Chapter 18.  Vic Pauses and Plots

 

Vic was discouraged as the new work-week began.  His Church experience had gone awry.  And, Dan and Miriam seemed to be closer than ever.  Early Monday, Vic heard them chatting about her parents coming in for a weekend visit.  As evil spirits bombarded his brain, Vic mused, “What does she see in that guy?  I’ve got to make her see that I’m the better man.  I’ll lay low for a week or two while I devise a winning plan ... Miriam will be too busy with her folks to pay any attention to me this week ... Anyway, I’m not ready to re-visit that Church scene ... and I’m not eager to meet her parents ... Besides, I have to entertain Knut ... Hey! I know ... After Knur leaves Friday, I’ll buy one of those expensive sports cars I’ve been eying ... That will turn her head.”

 

When the Tuesday Morning Meeting commenced, Miriam, exploding with enthusiasm, exclaimed, “My mind is abuzz with thoughts about the shapes of particles and how that affects the speed with which they travel through space.  Let me ramble for a bit.  Maybe you all can help me coalesce my ideas.

 

“Not long ago, we discussed how everything is made of combinations of strings and that the whole Universe is a weaving of them.  And, we have noted that near large objects, like the Earth, these strings are stretched toward the object.  So, this creates a three-dimensional dimple in space, and this is the cause of gravity.  Things fall into the dimple.  Also, we know that light-beams are bent when they pass by an object.  This must be due to the fact that the strings surrounding the object are stretched, or should we say, distorted.  It seems to me that this proves that strings play a role in the transmission of particles like photons and neutrinos.

 

“What if strings actually propel light particles ... photons ... and other particles like neutrinos?  Is that a crazy idea?  And, what if the speed with which a particle travels through any medium is governed by its shape?  And, suppose photons have the best shape possible, so light-beams are the fastest things in the Universe.  Think of the strings as pulling particles along, and perhaps the shape of photons gets them the optimal pull.

 

“What if every string along a photons path is trying to ‘grab’ it, but the shape of a photon makes its trailing side immune to ‘grabs’?  This would have the effect of ‘sucking’ the photon along.  What if the neutrino’s shape is slightly less optimal, so it is ‘sucked’ along at less than light-speed?

 

“Let me get even crazier.  What if we could learn the secret of a photon?  What if we knew why its trailing side is immune to the grabbing of strings?  Maybe ... just maybe ... we could make spaceships that travel very fast ... maybe at the speed of light.  I know ... I know ... that’s supposed to be impossible.  Nevertheless, my mind is full of wonder.  It would be as if we ‘cut’ the strings on the back end of a spaceship and the strings in front of the craft pulled it forward.

 

“My main question is: ‘How does a photon work its way through the fabric of the Universe?’  I think it has something to do with its shape.  If we knew the facts about this, we might even be able to get one ‘solid’ object to pass through another!”

 

For sure, Miriam had triggered some serious thinking in the brilliant minds present.  There was an odd “moment of silence” in the room.  Miriam even noted the ticking of the wall-clock.  She thought she had “bombed”.

 

Then, Knut chuckled with delight and began opining.  “Miriam, I think you are on to something here.  As Shakespeare might have said, ‘The shape is the thing.’  Remember those ‘tractor beams’ in the Star Trek TV series.  They were light-beams used to move things.  Well, a number of scientists have learned how to make tractor beams.  In 2011, some Chinese scientists showed how it might be done with laser beams of specific shapes.  Miriam, there’s your word, ‘shape’.  Since then, scientists all over the globe have toyed with this phenomenon.  They are using laser beams to move tiny things like white blood cells.  For a long time, they have known how to push cells along the path of a light-beam, but recently, they have learned how to attract cells toward the source of the laser beam.  But, in all this work, the shape of the laser beam is key.”

 

“Miriam hit me with this idea yesterday,” Dan averred.  “She got me thinking: ‘How can we know the shape of a photon or a neutrino?’  I scanned various databases for research on slowing down light-beams and came across some work done at Harvard.  Researchers there actually stopped a light-beam for a millisecond.  They cooled a substance to near absolute zero, suspended it in a chamber using strong magnets, and shot pulses of light through it.  Perhaps, we could use their work as a starting point and find some way to study the shape of one photon in a frozen light-beam.”

 

Everyone but Vic joined in a spirited discussion of these opening comments.  But, he was sulking.  His thoughts were still intensely focused on Miriam, “So bright ... so lovely ... and so far out of my reach ... I know! ... I’ll read those three books she gave me, so I can say ‘Christian’ things and make her think I am a true believer.  That will put me on an equal footing with Dan.  Then, with my superior intellect, good looks, wealth and personality, I’ll make her mine.”

 

...

Early Wednesday morning, Dr. Rex Roberson strolled in to Dr. Angelo’s office.  “Do you have time to talk?” he asked.

 

“Certainly,” Angelo replied.  “How do you like your coffee?”

 

“Black, thank you,” Roberson responded as he dropped his husky frame into a chair on the visitor’s side of Angelo’s desk.  From his new vantage point, he noticed an unusual paperweight astride a stack of research papers resting on a corner of the desk.  It was a bronze statuette of a beaked, dragon-like creature in a striking, aggressive pose, as if it were ready to pounce on some prey.  “What’s this?” he asked.

 

As Angelo delivered a coffee to Roberson, he explained, “Shortly after I received my Nobel Prize, I was invited to speak at a conference in Beijing.  All expenses were paid.  I received a generous honorarium, and a one week vacation was thrown in.  Of course, I was assigned some government ‘guides’ to accompany me wherever I went.  And, one of them was quite interested in dinosaurs.  He had well-placed friends in the highest echelons of academia.  At the time, a rash of findings of dinosaur skeletons was in progress.  So, he steered me to various sites to see what had been uncovered.  This figure is a copy of an artifact in one of the museums we visited.  The archeologists who found it believed it to be from the Zhou Dynasty, which came to power about the time David was the King of Israel.  I was surprised; many of the scholars I met believe that men and dinosaurs co-existed.  So, they think the artist who rendered this image actually saw this beast.”

