Walking the Planck
This is part of a series of short stories. The first is The Transporter Trial. In re-reading the story I see I need to get some things consistent. Have fun picking out the inconsistencies (and mispelings).
I’ve always been fascinated by lava lamps. You know, the lamps with undulating blobs of whatever, heated by a light bulb, that rise and fall. I could spend tens of minutes watching my old lava lamp. If that entertains me so easily, it’s no wonder I could stare at the glowing deep blue wispy fuzz ball in front of me in the ground floor lobby of Q-Corp. The baseball-sized glowing ball floated inside the center of a one-meter diameter glass globe, which was mounted on one-meter tall stainless steel pedestal. The real fuzz-ball, a Bose-Einstein Condensate, actually resides in the steel pedestal. The glass globe is a fancy display device of what was going on inside the pedestal. At times the fuzz ball slightly elongates horizontally, then gently bounces back into its spherical shape. Sometimes I seem to influence its shape almost imperceptively if I walk briskly around the pedestal and suddenly stop. I couldn’t tell if it the changes in the condensate were really my imagination. It’s almost like it is watching me. I know others are watching me. The security guard keeps an eye on me. I will get strange looks from others passing by, going to the elevators coming back from lunch. But that’s normal for me.
“You like our trade-mark?” Peter asked as he approached me from behind, after one of my hand-waving exercises to see what the ball would do. I had not seen the famous Dr. Peter Stone for several months. In spite of all that was going on in his life, he looked well rested.
“Yeah, sort of like an expensive lava lamp.” I said.
“You won’t find this at Wal-Mart,” Peter chuckled.
“The condensate is bigger, have you gotten it colder in there?” I asked. I remembered the last time I saw this it was a golf-ball size.
“Very good, yes, we got it colder, that’s why it’s bigger.”
“But it’s absolute zero in there, how can it get colder?”
“Well, it’s not absolute zero, but it’s very, very close to absolute zero.” Peter sad.
“What do you use these things for, besides being an expensive lava lamp replacement for a corporate lobby?” I asked.
Peter smiled, “There are some mysterious things we’re doing with the government, but I can tell you that Cal-Tech and Carnegie-Mellon are putting together an arrayed gravity-wave telescope using these things to probe the structure of the distant, young universe. Lawrence Livermore Labs are building a hypersensitive seismometer.” Peter motioned, “Come, You wanted to see what products we have. I have a few interesting things to show you.”
“Lawrence Livermore, aren’t’ those the nuke people?”
“Yes.” Peter replied as we walked into the elevator. “They also work in the nuclear non-proliferation arena and are looking around the world at possible nuclear tests, especially with terrorist groups.”
“By the way, thanks for granting me an interview. I know you don’t give out many these days.”
“You’re welcome. You write fairly about me. You’re interested in what we’re doing and take the time to learn about the science in what we do, unlike many of the others. I’m not the fair-haired kid any more. All the news and science programs are passing me by. They couldn’t get enough of me before. The transporter trial backfired on me along with my divorce. Now I’m considered a crackpot. My ex has gotten the media wrapped around her little finger, as well as the majority of the Q-Corp stock holders.” Peter said, looking down. The elevator door opened.
We walked over to Peter’s corner office on the top floor. “So, there is going to be a big share-holder’s meeting in two weeks. You’re ex is plotting a coup da’ta. What do you think is going to happen?” I asked.
“She’ll win and kick me out, unless I can buy enough shares to get controlling interest, and my chances for that is extremely unlikely.” Peter said with remarkable candor. “All the banks and financial institutions have turned their backs on me since my identity is in limbo after the transporter trial. Unless I can pull a rabbit out of the hat, I’m done.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve. I’m going to have a party Friday night where I’ll reveal the ace. I want you to come.” Peter said.
“I’ll be there. What’s the ace?”
“You’ll have to wait for Friday. But it’s going to be late, 11:30 at night. Can you make that?”
“Sure, I won’t miss it. You’ve got me curious. Any hints?” I asked.
“No hints. Just come. I think you’ll find it interesting. I want a fair reporter from the media, and you’re as fair as they come. Come to the lobby at 11:30. No later. You’ll be escorted here at 11:30 sharp.”
