Miss Buddha (32 page)

“But that’s not good enough,” began
Kristina’s suggestion. But Julian cut her off.

“One thing the thinkers like to point out is
that we have never traced two paired quantum particles heading out
into space in opposite directions, for, say, a light-week, and then
change the polarity of one and see the instant polarity-change of
its twin, now two light-weeks away.”

Kristina said nothing, but may have stopped
breathing.

“The thing is,” said Julian. “The thing is
that according to Einstein, nothing in this universe can travel
faster than light. Nothing. So, even if these twinned particles had
a means of communicating locally—and by that we mean, through this,
the physical, universe—and this communication traveled at
light-speed, the message would never reach its twin, for their
separation is growing at twice the speed of light, heading off in
opposite directions.”

Kristina nodded, yes, she could see
that.

“What we have proven, in our experiments, is
that this instant communication does indeed occur within the
micro-time frame of billionths of seconds. But here, and this is
what the theorists like to point out, the time span is so
infinitely short that the particles don’t have a chance to separate
very far, and who can really be sure of anything a couple of
billionths of a second apart.”

Kristina nodded that she was following what
he said.

“Of course,” said Julian, “it has to do with
our equipment, and at this point our apparatus can only trace the
flight—and polarity—of both twins in journeys this short. But in
this scenario, yes, every time the change is indeed instant, and
yes, even within these minute distances a physical message cannot
reach a twin going at speed of light in the opposite direction, it
will never catch up.”

“So what is the theorist’s objection?”

“Reliability of measurement. How do you
tell, for certain, that one billionth of a second has passed, as
opposed to two, or three—which would make all the difference?”

“A good watch?” said Kristina, smiling.

“We think the watches we have are good
enough, but that may be an opinion.”

“So,” said Kristina. “What do you propose to
do? How are you going to prove this? What is your experiment?”

“I am going to perform the experiment in the
macro-time frame of tenths rather than billionths of seconds.”

He could see that she didn’t quite
follow.

“If my experiment works, and I am certain
that it will, I will show that a twinned set of quantum particles
will instantly coordinate even if too far apart for a light-speed
message to synchronize them. I want to rule out the
crudity-of-time-measurement argument.”

“And how are you going to do this?” she
said.

“With difficulty,” said Julian.

Again, Kristina said nothing, waiting for
more.

“Firstly—and, believe me, this is no small
challenge—we will shoot two wide laser beams rising in parallel at
about a respective thirty-degree angle above the horizon from
opposite points of the equator. One in southern Colombia and one on
Borneo, Indonesia. These beams will rise from roughly 12,750
kilometers apart—that’s the diameter of the earth—to about 30,000
kilometers apart at a 15,000 kilometer altitude. That means that
there they will be about one tenth of a light-second apart.”

Kristina, nodded, yes. “But you still not
talking seconds,” she pointed out.

“I know. But the theorist has no problem
with measuring tens or even hundredths of a second. Hell, they do
that at the Olympics, and no one’s arguing.”

“I see.”

“One of these beams is capable of changing
particle polarization, the other is set up to only read
polarization. We will then fire a twinned pair of quantum particles
from our sister lab in Cambridge, England, aimed directly at our
respective beams at 15,000 kilometers altitude—well, one particle,
the one whose polarization we will change, will hit his beam
slightly lower than that in order to hit it before his twin.”

“How much before?”

“Oh, a couple of millionths of a second,
somewhere in there.”

“Wow.”

“And, of course, we’ll know with the
scientific certainty that the theorist likes with what polarity
they leave Cambridge.”

“Of course.”

“So after about one-twentieth of a seconds
travel the one twin will hit his beam and change polarity in the
ultra-microscopic instance.”

“And his twin, hitting the reader-beam a
couple of millionths of a second later will have changed polarity
too, before hitting his beam?”

He looked at her for some time without
answering. Then, “You get it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Julian nodded, and
smiled, and nodded some more. “And since the two particles are
one-tenth of a light-second apart when the first one hits his beam
and changes polarity, there is absolutely no way that a local,
physical, communication can reach the twin in the two or three
millionths of a second before it hits the reading beam. And in this
scenario, the time frame now being macro, there is no disputing,
none whatever, that the communication between the two is not
communication as we know it. Rather, the way I see it, it is
a
knowing
, an
instant knowing between the two twins.”

“Wow,” said Kristina. Then she frowned a
little and said, “How can you be sure to hit the beams?”

“We aim well. We know how to do that.”

“And change the polarity?”

“We know how to do that, too.”

“And all of this just to bring the
experiment into the macro-time frame, as you put it.”

“That is, in fact, the only reason.”

“Bet you that’s costing a bundle.”

“And we thank you,” said Julian with a
perfectly straight face.

“When?” she asked. “Your experiment.”

“In a few months,” he answered. “We don’t
have a precise date yet. Some will depend of weather conditions
and, believe it or not, on the activities of the sun, there may be
interference.”

“I can believe it,” said Kristina. Then,
after a brief silence, she said:

“And when you’ve proven this. What have you
proven, really?”

“We’ve proven the existence of instant
communication, or knowing, between two particles. A knowing
independent of distance, of space, and energy. What else we will
have proven, I am not too sure, for I honestly don’t know how this
can take place, only that it does. Perhaps there is a field or a
zone, or a space, or a knowing non-space, beyond the physical where
communication, if we can call it that, is instant, is
co-knowing.”

“And proven well enough for the theorist to
agree.”

“And proven well enough for the theorist to
agree.”

Kristina was shaking her
head, slowly, as if not knowing what to make of this. “But that
would mean, wouldn’t it, that these particles are
alive
?”

