“Uh-huh.”
A bubble of unspoken communication expanded between a group of particle physicists chattering near Ethan’s station against the wall. He felt it, a prickle on his spine.
They were watching him.
He elbowed his way into the auditorium.
He nodded at Szymanski when his coworker joined him at the room’s tiered rows of tables but continued to add punctuation to his speaker notes. No other colleagues taking their seats for the all-hands were still working on their slides. Well, no other colleagues had lost Dr. Kramer a collaborative opportunity with Lawrence Livermore, either—
“You’re finished with the presentation? Good.” Dr. Kramer set his briefcase on the table beside Ethan’s laptop. He leaned into the adjacent microphone and depressed the speaker button without waiting for either an administrative speech to open the meeting or a confirmation from Ethan.
Dr. Kramer knew he’d deliver.
“I have a one o’clock call with Fermilab. Quantum will present first.” He took Ethan’s laptop down to the podium—just don’t let the hardware crash—and gestured for IT to connect the presentation cables. Immaculate slides flickered into focus on a descending projector screen behind the stage. “Quantum Mechanics is currently running another cycle of data collection on SVLAC’s prototype holometer, following upgrades last month to the quality of the laser beam.”
A cross-section of the holometer’s design appeared on his click. “The instrument’s dual mirrors bounce a laser, which a half-reflective surface splits into two perpendicular beams, along a pair of thirty-meter tunnels. The beams are calibrated to register the exact locations of the mirrors. If space can be measured in defined quantum units, the mirrors will move slightly during the laser bounces—on a technical level, space itself is moving, rather than the mirrors—to create a constant, random variation in their positions. When the beams are recombined after bouncing between the mirrors, I hypothesize that the twin lasers will be consistently out of sync by a statistically significant percentage. This discrepancy will reveal the scale of units of space.
“Preliminary results will be available by the end of the year, and collaborative and individual papers in progress shortly afterward, likely in partnership with Dr. Greg Logan, Fermilab, and the University of Chicago. Meyer will assist with analyzing any subsequent practical applications from the quantum measurement. Beyond work on the holometer, the department is also conducting experiments to stabilize LED performance in medical equipment under extreme temperatures, with Szymanski leading the project.”
A pause. Then, “Questions?”
Ethan had drafted answers to the inquiries that he’d anticipated might come from his slides. But Dr. Kramer gave a pointed glance at his Patek Philippe wristwatch, and no microphones crackled in challenge.
“Good.” Dr. Kramer removed the presentation cables from Ethan’s laptop. The projector screen shone white and blank as he left the stage.
It was done.
He inhaled deeply while pressing his palms against the table. The prints were slick and damp. So were his underarms. Although Dr. Kramer gave a short nod when he handed back the computer—a positive data point, isolated but unambiguous—Ethan only exhaled that breath again after his supervisor’s focus moved away to a colleague’s Optics presentation. He lost the first half of the group’s research review in his relief. Then Nadine Fong shuffled up to the stage.
Erin Monaghan sat at attention in the front row of the auditorium while her department head presented the group’s data on a new binary pulsar model and the recent impact on space-time that the interactions of distant astrophysical bodies had made, via undulating gravitational waves. Her glasses reflected shards of color gleaming from the projector screen as she nodded along to the diagrams, her ponytail swishing lightly between her shoulder blades. Her lips moved, timed to the animation transitions. She’d designed this presentation.
Fong’s maternity leave was scheduled to start soon, wasn’t it?
Erin was primed to manage the Relativistic Mechanics group in her supervisor’s absence.
“…which we can confirm with telescope images from Kitt Peak National Observatory. Questions?” Smiling, Fong concluded her talk and scanned the room for raised hands.
Dr. Kramer’s index finger tapped the table.
Another isolated data point, but Ethan also knew the meaning of this one.
He forced himself to concentrate and turned on his microphone. Though he had no specific objection to Fong’s presentation prepared, Dr. Kramer now expected him to challenge their rival department over the validity of its research aims, or its latest data, or its methods—something. Anything to prove the superiority of the Quantum Mechanics group and his work. Ethan’s work, too. He had to speak. “Dr. Fong, I have a question.”
“Go ahead, Dr. Meyer.”
“Your department’s research presupposes that you can identify when space-time ripples originate from the movement of black holes or stars, rather than from any other localized source.”
“That’s correct.”
“There must be a large amount of noise in the data. The Relativistic Mechanics group’s machinery measures micro-vibrations, and SVLAC’s interferometer is in the middle of Silicon Valley traffic and the airspace from NASA Ames.”
“Yes. Differentiating signals from noise is Dr. Monaghan’s wheelhouse.” Fong motioned for him to continue—then grimaced. Her hand fluttered to her stomach, and a harsh exhale rattled across her microphone. “Ugh. Excuse me. Erin, could you—”
“Of course.”
His rival made way for her supervisor to rejoin their grouping, then wheeled her chair around to face Ethan’s quantum colleagues seated several tiers higher in the auditorium. Leaning sideways onto an elbow, she spoke into her tabletop microphone rather than moving to the podium, sarcastically earnest when she asked, “What can I help you to understand about my work, Meyer?”
“How do you prove that you’re analyzing signals, rather than noise?”