We entered Peter’s office. The floor to ceiling windows showed a hazy, smoggy, hot summer day in Atlanta. I could barely make out the downtown skyline through all the haze. Peter’s large oak desk sat diagonally in front the corner windows. His desk was clean, with a few items on top. Each seemed to have a purpose. One item that caught my eye sat on front of the desk. It was a polished rectangular granite stone, about 2 inches high and a foot wide. It had inscribed on it: 6.62606931128413 x 10-34 . I had enough of a math science background to know this was an exceedingly small number. I figured it had to be “one of those science numbers,” like the speed of light or Avogadro’s number, but I couldn’t place it.
“What number is that?” I asked, pointing at the polished granite stone.
“That’s Planck’s constant. It’s used to describe the quantized amounts of energy in photons and other very tiny particles. Max Planck discovered it around 1900, and it is recognized the historical start of quantum physics. In my graduate studies working at CERN, I refined the constant to 15 decimal places. The staff at CERN made this plaque for me, saying this is Planck’s constant engraved in Stone, a play on my name. It’s sort of a lucky number for me, an immutable law of the universe, a number I live by, the basis for Q-Corp.” Peter Stone then motioned to the other side of the office, an alcove which had a couple of white leather couches sitting at right angles to each over, and a large low “coffee table” filling in the square made by the two couches.
“You wanted to know what we’re doing. I’ve got a few interesting things we’ve developed. Have a seat” Peter walked over to the table and motioned for me to sit down on one of the couches. On top of the table was a PC, a slot machine, various gadgets including a cell phone/PDA, and a white football helmet with the blue fuzz-ball logo on the side.
“You’re making sports equipment?” I asked, surprised, standing next to the table, looking down on the helmet.
“Try it on, this is one of our most unusual products.” Peter lifted the helmet up off the table and fit it onto my head, as if I was being coronated. It was comfortably padded, but it felt a little loose on my head. Peter picked up something that looked like a Palm Pilot or a pocket PC. He took out the stylus and tapped a few things. “Sit down on the couch. Relax, you find this interesting.”
I sat down and sank into the leather couch. It felt so good to get off my feet. It felt real good. The gnawing little headache I had today was gone. This couch does wonders. Peter tapped a few more things. It got very quiet. I was really enjoying this. Peter’s leather couch was feeling really comfortable. Noise canceling, I thought. This is even better than my Bose headphones. There was something about this noise canceling that was different, very different, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I realized the always persistent ringing in my ears was gone. Sweet. “Nice noise reduction.”
“I am going to play something, enjoy.” Peter said.
A clear melody played, sending a shiver down my spine. The music was so beautiful. Tears came to my eyes. I closed my eyes and flowed with the music. It was very familiar, I had heard it many times before, but I couldn’t remember the name of the melody. I didn’t care -- I was really enjoying this.
The music ended, I felt reenergized, refreshed. Peter tapped a couple more times and told me to take off the helmet. “Wow, that was great! You’ll give Bose a run for the money. When will you start selling these, and how much?” I took the helmet off.
“The price is $150,000, so you won’t be seeing these in these in Best Buy.” Peter said. “It’s not a sound system per se. Nothing came through your ears.”
“But I heard music.”
“You thought you were hearing, but I was playing the music directly into the audio part of your brain.”
“Amazing.” I remember what was odd about the silence. “That noise cancellation, you did that in my brain too. I have tinnitus, ringing in the ears. That was silenced too. Were you fiddling with other things too? I felt real good.”
Peter smiled and nodded. “This is a wireless brain sensor and stimulator. We’re able to map the audio portions of the brain, including some abnormalities such tinnitus, and actively cancel it as it plays the music. It’s not a cure, mind you; you’ll notice the ringing come back gradually. This also cancels pain, and stimulates some of the pleasure and well being areas of the brain. By the way, you recognize the tune I played?”
Instantly I recalled where I hear the music before, from an old TV series, “The theme music for Mash. I normally find it rather bland. You were playing with me there. You made it sound more interesting than it was.”
