Accidental Gods

Accidental Gods Read Free

Book: Accidental Gods Read Free
Author: Andrew Busey
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universe has boundaries but that it is reasonably flat and round like a squashed ball, not spherical, so your drawing is pretty accurate.”
    Ajay glanced at the drawing again. “I know.”
    Stephen mockingly raised his hand, “Excuse me, Professor. What is WMAP?”
    Ajay rolled his eyes and answered before Lisa could, “WMAP was a NASA satellite that measured cosmic background radiation temperatures. It told us a lot about the development of the universe and its time line. For example, the microwave background radiation we used to determine the age of the universe—about thirteen point seven billion years—and to identify this ‘inflationary era’ in the big bang.”
    Stephen smiled and replied, “What I meant was what do the letters in WMAP stand for?”
    Lisa said, “Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.”
    Stephen continued, this time sounding genuinely curious, “The concept sounds neat, though. Do they have cool pictures like the Hubble?”
    Ajay answered, “They make microwave sky maps, which are kind of interesting; they look like world maps but show the radiation distribution across the visible universe—”
    “Back to the drawing,” Lisa interrupted, “so it’s not like you just curve around that edge. It must be an actual edge.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever lies beyond that edge is also beyond our ability to understand.”
    Ajay turned back to his drawing and mused, “How come everyone acts like this is not an issue?”
    Lisa said, “Because infinity is an easy word to say but nearly impossible for humans to conceptualize and somewhere in what you are saying sits the infinite.”
    “Yeah, and computers don’t really like ‘infinity’ as a variable,” Stephen grumbled from the corner.
    Larry walked into Bohrs and closed the door quietly behind him. The hum of the florescent lights masked the door’s opening and closing. Lisa never turned and didn’t seem to notice. He brushed his mop of brown hair from his face and let it hang unkempt. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a black shirt that had “ROOT” centered on the front in green courier lettering.
    Ajay glanced at Larry for a fraction of a second, dismissed him, and then turned back to Lisa. “So in reality, Lisa, we are ignoring whatever’s beyond that edge and just assuming it has no impact on the system.”
    Thomas motioned Larry forward.
    Larry stopped at the conference table, still partially behind Lisa, and rested his hand on the top of a neighboring chair’s back.
    Lisa told Ajay, “We have to ignore it. We have no understanding of anything beyond that edge. I think we should just model everything after our own universe. Keep it simple and contained.” After a short pause with no response from Ajay, she continued, “In reality, all that matters is that we recognize that within the edge—inside a universe—is a closed system. The laws of physics work there. If that’s true, everything outside the universe should have no impact on how things work.”
    “A closed system.” Ajay nodded.
    “Thank God,” Stephen added, raising his hands in victory.
    Ajay glared at him.
    Stephen said, “If you want us to actually finish this, it has to be constrained in some way. Remember, we haven’t assembled here to theorize for fun. We actually need to build it, and I’m the one who has to program it. I have to figure out how to make all your crazy physicist ideas work inside a computer. So, yes, thank God it’ll be closed.”
    Ajay erased the outer parts of his drawing until he was left with only the Frisbee-sized circle again.
    “Excellent!” Thomas said.
    The circle was marred with remnants of Ajay’s earlier arrows, as if they refused to allow that system to remain closed forever.
    Lisa laughed. “If it doesn’t work, then we can try to solve the edge dilemma.”
    Larry asked, “The edge dilemma?”
    His response startled Lisa. She looked at Larry and composed herself. “Yes. I’m applying a fancy name to

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