Quantum Times Read Online Free PDF Page B

…. In such a situation it is of course about the physics!” As he spoke, he sat down on the edge of his desk.
         “You know I have been thinking about The Object – and some people from the government have asked me about it … what I think. I don’t think the government people know anything.”
         David agreed, “I don’t think they know anything more than we do.”
         “I’m sure they know much less!”
         “So what do we know?” David asked.
         “I will tell you but first let me ask you a question. Is there anything, any data, anything at all to contradict what we think we saw when it first arrived… that is….anything to suggest that it did not just pop into existence into our sky?”
         David shook his head, “So far no one anywhere has claimed to have detected it on its way to Earth. Far as we know it just all of a sudden was there.”
         “Exactly!” Wheeling emphasized with his long index finger stabbing at David who had taken a seat across from the desk. “So let us assume that is what occurred. Now how did it get here? That is the question. To my mind there are only two possibilities. One is that it arrived travelling faster than the speed of light. If that were true, no one would see or detect The Object until after it had arrived. Unfortunately, Einstein told us that is not possible. Einstein’s reasoning is very compelling and no one has been able to prove differently in the last hundred years. In fact according to all that we know, travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible!”
         This was precisely the kind of conversation David had come to meet with the brilliant professor hoping to have. So to keep it going, David asked, “So what is the second possibility?”
         Wheeling wagged his finger at David, “Well, let’s see if you remember ANYTHING from your studies of physics. We believe there is something that pops in and out of existence. So David my lapsed physicist friend, do you remember what it is?”
         David started to shake his head and make the excuse that it had been awhile, but then he thought he knew the answer – even though it could not apply because it related to actions occurring at the smaller than atoms level. “Well, quantum mechanics argues that particles can pop in and out of existence but that is at the subatomic level. The probability that anything with any real mass could pop in and out is so highly unlikely that it borders on impossible.”
         “Very good David, you do remember some first semester physics….Now note that you said it was highly improbable but NOT IMPOSSIBLE! That is correct! Traveling faster than light is impossible but popping in and out of existence at the quantum level is not impossible and only approaches impossibility though it never gets there as the mass of the object increases. ”
         “So what is the point as it applies to The Object?”
         Dr. Wheeling gave David a grin that David had come to recognize as usually preceding a smug but enlightening observation. “As Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
         “I don’t believe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that with Physics in mind.
         “That is irrelevant!”
         “So you are saying that to understand The Object we have to look at Quantum Physics to explain its behavior?”
         “Indeed. That is correct.”
         “That would be so bizarre!” David exclaimed.
         Dr. Wheeling rather resignedly nodded, “The behavior of particles at the quantum level is very bizarre. As our friend Einstein said, ‘it is spooky!’ But it is all we have for now.”
         David thought about what he remembered about quantum mechanics and shuddered at the thought of going down that rat hole. Then he said, “We also have the new communication from The Object about wanting