Peter laughed, “Yeah, sorry about that. I was tugging on the heart strings in your brain.”
“Cancels pain, makes you feel good, you must be selling these to medical clinics.”
“Good guess. These are going through FDA trials. But you’ll never guess who our first customer is.”
I looked blankly.
“The California State Correctional Department.” Peter said.
“Music therapy? Drug treatment?” I guessed.
“No, death row. The state of California is concerned about the cruel aspects executing its death row inmates. They stopped using gas, went to lethal injection, but they are worried that might have some painful aspects to it. This helmet allows the inmate to request their last music, puts them in a euphoric state, eliminates pain, and then terminates all brain activity in an instant. In trial runs with inmates without executions, just putting them to sleep, there have been some inmates that sought to terminate their appeals and die sooner if they are guaranteed the helmet at their execution.”
“Thank you for not terminating my brain activity.” I said, putting the helmet quickly back on the table. I see you have a slot machine.
“Yes, that is one of our hot selling items. We guarantee quantum randomness, no bias. We have an interesting history in gambling. We first got into in a few years ago after the big Powerball scandal.”
“Oh yes, I remember that. The balls were not so random. Several people figured it out and developed a strategy to make a tidy profit on purchasing large spreads of Power-Ball tickets.” I said.
“That’s right. That developed into quite a scandal. We had just patented the quantum random hardware and we pitched it to GTECH, who runs most of the lotteries, for a modest price we’d set them up with a new lottery system with an ironclad guarantee of uniform randomness. They bought the idea; we got our foot in the door and then the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City followed in buying our slot machines. We’re everywhere now.”
“Quantum slot machines? Why? Is it really more random?”
Peter answered, “Well, it’s all how you market your product. We guarantee fairness by our utterly random quantum uncertainty processor. It cannot be hacked. For the gambler it means the house can’t bias the machine against you. For the casino it means there is no way the users can exploit any non-random features. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
“What do you mean by quantum random?” I asked.
“Quantum randomness is where we generate random number, or a series of random numbers, quantum mechanically. We generate a sufficient number of quantum events at the subatomic level that produces the distribution and range of the possible numbers we want. We can make the random distribution uniform, or behave in any of the well know distributions, such as Poisson or binomial. For GTECH, we provided the software to make a uniform distribution from 0 to 999,999,999 for their Mega Billions game. That means each number in that range has an equal chance of being generated. For slot machines, it generates a quantum uniform random distribution for each reel. This is a simple slot machine here; it has 3 reels with 5 symbols on each reel. Each combination has a one in 125 chance.”
“Hmmm,” I was remembering the little bit of quantum physics I read was thinking out loud, “Imagine putting a slot machine and a player in a sealed box. The player pulls the arm on the machine, through quantum processes it arrives at the pattern of oranges, cherries, lemons, etc. If the player and machine are sealed off, from those of us on the outside, there is a multitude of all possible outcomes happening all once, until the player comes out or we peer in.”
Peter smiled, “You’ve been reading to much pop-science. That’s a popularized view of the Copenhagen Interpretation.”
“Huh?” I asked.
Peter answered, “You’re statement is a typical view popularized by pulp science writers. There are at least three kinds of views to explain what happens during these weird microscopic random quantum events. The first view interpreting quantum physics was developed in Denmark, which is why it got its name, the Copenhagen Interpretation. Basically this view says that when a random quantum event occurs, all the possible outcomes of that event exist at that moment and keep existing until an observer from the outside looks, which forces one particular outcome to be resolved. You’ve heard of Schrödinger’s Cat?”
I nodded.
Peter continued, “Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment to show how incomplete the Copenhagen view of quantum physics is. Suppose there is a quantum device, composed of a radioactive atom that has a 50% chance of decaying in one hour and a detector that detects the decay. That device will activate poison gas if the atom decays. We put that device and a cat in a box and seal it for an hour. We open the box at the end of the hour. Just before opening the box, we ask the question: what is the state of the cat? In popularized books it says the cat is simultaneously both alive and dead, until you, the observer, look in and force, by your mere observation, one outcome to happen. Schrödinger presented this as a thought experiment to show some problems with the thinking in quantum physics at that point in time. Quantum physicists today say that any sufficiently complex aggregate of matter will cause the microscopic quantum indeterminacy to be resolved. The cat is such a complex aggregate of matter, hence there will never be a weird state where the cat is both dead and alive.”
