Tom had finally managed to get back to his bed just after two in the morning. Ajay had gone through his scrapbook, meticulously explaining the contents of each page, in detail. It mainly consisted of press cuttings from the time Satyendra Bose’s historic paper was published in conjunction with Albert Einstein, as well as personal letters from him to his son, Ajay’s father, and postcards to Ajay from the places his grandfather had visited. The last few pages were dedicated to when his grandfather was honoured by the Indian government and ended with his obituary, with eulogies from people who had known him personally through either work or his private life.
Tom had grown very fond of Ajay in the short time that he’d known him. However, fatigue had finally got the better of him and he made his excuses to leave with as much bonhomie as he could muster.
CHAPTER 9
Tom had hit his snooze button three times before he finally gave in and forced himself out of bed. Half asleep, he made his way to the bathroom mirror; the dark lines under his eyes were still there. He decided that a shower was the only antidote to his tiredness; but, no sooner had he turned on the faucet, than the phone rang.
‘Good morning, Professor. I hope I didn’t wake you?’ It was Deiter. Why did he always sound as though he was being sarcastic?
‘Not at all, I’ve been up for hours.’ Tom didn’t want to give Deiter the impression that he was somehow the weaker man for being exhausted — it was childish, but he couldn’t help himself.
‘Good! Then you wouldn’t mind coming into the office to go through one or two things before we set up the initialisation sequence for today’s experiment?’
‘Of course not. I’ll be there straight away,’ Tom said, trying his best to sound wide awake. He hastily put the phone down before he was caught out.
He checked his watch; it was just after 6.30 am. They certainly want their pound of flesh, he mused as he forsook his shower and quickly got dressed. He was out of his apartment within ten minutes and made his way to the main reception building, where he had been dropped off the previous day. It seemed like a week ago.
The complex was as deserted as it had been when he’d left Ajay in the early hours of the morning. As he approached the statue of Shiva, adorning the entrance to the building, he couldn’t help but recall Frederick’s conversation the previous evening. Shiva the Destroyer, he had called it. Surely Brahma the Creator would have been a more fitting donation from the Indian government?
He headed for the doorway but, as he walked past the sculpture, something colourful caught his eye. He looked down at the feet of the statue, where somebody had placed a bouquet of white and red flowers. He stepped closer to inspect them and noticed that there was a card nestled between the stems. He picked it up and read the sentiment. ‘Om Sarva Mangal Manglaye Shivay Sarvaarth Sadhike Sharanye Trayambake Gauri Narayaani Namostu Te.’
Puzzled, he made a mental note to ask Ajay its significance when he next saw him, and returned the card to the flowers before making his way into the building.
Deiter was already discussing the contents of a computer screen with two other people, whom Tom recognised as junior technicians from his previous day’s introductions. There had been too many names to remember and it certainly wasn’t one of Tom’s fortes. He just hoped that he’d be able to pick up their names from Deiter before he was put in an embarrassing position. Deiter obliged almost immediately.
‘Ah Professor, there you are. You’re just in time,’ Deiter said, almost cordially. ‘You remember Max and Peter? We’re just tweaking the Collider’s alignment based on yesterday’s test results.’
He was grateful to Deiter, but he still didn’t know which one was Max and which one was Peter. He played it safe and acknowledged both of them with a single nod.
Tom knew from his research that the alignment of the proton beam was critical to the success of the Collider. The positively charged protons that made up the beam must be aligned and made to bend so as to go round in a circle. This was done by 9,000 magnets strategically placed throughout the 27-kilometre tunnel.
The ‘dipole’ magnets caused the protons to bend consistently in one direction to get round the circle. The ‘quadrupole’ magnets focused each beam so that it stayed compact, to increase the probability of a collision when the beams were brought together. Having just one of the thousands of magnets a nanometre out of sync could mean the difference between identifying the God particle and the proton particles missing each other altogether.
‘We’ve fed in the data from yesterday’s tests, made the necessary adjustments to the magnets and now we’re ready to run a computer simulation,’ Deiter informed Tom without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘If you watch the monitors on the wall over there, you’ll see the results.’
Tom turned in the direction of Deiter’s gesture to see five of the computer displays flick to life. The centre console showed a 3D schematic drawing of the LHC. The two on either side displayed the now familiar sets of scrolling green figures.
‘The monitors showing data each represents one of the four detectors placed around the Collider where the two beams intersect,’ Max or Peter told him.
‘And the centre one will show the beams’ trajectories based on our computations,’ Peter or Max added.
‘Okay, run the simulation,’ Deiter instructed.
The centre screen zoomed in on a computer image of the particle accelerator. It was so lifelike, Tom had to remind himself that it was all being generated by a small box under the desk where Deiter was sitting and not hundreds of feet below ground.
To achieve the maximum collision velocity, Tom was aware that it was necessary to give the protons a ‘push start’, using a series of smaller particle accelerators to increase their energy before being released into the tunnel as a beam. Once there, the RF cavities would take over and increase the velocity of the protons until they reached the speed of light.
‘Protons reaching maximum containment velocity,’ one of the technicians announced.
‘Release the first beam in three… two… one… now!’
The computer-generated image panned out to show a bright yellow beam circulating through the tunnel.
‘Release the second beam in three… two… one… now!’
A blue beam emerged, travelling in the opposite direction to the yellow one. The beams intersected at four points on the diagram, indicated by a faint glowing green ball, which seemed to get brighter the longer programme was allowed to run.
‘Why are the intersection points intensifying?’ Tom asked, hoping it wasn’t a stupid question.
‘The green balls represent the number of collisions the protons make,’ Deiter responded, his eyes still firmly glued to the monitor. ‘As the beams speed up, the number of collisions increases, which is why they glow brighter. The figures on the screens give us a prediction of the actual number of hits we’re achieving per second.’
Tom turned his attention to the screens to see the figures steadily increasing.
‘And how long before the beams reach maximum velocity?’
‘Twenty minutes, but we’ll run the simulation for an hour to see if there are any fluctuations in the collision rate,’ one of the technicians replied.
‘You boys having fun?’ Serena Mayer had walked into the office unobserved. ‘Men and their computer games,’ she mockingly chided.
Tom turned to face her. Her green eyes sparkled mischievously, making his pulse race a little faster. He tried to play it cool.