"If we for a moment try to imagine that we are Erwin Schrodinger and are searching for a differential equation that will yield the proper solution to problems of quantum physics, we find that we are stymied by the lack of experiments of a simple nature, the results of which could be compared with the solution to the equation." -- Kenneth S. Krane, Modern Physics. New York: Wiley, 1983. p. 116.
Written in May, 1986. A work of satire, science fiction and wishful thinking, by a full-time engineering student who still had time on his hands.
First Revision completed August, 1989.
WWW Publication March, 2001
Copyright 1986, 1989, 2001, Raymond J. Bayerl.
C T PRIME
It was once again the long walk across the
commuter
parking lot, from a suburban trek to undergraduate school.
C T resented that thousands of undergrads were at the same
time walking on his intended campus, the University, a land
of opportunity he had opted out of. The asphalt had its dull
glow, occasionally scuffed by the skid marks of a weekend
hotrodder, and he counted the rows in the lot. This would
give him an idea of where he left his father's old car when
class was through. In the distance was the eclectic
collection of the Institute's buildings. While the older
University had its new buildings, too, the Institute's
buildings were all relatively recent, and their varying
architectural trends had no base of oldness to link them.
The days were great when C T was just out of
high
school, the great promise that a secondary scholar of science
and mathematics can be in an otherwise apathetic and base
collection of adolescents. He knew he was going to college,
and going away seemed the only way. The Institute? Hardly.
It wasn't big; it had no prestige at all. The University
called forth. It was no wonder then, that the drunken
rowdiness of his orientation was a vital part of the millieu.
When at one point in the program, one of his roommates
produced a joint, C T stood back in revulsion. He was not of
that type--or so he believed. The issue was settled then and
there, and he got drunk instead.
Well into that crucial and pandemonious first
semester,
however, a bad trend developed. The beer keg started in him
the journey towards crossing the "line" of alchoholism. It
is a line in the strictest mathematical sense, although no
human, alcoholic or not, can pin it down where it lies. He
drank alone and then drank more. Finally it became a habit,
and he learned to drink Scotch. He was fairly softened by a
bottle of Red Label when he stepped into the room next door
in his dormitory, where two old high school buddies lived.
They had rock posters on the wall and the classic improvised
University loft. C T's inhibitions were fairly released, and
he casually asked if he could try cannabis, mostly out of
curiosity, but partly from boredom with alcohol. They found
an ample supply, and after a few pleasantly rewarded coughs,
he discovered a new view of life.
Class was about to start. Senior level
EE, electronics,
to be exact. C T pondered his situation; that of a
recovering degenerate. He recalled the classic video of "The
Graduate" he'd seen lately on the VCR, where bright Benny
turns the other way. Could he laugh at such an ending as
barring enemies from leaving a church by using a crucifix?
Those were not good topics for such a person as he to ponder.
Common-collector circuits were the topic today. Was he
prepared? Was he prepared for the typical boredom of small-
signal equivalent circuit models? The thoughts would
typically wander to all of relativity and quantum mechanics,
and to those forbidden parts that drove him from useful
society. Any greatness should be denied, strongly, the
medical profession had inadvertently taught him. So did the
Bible, of course, as he reassured himself at critical times.
He who is to be the greatest must be the servant of all and
design their circuit boards.
And so the ranks of numbered rows of cars passed,
numbered like energy levels and orbitals in C T's mind. He
made it by, day by day, however, for graduation to find him
in his worst development. With all the wonderment of his
recovery, the same set of resentments were there. Nothing
had changed but what he knew from fifteen hundred hours of
drilling at the Institute. The distracting methodology of
relativistic metaphysical quantum mechanics was still in his
mind constantly. You might have called it a hallucination.
The simple way to avoid the entire problem of a bad past is
to travel to a different branch of space, he thought. This
is in the strictest meaning of the word "space," one C T had
learned in probability and statistics. This was no Jules
Verne notion steeped in Victorian superstition. He started
to conceive of his travelling back to the exact point where
he crossed the substance abuse "line" by identifying its
singular discontinuity. It would stand out amongst the
rolling waves of the rest of the past. It should be
possible, he thought, to "warp" to the correct pattern merely
by the power of thought.
His parents sat, unidentified in the crowd,
although it
was not a football stadium University graduation audience by
an order of magnitude. They finally felt justified for six
years of effort, of watching a stumbling child; truly a
child, trying to make half a life for himself. Now he was to
get all of a degree. They were planning a large open house
party, with the usual family and friends invited. His sister
was arriving from out of town just for him. In store for C T
were at least as many graduation gifts as he had received
when he graduated from high school, probably twice as many.
He, however, could not expunge those theories from his mind.
Surely I'm wrong, he thought, in a panic. The doctors must
be right. No such thing as a metaphysical singularity
exists. I can't make the "warp" occur!
C T came later in the alphabet, so he had to
sit in
silence. Certainly he had a shot at it, he thought. He
could go to the University like he wanted to. He'd seen
small "warp" effects. His success was one of them. He
started to shake the way he did when the theory possessed
him. This was medical indication for treatment, of course.
He didn't like it one bit. An indictment of paranoia like
this is simply not worthwhile, even in the proper contexts of
a serious pursuit. Did he want the University experience
that badly? What did the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
portend? Would he go to cannabis again and might he learn to
use it in moderation? Then the bad uncontrollable body
tremors started. When they finally reached his name, he
could barely avoid having the difficulty noticed. He walked
in a shuddering daze across the podium. The Dean clasped his
hand.
It was a dark morning on campus at the University,
a
Saturday. C T had a few drinks the night before. Nothing
like shots or gin tonics--just beers. He got up and started
the coffee machine like he usually did. What a good morning,
he thought. No need for another beer or anything. He'd
tried that hangover relief method a couple of times and
almost started to like it. But not this Saturday. And
besides, it was the day of the State game. That's what the
parties were about the night before. He got his shower,
threw on some beaten clothes, and started walking into
campus. What a wonderful mixture of old and new these
buildings are, he thought. Nothing like the Institute's
campus, where he had visited a year before.