about gravitation, with the myth about
‘Wait with the comments please, Mr. Baney, because what you are about to see will dazzle you eyes. Quantum mechanics presumes that everything in nature is part particle and part wave. Well, that’s what my kindergarten teacher said. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification. What I have understood, after years of research and contemplation, is that this particle-wave duality is just a mathematical concept. The world itself is composed of neither. That duality rises from our perception of the world. We can perceive only quanta of energy, that is, only the particle form of the world, but beyond our immediate perception lies a world of probability waves. Each particle we experience in our subjective universe is characterized by a statistical probability of being at the place we perceive it to be, with the energy we measure it to have and other physical variables. These probabilities propagate in the “real” world with wave formation and equations. This is how light is diffracted and how a neutron escapes from the attractive nuclei of a radioactive atom. Every particle in “our” world ha s a probability of being everywhere, but its actual location is never known until we make the observation. I’ve learned how to manage and control these probability waves. That is how the pencil went right through me. It had a small, very small, probability to do so in the first place. I just adjusted it so the probability would increase drastically, almost to a hundred percent. Note, though, that I cannot make things absolutely certain. I do not know where the particle will be until I, too, observe it with my senses, but I can alter the propagation of its probability wave. As I mentioned before, the nuclei of atoms are held close together in most known substances, except in radioactive materials, but they have the slight probability to just disintegrate to their individual composition, namely their protons and neutrons. Watch your hand.’ Mr. Baney did so and the diamond that lay there suddenly disintegrated before his eyes. Nothing was left of the hundreds of dollars worth of rock. For a moment he wanted to weep. ‘Any comment, Mr. Baney?’
‘First of all’ the reporter recuperated fast, ‘I want to thank you. You have given me the scoop of the century, but I must ask this anyway. Why have you come forward? Why now?’ Prof. Marley smiled, as if he predicted the question, but Prof. Jackobson answered it. ‘We are ready now. We have completed our experimentation with our discoveries and are ready to publish them. We want it to be first read from a daily magazine and not some scientific rubbish because they scrutinize everything and would probably deny us publication due to the subjectivity of our experiments. And you can quote mer on this one. We are ready to teach this new theory for the improvement of mankind. This knowledge is powerful, and like any scientific breakthrough, carries with it a great responsibility, but now is the time to begin. With this knowledge we can change everything.’ ‘We can control anything that moves under the sun and beyond’ interrupted Prof. Carlton enthusiastically. ‘We will now be masters of fate and we can lead the human race onto a new era. Nothing has escaped us and nothing can stop us from heading to our rightful place in the universe.’ Mr. Baney saw that some of the excitement rubbed on the two older professors, but they didn’t approve of the tone and they played with it. ‘Excuse me, but some things seem to be still eluding us. What about the mind and the human spirit, what about luck and destiny and fate?’
‘Ha’ sneered Prof. Jackobson. ‘The human spirit is a myth and the mind is just an application of the Maxwell formulas.’ ‘And luck’ added Prof. Carlton ‘has been taken out of the equation.’ ‘As for destiny’ completed Prof. Marley ‘leave it for the mysticism and the religious. We believe in physics…’
Mr. Baney worked twenty-four hours straight on his story, summarizing the notes he had made, opened up scientific dictionaries to verify the unknown gibberish he had recorded. As he leaned back after finishing the final finesse of the article, he opened the morning paper, and almost fainted:
Tragedy to the scientific world.
Scientists all around the world mourn as the news of the deaths of Prof. Jackobson, Prof. Marley and Prof. Carlton were published. The three were physics professors of the highest esteem and were regarded by their colleagues as geniuses in their area of expertise.
Prof. Jackobson died from a private jet crash on his way to his family. Our reporters say that a mechanical problem in one of the engines caused the crash. Dr. Smith, the only survivor of the crash which killed three passengers and the pilot, says the only thing he remembers was the total state of panic his friend Prof. Jackobson, rest in peace, was in. He said that he looked as if ‘his spirit just broke out and possessed him.’
Prof. Carlton, the youngest of the three, was killed in a car accident just outside her house. The police report that her car strayed from her lane to avoid a cat that appeared before her and a head on collision occurred with a passing truck. The professor died instantly.
Prof. Marley, the oldest of the three, died from a heart attack at 3 p.m. yesterday. His family says that until this incident he was healthy and in good shape. The funeral is scheduled for noon tomorrow.
The world of science suffered greatly today. May their souls rest in peace.