“But how does it know which state to manifest into?”
“The intentions and expectations of the observer determine it.”
While she chews on that, I mentally review the map of the grounds. There are more than two dozen buildings, including cabins, a retreat building, conference and dining facilities, a prayer garden, and a meditation chalet. It seems that whoever designed this place did his best to include everything a New Age devotee could want. One-stop shopping for spiritual seekers.
And of course, there was the research facility on the west side of the campus, the one founded by Thomas Lawson and now run by Dr. Tanbyrn.
The one we were heading to.
We pass the prayer garden and Charlene rubs her chin. “We’re talking about subatomic particles, though, right? So how can a photon know the thoughts or intentions of the scientist observing it?”
“That’s a good question. Physicists don’t really have an answer to that.”
“So, according to quantum physics, reality as we know it doesn’t exist, and somehow subatomic particles can figure out when you’re looking at them and form into what you anticipate you’re going to see.”
“Pretty much.”
“And no one knows why or how any of this works.”
“Exactly.”
“Science sure has come a long way since Democritus.”
Her hint of sarcasm isn’t lost on me. Actually, I’m on the same page. “And here’s something else: if you don’t know where a particle is, you need to understand that it could be in any of its possible states or locations and treat it that way.”
“Okay.”
We come to a looming stand of trees, dark pillars on the fringe of light from one of the ornate streetlights sporadically positioned along the path.
“But,” I go on, “you have to treat the particle as if it’s in every one of those — at the same time.”
“But it’s not.”
“It might be. Actually, it is.”
“You’re confusing me.”
“Welcome to the club. And then you’ve got time and gravity and they basically muck everything up. With quantum states, there really is no past, present, or future. Physicists can’t understand why we’re not able to remember the future.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, and if you use quantum mechanics to do the calculations, gravity shouldn’t exist in the weak state that it does.”
“How’s gravity weak?”
I pick up a stick. “See? Gravity should hold this down. I’m able to overcome the gravitational force of the entire planet.”
“Huh. I never thought of it like that.”
“Gravity is the least understood force in nature and seems to be incompatible with quantum measurement, which has really bugged scientists for the last eighty years. And that brings us to superstring theory and the search for the grand unified theory—”
“Okay, okay.” She’s beginning to sound exasperated. “But what does any of this have to do with the research they’re doing here?”
“Well, from what I can tell, it’s related to how particles act when you separate them. They’re somehow connected, or entangled, in a way physicists can’t really explain.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“Right, well, if you split a particle and do something to one of the halves — say, change the orientation of an electron — the other half will instantaneously respond the same way.”
A pause. “Go on.”
“And they do this even if they’re in different parts of the laboratory, or the planet, or the universe.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Not when you think in terms of three or four dimensions, but the math of quantum mechanics leads physicists to postulate that there have to be at least nine or ten dimensions, probably eleven. As well as an infinite number of parallel universes.”
“Of course. Parallel universes. Why not. And why stop at a few? An infinite number is so much more reasonable.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
We pass the dining hall. The research facility isn’t far.
Rather than have the sterile, institutional appearance of a hospital or university research center, the building is constructed of beautiful pine logs and, in the trail’s lights, has the look and feel of an Alaskan lodge.
Charlene looks at me. “So if I’m hearing you right, the particles might be separated by space — could be light-years apart — but somehow they’re still interconnected?”
“Physicists typically call it nonlocality, or quantum entanglement.”
“And that’s what the study tomorrow is about. Only this time involving people.”
“It looks like it. Yes.”
“To see if people who are in love are somehow entangled?”
As we continue down the path, one confound I’d only briefly considered earlier comes to mind: in these studies, the results depend on the subjects being in love, or at least having a deep emotional connection with each other, but Charlene and I were only pretending to be lovers. If there really was anything to the test, that relational dynamic would inevitably affect the results.
I contemplate how the relationship of the participants to each other could possibly alter the outcome, and decide I’ll try my best tomorrow to follow the test procedures in order to find out.
We leave the trail, skirt along the edge of the woods, and meet up with the path to the lower level of the research facility’s exit door.
There are no visible video surveillance cameras, but to be prudent, as we approach the door we keep our heads down, faces hidden.
The key card reader has a number pad beside it. Serenity hadn’t written down a password, and I’m not sure what I’ll do if there is one.
I slip the card into the reader, and thankfully, the indicator light immediately switches from red to green. I hear a soft buzz and the door clicks open.
Nice.
“Here we go,” I tell Charlene.
Then, snapping on my flashlight, I lead her into the building.
Third Floor
We find ourselves in a long, windowless hallway. Apart from the soft light emitted by the exit signs at each end, the only light comes from my flashlight.
In her research, Fionna had discovered that while some of the financial contributions to the LRC came from private donors, Dr. Tanbyrn’s research had received a twenty-million-dollar grant from RixoTray Pharmaceuticals for a “cooperative research initiative.”
Which seemed like an awful lot of money to me for research that might end up being bogus.
When we were first exploring this project, to make her poking around legal, Fionna had managed to land a consulting job with RixoTray to test their cybersecurity.
While she was doing her research, she’d stumbled onto some connections to research into the DNA segments called telomeres (which shorten as cells split, causing aging), and the enzyme telomerase, which seems to stop that process. In fact, in one 2010 Harvard study that appeared in the scientific journal Nature, telomerase was shown to actually reverse the aging process in rats.
Imagine being the pharmaceutical firm that developed a drug that stopped — or even reversed — the effects of aging in humans.
The financial rewards would be astronomical.
Fionna is still working on getting through the firewalls without being detected, and that was about all she’d come up with so far — no clear connection between the telomeres research and the Lawson Center. Last I heard, she had her seventeen-year-old son, Lonnie, working on an algebraic equation to hack the IPSec VPNs (whatever those are) for an extra-credit assignment.