“So, this simultaneous quantum states isn’t real?” I asked.
“Oh they’re real. You’ll have simultaneous quantum states, such as a quantum bit being both 1 and 0 at the same time, but when it is observed, or interacted with, it will come out as either 1 or 0, but not both. So, when you pull the lever on the slot machine, the quantum random processor will have all the various outcomes actually existing at some brief period of time, but as the components of the computer system interacts with it, it resolves into one set of values that we observe.”
This sounded strange. “So what causes it to become one value?” I asked.
Peter answered. “That’s the big question, and there are several possibilities. One possibility is that it just happens, the many different simultaneous states becomes one, randomly, without cause. Take the atom in Schrödinger’s box. When the atom decays, it will do so without any traceable cause whatsoever. We can assign a probable outcome, but we can’t find the cause for it. In fact, there is no cause.” Peter paused.
“There is another possibility that’s going to sound stranger. Instead of the simultaneous states resolving into one event, it all happens. As the as the surrounding matter interacts the simultaneous states, reality splits into all the possible outcomes. Its not just the subatomic particle that splits into all the possible outcomes, but everything else too, the entire world and universe. In other words, as we observe it, all the possible outcomes split into different worlds, including us looking at the results. By world I mean a version of the universe. So, with our fifty-fifty atom decay, when we observe it, two of us along with everything else branches into two different worlds, each world identical with each other at that moment, except that in one world we see the atom decay, in the other world we don’t see the atom decay.”
Now that sounds weird, I thought. “These are virtual worlds of some sort, not two real ones where there are two real me’s.”
“These are two real worlds, with two real you’s and two real me’s, along with two real everyone else.” Peter answered.
“But which one is the real me?” I asked, puzzled.
“They both are the real you.” Peter answered.
I reached for the slot machine, pulled the lever and watched the fruit spin by on the displays. They settled on cherry, orange and bell. “So, the quantum random processor creates a series of quantum events, that works uniformly on selecting one of the five pictures in each of the three reels. Let’s see, that makes 125 different combinations. Since each combination has a possibility, there 125 worlds different worlds now, each with you and me looking at the slot machine display having the same conversation.”
“You got it.” Peter said. “And in one of the worlds you’d be remarking about the 3 bells and the slot machine lighting up with the jackpot notification.”
I pointed out the window, “And everyone else in the world goes along for the ride?”
“Yes,” said Peter, “and you and me also go along for the ride whenever a quantum event happens, anywhere in the universe, whether it be Las Vegas, inside the sun, wherever.”
“So there must be billions of you and me in all these different worlds.” I said.
“No.” said Peter, “You’re way under, it’s a stupendous number of you and me, and unimaginable numbers of worlds are splitting off all the time.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of.” I said. “That defies common sense.”
“Einstein’s Relativity defies common sense, but that doesn’t make it not true.” Peter answered.
I sat and thought for a moment. “Can we observe these other worlds?” I asked.
“Not that I know of.” Peter answered.
“Then how do you know this is true?” I asked.
“Because it answers some questions, solves problems that have been around for a long time.” Peter answered. “What are the chances for intelligent life to evolve out of the Big Bang when the universe started billions of years ago?”
“I don’t know.” I answered.
Peter stood up, “Here is where our wacko creationist and Intelligent Design people are right. What are the chances, at the beginning of the universe in the big bang, for the right proportions of matter versus antimatter to develop, for the nearly perfect uniformity of expansion, but not too uniform, for scores of physical parameters to develop that would lead to life, for the earth to form at the right distance from the sun, to have a moon just like ours that protects and churns the environment. I can list hundreds of fine tuning parameters, that if they were off by a hairs breath, life could not exist. Let’s say the odds are 1 in a billion, or one in a trillion, or one in ten followed by thirty-five zeroes. With the many worlds interpretation, worlds were spawned off in stupendous numbers. Most of them are very strange and uninteresting worlds, where nothing develops, not even stars and galaxies. But in a very few of those worlds, proportionately speaking, things do turn out just right for stars and galaxies, but even from those worlds, most of the splits will result in nothing leading to life, just stars, galaxies, even planets. But again, a small proportion of those worlds, things are right, that lead to life, and out of the worlds that split out of those, a small proportion leads of those lead to intelligent life.”
