“And what would be the difference in strange matter? Would there be such a thing as a strange atom?”
“That’s precisely what we’re looking for, Ted. And the difference would be, no bags. A strange atom consists of a cloud of electrons around a large collection of up quarks, down quarks, and some new quarks, known as strange quarks.”
“I’m not surprised. Dr. Delantero, you agree these strange quarks, strange atoms, strange matter, exist?”
“I’m afraid they exist,” Dr. Delantero snapped. He was a bony no-nonsense nearly bald man wearing a bright red bow tie. “The essential question,” he said, staring sternly into the camera, “is which kind of matter is the most stable. There’s every reason to believe that we are the more strange matter, and that matter composed of atoms containing strange quarks is more stable than the matter we know. If that’s true, and if Dr. Philpott does manage to isolate strange matter, then God help us all.”
“You’ll have to forgive me, Dr. Delantero, but I’m afraid I didn’t follow that. Dr. Philpott seems to think strange matter would make a fine energy source, safer and cheaper than conventional nuclear power. You don’t think the stuff is safe at all, but I just can’t seem to understand why.”
Dr. Philpott horned in to say, “You’re right not to understand, Ted, because it’s nonsense. He’s taking a worst-case-possible scenario and acting as though it’s the only possible case.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Koppel said, “but let’s just let Dr. Delantero try to clear this up. Dr. Delantero, assuming that you and Dr. Philpott are both right, and that strange matter does exist, or can be made to exist, why does he think it’s safe and you think it’s unsafe?”
Dr. Delantero looked more and more like a hanging judge. He said, “I can only presume Dr. Philpott turns a blind eye to the dangers here because he and Unitronic Laboratories see profit in it. That’s why he’s—”
“Profit for all mankind.”
“Yes, Dr. Philpott, but let’s give Dr. Delantero a chance.”
“They threw his lab out of Grayling University,” Dr. Delantero suddenly shouted, “because he kept blowing things up! So some idiot decided he’d be better off at a nuclear plant!”
“That’s the most outrageous, most outrageous—” Dr. Philpott now looked like a restaurant critic who’d been served a bad shrimp; he was so offended he could barely speak.
Which gave his host an opportunity to say, “That is a question I’d been meaning to get to, thank you, Doctor. Dr. Philpott, would you like to reply to this rumor about explosions?”
“I certainly would.” Dr. Philpott smoothed his shirt front with a shaking hand, stopped hyperventilating, and said, “Clearly, no one has been blowing up strange matter because we haven’t found it yet. Nor, since my move to Green Meadow, not because I was thrown out of Grayling, I’m still tenured at Grayling, Dr. Delantero, thank you very much, but because the facilities at Green Meadow are better suited to my researchers, there has not been one incident, nor shall there be. Some very minor explosive incidents, causing no damage whatsoever, did take place in the early stages, when we were experimenting with various receptacles, pieces of equipment, gaseous elements for storage, but not one since, and I defy Dr. Delantero to dispute that.”
Dr. Delantero too had grown somewhat calmer by now. “All I’m saying,” he replied, “is that we’re babies with a loaded gun in this situation, and we shouldn’t be taking the risks Dr. Philpott is taking up there at Green Meadow. The people out on strike are the sensible ones.”
Koppel said, “As I understand it, and I freely admit I don’t understand the entire matter all that well, but as I understand it, there are two distinct theories as to the effect of strange matter when it comes into contact with regular matter, and that’s what the dispute is all about. Dr. Philpott, if I had a drop of strange matter here, and I spilled it onto the floor, what would happen?”
“Nothing. It would lie there, and slowly evaporate away into harmless alpha particles. But if we put it into a reactor, and fed it— The point with strange matter is, it’s so much more dense than regular matter, it’s the closest thing we can create on this planet to a black hole. A chunk the size of a BB would weigh more than five million tons. The energy in that dense mass—”
“Yes, thank you, Dr. Philpott, but we’re running low on time here, and I’d like to ask the same question of Dr. Delantero. You subscribe to a different theory, and at this point there’s no way to prove which theory is correct, but in the scientific world both theories are equally plausible, is that so?”
“It is.”
“And each theory has its scientifically respectable supporters?”
“That is correct.”
“So Dr. Philpott has just as much chance to be right as you have.”
“He does. But so do I, and that’s why we shouldn’t take the risk.”
“And what do you see happening, if I spill that drop of strange matter on the carpet?”
Dr. Delantero squared his bony shoulders. “As Dr. Philpott said, strange matter is much more dense than normal matter. It is also likely to be more stable. That drop of yours would eat its way through the floor, through the ground—”
“Oh, really, there isn’t the slightest—”
“Dr. Philpott, you’ll have your chance. Dr. Delantero?”
“Combining with the matter around it,” Dr. Delantero said, “this extremely heavy, extremely dense drop of matter would burn its way to the molten center of the Earth, where it would get hot, and really go to work.”
“An explosion, you mean?”
“No, I do not. I mean that the one drop would, in a very short period of time, convert this entire planet, and everything on it, every tree, every person, the very atmosphere around us, into strange matter.”
“And what effect would that have?”
“The Earth would become,” Dr. Delantero said, “a featureless, smooth, glittering ball of incredible density, the same weight as it is now, but measuring less than a mile in diameter.”
With his small smile, Koppel said, “And you and I would be part of that featureless ball.”
“We would.”
To the camera, Koppel said, “As you can see, the difference of opinion is quite marked here, and the scientific stakes extremely high. On the one side, cheap safe fuel; on the other, the end of everything. Is Dr. Philpott actually close to resolving these opposed theories, and what safeguards is he employing to avoid the finish Dr. Delantero so vividly described. What would Dr. Delantero like science to do about the question of strange matter, if anything? We’ll get into all that, when we return.”
During the commercials, Frank looked over at Grigor and grinned: “Is that the joke you wanna pull? Drop the drop?”
“It has already been dropped, on me,” Grigor said. He didn’t sound amused.
Ananayel
I have rationalized Andy Harbinger. The close call at the Quad Cinema convinced me to take the time, to do this part without shortcuts. So Andy is now a complete human being, with all the usual and necessary parts, if in somewhat better condition than most.
And while I was at it, I gave him everything else a human being such as Andy Harbinger would have; which is to say, a job and a past. The sociology professorship — untenured assistant professor, actually — at Columbia has become real. Andy’s co-members of the faculty have memories of him, mostly pleasant, extending back several years. His birth certificate will be found in the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Oak Park, Illinois. His school records, employment records, even dental and health records, are all in place. For the remainder of the time that life shall exist on Earth, Andy Harbinger is for me now fully functional, fully operative; what we might call my destination resort.