“In a sense, yes. I’ve thought the same
thing.”

And then Kristina said the fatal thing. She
said, “You know, I always thought that gravity was alive. You know,
all that pulling. That things just longed to be together.”

Not that Julian grew up uninterested in
girls, he was as amazed by the fairer sex as the next guy, it’s
just that his priorities were different. The problems of gravity,
or of particle polarity had first claim.

But now, here in the Cal Tech Athenaeum,
going on ten o’clock at night, a marriage of sort took place within
him: this girl, this woman, standing not two feet away, nodding
that yes, she understood, and yes, gravity had always seemed to her
to be alive.

How could she possibly be?

Kristina Medina stopped nodding and her face
took on a shade of concern. Was he okay? Julian then realized that
he had said nothing for quite some time, and that he was—well,
there was no better word for it—staring at her.

He finally found his tongue: “Sorry,” he
said. “It’s just that, it’s just that that is precisely, what you
said about gravity, is precisely what I have often thought, and is
what I hope to prove one day, though I dare tell no one about
that.”

“You mean longing?” said Kristina Medina,
who apparently had a clear view directly into his head by now.

“Yes, I mean longing.”

The silence that followed was mutual, but
not uneasy. Kristina was the one that broke it, “What are you doing
tonight?”

He was about to answer, somewhat flippantly,
that he was talking to her, but he knew that this was not what she
meant—and the rush of what she meant filled him from toe to head
with his next breath.

:

Julian lived less than three blocks away
from the Athenaeum, and they walked there—purposefully. The moon
was out, young, slivery and pale. Other guests were leaving the
function as well, and they saw many expensive cars—some
chauffeur-driven—pull out and slowly set courses. They said
nothing, until they reached Julian’s small house—a cottage rental,
owned and maintained by the school.

“Here,” said Julian, and pointed. As they
turned onto the short asphalted walk up to the front door, Julian
found Kristina’s hand in his, not sure how. He led the way to the
door, let go her hand, found his keys, and let her in.

:

Later, neither Kristina nor Julian would be
able to put a precise finger on how or even why what followed
followed. Julian often saw himself as a little possessed. The rush
of what she had meant at the dinner had filled him so thoroughly,
so vibrantly, so vibratingly, that there was no room for other
thought, or other emotions, or for even the tiniest grain of
reason.

As for Kristina, admiration
for the younger man metamorphosed to
need
shortly after crossing his
threshold, but she never saw it coming, nor could she fight it when
it did.

When she finally left Julian’s house the sun
was not long in rising, and most of the bird population was already
up and about. Her car was the only one at the Athenaeum parking
lot—conspicuously alone, thought Kristina, but to hell with
that.

What she decided on her drive home was:
never again. Just that, and with such undiluted intention that the
decision held firm, and does to this day. She slipped, fine.
Nothing she could do about that now that it was done. But she would
never, ever, again.

Julian, on waking and finding, not
surprisingly, Kristina gone, made no similar pledge. He would have,
again, in a heartbeat. For what he had discovered was the one love
of his life. The beautiful, colorful woman who understood him.
There was (he was convinced of this) for each person on this Earth,
precisely one specific mate; there was only the one other who you
were meant to find. Few did, and most settled for alternatives—some
alternative poorer others. The few who did find their true
companion were the lucky, the magically lucky ones.

Kristina Medina was his fated companion. But
she was married, and not unhappily. They had met too late. By
lunchtime he had arrived at that conclusion, and so it crystallized
into decision: he would stay true to this love for the rest of his
life, but he would also honor her situation, and not pursue her in
any way. He would file as cherished and holy memory their night
together, and he would carry this in his heart for the rest of his
days. After all, not many get to experience this, he was in fact
lucky.

:

The next several months saw
Julian absorbed in the details and execution of his macro-time
project, which is how he thought of it. Depending on who thought or
talked about it, it carried several other names: the
Colombia-Borneo Laser
Experiment
, the
Parallel Laser Project
, the
Polarity Change Confirmation
Experiment
. The official name, however, the
one used in the header on all his grant applications said
Cal Tech Twin-Particle Polarity
Experiment
.

By early spring 1999 the sun, who,
astronomically speaking, had been quite agitated through the
winter, had finally settled down. Very little activity now, and
from what the astronomers predicted, none to speak of for the next
two weeks.

So, Julian set the date: April 11.

:: 72 :: (Pasadena)

If he could have scripted the weather, he
would not have changed a thing. There were no clouds over Colombia,
none over Borneo, and none over Cambridge. There were no winds
either place. It was as if a sunny and curious Earth was playing
along and now holding its breath.

Even the sun was behaving.

At precisely noon Greenwich Mean Time the
Cambridge lab fired the twin-particles at their respective beams.
They both left the planet’s surface as positive—this was verified
beyond a doubt and documented.

They were fired at angles calculated to hit
their respective lasers beams at an altitude of about 15,000
kilometers and approximately 30,000 kilometers apart.

What was termed the
Colombia Twin
would hit
its laser (which would then instantly change the particle’s
polarity to negative) precisely 3.62 millionths of a second before
the
Borneo Twin
hit its laser, which would be far too little time for any
local communication to cross 30,000 kilometers even at light speed.
In other words, no such communication could possibly take place
between the particles before the
Borneo
Twin
found its target.

The Borneo laser’s job was to receive its
twin, read its polarity and report back. It did.

The
Borneo Twin
polarity was
negative.

At precisely one minute past noon, another
twin pair was fired, both leaving with negative polarity this
time.