Peter sat down again, “So, by virtue of us being here, when the odds are staggering against us, gives very strong evidence that this many worlds interpretation is right.”
“So you don’t see any possibility for God in all this?” I asked.
“God? What on earth for? Who needs God when you’ve got the Many Worlds Interpretation? We’re free to make the world the way we want to, do what we want. Why, I’ve even found a way to manipulate the world splitting to my advantage.” Peter said.
“How can you?” I asked. “You said we couldn’t see the parallel worlds.”
“I’ll explain everything Friday. Come here Friday night, 11:30.” Peter looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting. I need to cut this interview short. Come Friday.” Peter stood up.
I stood up, “Thanks, I’ll be here. Oh, by the way, what is the third way?”
“What?” Peter asked.
“You said there are three kinds of ways to interpret quantum events. You listed Copenhagen and Many Worlds. What’s the other way?” I asked.
“Oh. It’s an option nobody takes seriously. The third approach is that everything is a fixed pattern, past, present, and future. No freedom, just a frozen pattern. Obviously that’s a dead end.”
“Oh, I see.” I left.
...
I suppose that all the few gentle readers that read this story have figured out how Peter discovered to manipulate the Many Worlds to his advantage. I did not. But even if I did figure this out, it went a direction I would not anticipate.
I left my house at 10pm. I did not want to miss this party, meeting, whatever. I arrived at Q-Corp at 10:30. I sat in the parking structure right next to the entrance in visitor parking. I turned on the radio to pass the time. Nothing much was on the news. I switched stations and picked up a local Atlanta talk radio guy. Callers were talking about how many tickets they bought for the Mega Billions Lottery and what they would do if they won tonight. The jackpot was at 110 billion dollars. The drawing was at 11pm. I remembered Peter saying the Q-Corp quantum random processor generated the jackpot number. Was Peter going to manipulate the worlds to win? How?
As I mused about this, I recognized an old Lexus pull in beside me. It was detective Dennis Granger of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Dennis looked right at me, smiled and waved. Dennis got out, I got out too.
“What brings you here.” I asked.
“I suppose it’s the same thing that brought you here. Dr. Stone invited me to a party about some sort of announcement. I was curious to see what he is cooking, so I came. You have any ideas what this is all about?”
“I don’t know. He said he figured out some way to manipulate quantum physics to get certain things he wants. My theory,” I said, “is that he’s figured out how to win the Mega Billions Lottery through some quantum physics voodoo.”
“Sounds pretty far fetched.” Dennis said. “But if he did, he could face a lot of trouble for fraud or insider information.”
“It’s almost 11. Let’s listen to the results. Here, get in.” I climbed in my car, Detective Granger climbed in the passenger side of my car. I turned on the radio.
“This is the Mega Billions drawing, with an estimated 110 billion dollar annuitized payout. Let’s get started. These are nine digits, and the first digit is… the first digit is, well folks, we seem to be having a slight technical problem. We’ll get started shortly. You know that the game pays for pre-K and the Hope scholarship, was well as conservation efforts.” There was a pause in the program. I grabbed an envelope and pencil. “I’m told that they solved the little technical problem and they are ready to begin. The first number is now coming up, six, followed by six.” I jotted the numbers down on the back of the envelope. The announcer repeated the numbers, I checked them on the envelope, then put it in my pocket. The announcer finished, “Thank you for turning in to the Mega Billions Lottery game.”
I turned off the radio; we got out of the car and walked to the lobby. The door glass turn-style doors were locked. The security guard let us in through the glass door next to the main revolving door.
“You gentlemen are here to see Dr. Stone?” the guard asked.
“Yes sir.” I answered.
