Chapter 2 - Discovery
An inventor always says, ideas just come to you. Sometimes, whilst playing golf, or just when you fall asleep. No one ever questions where they come from, we think it's all about random thoughts in our head and we came up with ideas because we’re clever. Well, think again. Good ideas are always born for a reason, who knows where they come from, and great ideas always get stolen and copied.
Professor Sam Page was a trendy kind of top-physicist. He left school 4 years early and was clearly picked by a higher power to do something special. His persistent stubble and preference for skinny jeans and sneakers hid an intellect worthy of great things. His dad bought him an electronics kit when he was 5 and, you could say, he developed a passion for electrons and mathematics, gaining a double doctorate in Physics and Electronics by the time he was 21. Sam was offered and accepted a professorship at the Hong Kong University (HKU) to research and teach quantum electronics to Masters students. That was back in 2012 and 5 years before the world realised just how important electronics would become, thanks, in part, to him.
Theoretical physicists have predicted for decades, that fundamental particles have hidden powers we can only theorise about on paper. Making commercial use of quantum physics has presented scientists with an ever deepening hole to fill, the void between theory and practice. The biggest theoretical advance occurred when Principle Lee Wang of HKU discovered, that particles can exist in multiple dimensions and no dimensions at the same time. Not only that – he summised, that such particles can be nudged or read before or after they jump. This advance in quantum theory was a Chinese state secret for 5 years, until a Japanese physicist published similar but less complete work in 2014. The baseline was, that quantum electronics could be a bottomless pit of treasure for those clever and resourceful enough to exploit the discoveries.
Hong Kong University for decades were experts in the science of rare earths, elements used in advanced electronics and technology. Lee Wang realised quickly, that rare earths could hold the key to his quantum-jump theory, but he needed a young genius to kick his experience to a new level and make quantum-jump a commercial reality. At 55, Lee Wang had earned the deserved status as a pioneer in China, proposing many new uses for rare earths in old and new products, consumed throughout the world, that made them better, stronger and faster. He instinctively knew, that China was ideally placed to lead the advances in electronics using quantum-jump as a cornerstone.
Sam's father, Jim, had worked as an interpreter for the British Governor of Hong Kong until 1999, but remained there, helping Chinese and UK businesses translate legal documents from one language to another, until he semi-retired in 2010. Although Sam was raised and studied in Cambridge, he kept in regular touch with Dad and visited every year for month long stays in his father's Hong Kong flat. One chilly morning in Cambridge was about to change world history, which does happen around people described as prodigies by their peers. Dad knew Lee Wang as an occasional Bridge card-game opponent at his local yacht club and had heard, that HKU were looking for a new Professor of Electronics. Sam had been a doctor of electronics at Cambridge for 2 years, but would be at least 5 years away from a professorship offer: the competition was fierce and places limited.
That morning Sam received a call from his father:
"How would you feel about you and Mum moving to Hong Kong?"
"Why, what's on your mind Dad?"
"There's a job at HKU, that was made for you and they're paying 100K."
"We’ve talked about this before, I think we're settled, Dad. I'm doing some better research now and things are progressing."
"I know you, you're bored and still single. There are some great girls out here and I know the boss at HKU, he's really pushy. You’ll like him."
"I'll speak to Mum, she'll say yes, she misses you, but I need to think about this, things are looking up here."
"It's 27 degrees here and 12 in London, get on a plane this weekend and I'll get you an interview on Monday."
"Give me 24 hours and I'll decide either way, OK?"
"OK mate, love to all."
Sam was getting bored at work. Although he'd eyed a couple of girls he knew socially to keep him occupied, he felt his life and career slipping for the past year. Britain was mired in recession again and the research budget was already frozen 18 months ago until recently. Couple this with the rise of China as a techno-super-power and Sam was quickly out of excuses not to go.
Working with Lee Wang was like riding a mustang for Sam. Wang was a genius, but literally could not get his head around the practicalities of quantum-jump mechanics, though on paper he had proved it mathematically. He was like a master author with writer's block and could only fleet from one thought and idea to the next, without being able to control where to stop and make sense of it all. Sam, on the other hand, was a deep methodical thinker and avid lucid dreamer, able to think and control dreams whilst asleep, directing those dreams; he could even put another's thoughts into his own dreams for analysis. Sam was definitely the cowboy Marshall of this unorthodox coupling and Wang – the old bronco.
Sam always got goose bumps when a new idea was forming in his head. Wang's chuntering about rare earth elements (REEs) was a regular factor at their meetings, but only when Sam asked this question, did things get an awful lot calmer: "If you create pure crystalline structures in REEs such as Scandium, what do you observe close to a highly-polished surface?" Sam smiled by lifting one corner of his mouth, expecting Wang to look like he’d not considered this approach.
Wang’s poker face wasn’t required this time, as he’d done these experiments already, but never realised the significance, so said:
"Why do you ask? You get emissions, depending on the shape factor of the surface."
"Have you plotted these observations across all available REEs and determined the exact emission profiles?"
"Yes, mostly. But we only found anomalies in the data, no clear patterns emerged."
"It’s the gaps in the data I’m interested in, I'd like to take those findings home and study them. I think you might have something I need in the missing data, but I'm not sure."
"You'll have to stay on-campus because the data is classified. You can use my deputy's flat, she's away all week."
"Ok Lee, I'll do that. Can you have the papers dropped off within the next hour and I'll meet you tonight for a drink at the staff bar?"