 

“What do you think?” Roberson queried.

 

“It’s an interesting question,” Angelo remarked.  “Do you have time for a lengthy answer?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“I’m an ‘Old-Earth’ Christian,” Angelo continued.  “I am convinced that the Earth has had at least two epochs of life.  I embrace the opening verse of the Bible: ‘In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.’ But, I think there was a long pause between that first verse and the next.  During that pause many forms of life thrived on our planet.  Then, the Earth became void of life for some unknown reason, and then, God began the generation of the life-forms with which we live.  So, I conclude that many of the fossils and bones we excavate come from a prior epoch of life.  However, these Chinese fellows were convinced that mankind and creatures like this co-existed.”

 

Angelo picked up his New International Version of the Bible and continued, “Listen to this passage from Job, chapter 40, where God says:

Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar ...

 

“My Chinese experience and this text got me searching through literature for cases where men encountered dinosaurs.  Surprisingly, there are many.  But, one really grabs my attention.”

 

As Angelo stood up and pulled a book from a shelf to his right, he continued.  “It’s from this book entitled ‘The Travels of Marco Polo’, written by Polo with the help of a man of letters around 1300 A.D.  Listen to this ...

 

In this province (Carajan) are found snakes and great serpents of such vast size as to strike fear into those who see them, and so hideous that the very account of them must excite the wonder of those to hear it. I will tell you how long and big they are.  You may be assured that some of them are ten paces in length; some are more and some less. And in bulk they are equal to a great cask, for the

bigger ones are about ten palms in girth. They have two forelegs near the head, but for foot nothing but a claw like the claw of a hawk or that of a lion. The head is very big, and the eyes are bigger than a great loaf of bread. The mouth is large enough to swallow a man whole, and is garnished with great [pointed] teeth. And in short they are so fierce-looking and so hideously ugly, that every man and beast must stand in fear and trembling

of them. There are also smaller ones, such as of eight paces long, and of five, and of one pace only.

 

The way in which they are caught is this. You must know that by day they live underground because of the great heat, and in the night they go out to feed, and devour every animal they can catch. They go also to drink at the rivers and lakes and springs. And their weight is so great that when they travel in search of food or drink, as they do by night, the tail makes a great furrow in the soil as if a full ton of liquor had been dragged along. Now the huntsmen who go after them take them by certain gyn (rig) which they set in the track over which the serpent has past, knowing that

the beast will come back the same way. They plant a stake deep in the ground and fix on the head of this a sharp blade of steel made like a razor or a lance-point, and then they cover the whole with sand so that the serpent cannot see it. Indeed the huntsman plants several such stakes and blades on the track. On coming to the spot the beast strikes against the iron blade with such force that it enters his breast and rives him up to the navel, so that he dies on the spot [and the crows on seeing the brute dead begin to caw, and then the huntsmen know that the serpent is dead and come in search of him.

 

Later, Polo adds,

They also sell the flesh of this serpent, for it is excellent eating, and the people are very fond of it.”

 

Angelo snapped shut the book and laid it on his desk, saying, “I now believe that some dinosaurs were created for this epoch of life on Earth, and that some of them survived Noah’s flood.  After all, don’t alligators, crocodiles and komodo dragons look like dinosaurs?”

 

“Well, you have a good point there,” Roberson responded.  “You know, you are unusual.  You question a lot of dogma preached by today’s academic community.  I haven’t heard opinions like yours since I was a boy attending Sunday School.  When I got to college, most of the textbooks and teachers seemed to say, ‘If you don’t believe in the Big Bang and Evolution, you’re a dunce.’  But now, as I think things over, I’m finding it easier to believe in God than to believe that everything came from nothing ... that my wife and I and our kids are just accidents of mindless processes.”  He continued with emotion, “Not my wife! ... Not my kids!”

 

“Exactly!” Angelo exclaimed.  “You’re on the right track.  Find your Bible.  Locate a good Church.  As you follow your heart, I’m here, anytime you want to talk.  Now, you’ve heard some of my thinking, and I want to hear some of yours.  I’m very curious about this: Is everything in nature still evolving?”

 

“Yes.  That’s what the ‘academically correct’ answer is.”

 

“Well then, why don’t we see meta-species?  Bats could use eyes.  Why don’t we see bats with partially developed eyes, evolving toward full vision?  Zebras could use a horn on their snouts, akin to that of rhinos.  Why don’t we see stubs on some of them, as they evolve a pointed horn with which to pierce their enemies?  I know no reason why Evolution should have ceased, but I don’t see meta-species around us.”

 

Roberson replied, “I’ve read a few papers addressing this issue, but none of them is truly convincing.  Most biologists think that each of our current species has reached a certain level of perfection ... and they have become stable ... and are now producing offspring after their kind ... It sounds almost Biblical, doesn’t it?”

 

“Yes,” Angelo agreed.  “I think all paths of truth lead back to the Bible.”

 

The duo dialogued for a couple of hours, further exploring the issues raised by Dr. Angelo.  As Dr. Roberson departed, he concluded, “I’m going to give Church a chance.  My wife will like that.  And, my kids need to hear the truth, somewhere.  They’re not going to get it from our schools and our television programs.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.  It was a refreshing conversation.”

 

“God bless you!” Dr. Angelo called out as Roberson slipped into the hallway.