“I’ll escort you up at 11:30 pm. You can take a seat over here.” The guard pointed to some padded benches nearby. I could see the pedestal that held the Bose-Einstein Condensate in the center of the lobby.
Others came in. A well-groomed man came in. He looked at his watch looked over at us, walked over and sat down next to me. “So you’ve come to the party too. I don’t know what Peter is planning, but it ought to be interesting. Peter wants us all to wait down here, I don’t know what for. My name is Fred Jake. I’m the Chief Counsel for Q-Corp.”
“I’m Earl Flask, with the Atlanta Casual Observer, and this is Dennis Granger, he’s with the GBI. Dr. Stone invited us both to the party.”
“I remember you both now. You reported on the Transporter trial, and Detective Granger, you’re the lead investigator. Peter may have thought he won the case initially, but he has paid dearly for that victory. He’s a great scientist, but he doesn’t see the consequences of his actions beyond the immediate moment.” Fred looked up at the woman approaching. We all stood up.
“Oh goodness, sit down. Fred, good to see you. Who’re your friends?”
“This is Earl Flask with the Casual Observer, and Dennis Granger with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They are guests of Peter. They were at the Transporter trail. Gentlemen, this is Barbra White, she is the head of information technology.”
Others came in as 11:30 approached. We stood, talking. Everyone seemed to be in a pleasant mood. Another security guard came in, “It’s 11:30, the party is in the executive conference room on the top floor.”
“Thanks Charlie.” Said Fred, “We can find our way there, we’ll take our guests with us.”
We all got into several elevators and rode to the top floor. I followed everyone into the conference room. Sandwiches, tarts, tortes, cookies, chips, fruit, bottled water, Coke, and various other sodas were arranged on the table. We gathered the food, talked, when the lights dimmed, the theme music from Mash started, and the large flat panel monitor flickered to life in the front. We all took seats in the black leather chairs around the room. Fred and Dennis sat on either side of me, Barbra across on the other side of the conference table.
I leaned over to Fred, “Is Dr. Stone a Mash addict?”
Fred turned and gave me a funny look, then, “Oh, you mean the TV series.” He shrugged his shoulders, “I have no idea.”
The music faded. Peter was on the plasma TV in front of us, smiling, looking as if he was looking around the room and at each of us. Everyone quieted down.
“Thank you all for coming tonight.” Peter’s image said. I was wondering why Peter wasn’t here at his own party. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing and why this video. Let me explain.
“I’ve been researching quantum physics for some time now. Many of you know there are various interpretations of the weird things that go on in quantum physics. The one I’ve been fascinated by is the Many Worlds Interpretation. For those of you who know this stuff, please bear with me as I explain it to the rest of the audience.” Peter gave a similar explanation that he gave me earlier in the week.
“I’ve found a way to manipulate the Many Worlds, to exploit it.” The room got very quiet. I saw Barbra from across the table. She leaned forward to listen. I thought I detected a hint of concern in her posture. “Tonight, I conducted an experiment with the Mega Billions Lottery. As many of you know, the jackpot numbers are generated using the quantum random processor developed at Q-Corp. It generates a number from 0 to 999,999,999, where each number has an equal probability of being generated. That means one trillion worlds are split off at that moment. One of those worlds has the number I selected as the winning number. I have gone to that world.”
“Peter, no!” Barbra blurted. There were others in the room that looked very agitated. I obviously was missing something. So Peter found out how to travel to the winning quantum world. What’s the big deal?
The image of Peter continued, “Some of you might be figuring out how I did this, but let me explain it to everyone. One great philosopher said you must loose your life in order to find it. That is the key to manipulating the many worlds. Tonight, one trillion of you and me were split into the one trillion worlds during the lottery drawing. What I’ve done is terminated myself in all the worlds except the one I got the winning number.”
I finally got it. I looked at Barbra, then Fred and the others. They were sitting stunned in disbelief. Barbra was on here cell phone, I could make out she had called security and was having them search for Peter.
“The only real question was how to terminate the nine-hundred ninety-nine billion, nine-hundred ninety-nine million, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine of me and just leave the one in the winning world. I thought of the transporter. That would work quite nicely, after all, I’ve been through it before, with the original of me terminated, it would work pretty much the same way.”