Wang nods and says: "OK see you later, text me when ready."
Sam's hair was standing on end as he waited for the papers to arrive. A knock on the door and Sam opened it to reveal two large security guys, one thrusting a bunch of tattered bound parchments into Sam's hand, saying with a stern mumble: “we’re required to wait here, Sir – for the papers to be returned when finished." Sam nodded, but felt this was a little cautious – the data was quite old, incomplete and, until now, without any significance. The binder said “Top Secret" in big red letters – again, a bit cautious, but if Sam's hunch had any legs at all, that would prove to have been a wise classification.
He'd been given a bundle with all the crystalline emissions data included and had a few hundred pages to thumb through – just boring columns of numbers, Greek letters and symbols. But to Sam, this was like reading a crime novel. He always looks for patterns and odd behaviour in everything, because he knows from experience – nature works best like that. Every few pages he noticed, that some particles disappeared and some reappeared, according to the numbers, very occasionally, from nothing and realized, this was the actual quantum-jump pattern he was looking for. Just as Wang had seen some years earlier in the mathematics – clear patterns of behaviour. Sam also knew: where there’s a pattern, there’s a computer program not far behind and the ability to make devices that can be controlled.
Sam wanted to get some new experiments started, so telephoned Wang with his initial excitement:
"I have an idea how we can build some components to test my concepts. I’m seeing jump in the data,
Lee, just like your theory suggests."
"OK, what did you have in mind?"
"I think, I can build a physical REE programming block to emit in a precise way and cause a controlled quantum-jump."
"I knew you'd come up with something real, my head's full of theory, mush and maths."
"I'll make some sketches and you can look over them whilst we talk in the bar, see you down there in an hour."
Sam puts together some concepts of rare earth components of various shapes and sizes that fit loosely together in blocks, like one of those puzzles, that only fit together in one way.
Down at the bar the two security guys are still hanging around, as Sam explains to Wang: "You see, these components will emit particles at different rates, times, sequences, and, depending on how you put these shapes together, you can control how these anomalies occur, at what time and, importantly, where they coincide. We can create a dummy component and make it perform a quantum-jump." Wang looked at Sam and thought: "This is amazing, I would never have come up with this idea! This will be something big!" but said: “OK Sam, nice work so far, but we will have to tread carefully, a few people have to approve this."
A month later, Sam waits in his laboratory office for some important deliveries: the first REE components to build a quantum device, precision made to his drawings and ready to play with. He’s trying to build a quantum-jump device to force a small 1 gram test piece to move from our dimension into to another. If it works, he should never see the test piece again. Wang’s earlier theoretical research showed, that if you could create two fundamental particles of precisely the same energy and spin them with incredible accuracy, you could make either or both disappear, based on their distance apart, energy and spin. He further postulated, that this ‘disappearance’ could only be proved if the particle or particles had jumped to another dimension and that the properties of mass, length and time were simply perceptions, blocking our view of other dimensions. Working on several configurations, Sam takes meticulous notes describing the emissions profile of each test for a given construction, he’s able to arrange the blocks to perform a basic logic, like a simple computer program, but instead of binary flows, Sam is controlling the appearance and disappearance of quantum anomalies, he’s focusing and amplifying jump-potential onto the test piece. After 48 hours without much sleep, Sam is exhausted, messing with this block-puzzle kind of device. He failed to get any signs of a quantum-jump at all, but the emissions data still looks encouraging. Sam throws down the device and flops asleep on his desk, immediately beginning to dream of bright sunlight and the sound of the ocean waves around him. “Let’s try again later,” he thinks.
Principle Wang wakes up the HKU campus main-frame to examine Sam’s work last night. Sam was playing with his new quantum-jump experiment and, just getting back from a weekend away, Wang wants a Monday morning update for his sponsors. The data stream opens and starts to tick down the screen until it stops abruptly at 11.31pm on Sunday night. Not a complete entry either, looks like the data entry was corrupted and then the experiment suddenly stopped. Wang reaches over to phone Sam, find out what happened to the tests last night. As his hand nears the phone, it rings. Wang jumps and picks it up: “Lee Wang speaking, can I help?” A strong monotone mumbling voice says: “Professor Wang, please come down to Professor Page’s laboratory now please, there appears to be a problem.”
“What happened, is everything OK?”
“Please come down Sir, it is much easier than explaining over the phone.”
Throwing the phone down, Wang grabs his jacket and runs out. At the lab he sees a number of flashing lights and loud buzzers going off, plus a little smoke coming from under Page’s laboratory door. He looks through the window and decides it’s safe enough to enter. Walking slowly, he passes a security guy who nods and points to Sam’s office. Sam’s office door is open, but the room looks empty for some reason, only half a ceiling lamp hangs down, the odd electrical spark is dropping and he can see a triangular-shaped dent in the floor – like the corner of a box had been there. Two guys in white coats are in the office with Geiger counters, measuring radiation levels. As Wang wonders in, one guy says: “Radiation is normal, Sir, but it looks like something disappeared.”
The two guys each grab an end of Sam’s broken desk and lift them up onto the legs. The two halves show, that a large cubic section – stood on one corner, has disappeared from the centre of the desk, right where Sam would have been sitting, taking part of the floor, ceiling lamp and most of Sam’s chair.
“There are no burn marks and everything is cleanly cut, like a diamond shape was sliced away and taken,” said one of the guys, scratching his head with the end of the Geiger counter.