Barbra quickly said to into her phone, “Check for activity in lab three in the past hour. Send someone there. Now.”
“But that lab has been off limits to me since the trial, and it takes a crew to get it ready. Instead, I opted for the California termination helmet. I programmed my PDA to receive the results of the lottery off the Internet, and if I won, the PDA would announce I won and turn off the helmet. I’d be refreshed, energized, knowing I am in the world were I won. If I didn’t win, it would painlessly, without me being aware of it, terminate all my brain functions for good.”
Most everyone was silent. Barbra was still talking to security on her phone. I heard Dennis Granger speak into his phone, “This is Detective Dennis Granger with the GBI. I’m at the Q-Corp Office tower and there is a possible suicide going on at this moment. We need paramedics and officers on the scene immediately.”
Peter continued in the video, “I’m sitting in my office. The doors are shut. It is possible you all are in the same winning world that I am in now. In that case, when you enter you’ll find me alive. Most likely, you will find me dead. But if you find me dead, know that I am taking advantage of the winnings to make a better Q-Corp.”
The video ended, the Mash music resumed, the lights brightened. Barbra, Fred, Detective Granger dashed out of the conference room and ran to the Peter’s office suite. I was right behind. Barbra opened the door. We entered. The lights were dim. I saw a figure slouched at the desk. It was Peter, with the death helmet on. Dennis walked over to behind the desk, placed his fingers on Peter’s neck, waited a moment, and shook his head.
“I guess this isn’t the winning world.” I said.
Just then the phone rang on Peter’s desk. Fred stepped over and pressed the speaker button. “Hello?” Fred said.
“Peter!” shouted a voice on the other end, “Is that you? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
Fred broke in, “I’m not Peter, Peter is not available at the moment. Can I help you?”
“Who’s this?” the voice asked.
“I’m Fred Jake, Chief Counsel for Q-Corp.”
“I’m Richard North, CEO of Gtech.” The voice continued. “Oh I see, Pete’s too chicken to talk to me himself, he’s having the company lawyer do the talking. I know you’re there Pete!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Fred.
“What’s the matter is that Pete won the whole stinking lottery, and the whole thing stinks like fraud to me.”
“What?” Barbra interrupted, “Peter won the lottery? The Mega Billions Lottery?”
Barbra walked over to Peter’s desk and looked at the PDA. Detective Granger walked next to her, they talked quietly looking at the PDA.
Richard continued, “As usual, right after the drawing our ticket transactions for the period are checked to see if there is a winner. Dr. Peter Stone came up as the winner. My people recognized the name and called me. I checked with my Chief Counsel, got him out of bed, to see if Pete’s playing and winning violated any agreements between our companies on this. So far we don’t see anything in our legal papers that bars employees of Q-Corp in playing the Lottery. But when the public finds out that winner of the biggest jackpot ever is the CEO of the company that makes the random processor that is the heart of generating the lottery numbers, its going to look very fishy. It looks very fishy to me. This is going to make my previous troubles with the power ball scandal look like a cakewalk.”
There was a long pause.
“Richard,” Fred finally said, “I think we can help each other out of this problem.”
“I’m all ears.” Richard said.
“First of all, Peter is dead.” Fred said.
“What?”
“Peter is dead. We don’t know the reasons, we just found just before you called. In fact we have a GBI agent with us who is investigating this.”
The phone was silent.
“From what I understand, the winner must personally come forward and claim the prize.” Fred continued. “So, what I propose, is that since the winner cannot, we keep this matter to ourselves, and the law enforcement agencies. We will cooperate with law enforcement, the Gaming Commission, and Gtech to see if fraud is involved. If there is any hint of suspicion, we’ll yank our processors out and pay for a replacement. I think there is a compelling public interest to keep this quiet, at least for now.”
Fred put the phone on mute, then said to Detective Granger, “Let me explain this to you after I’m finished here.”
“You think you can get a deal with law enforcement and the Gaming Commission?” Richard asked?
“Yes.” Said Fred.
“How?”
“I’m working that out right now. Let me call you back with the details.”
“Okay, call me when you have more details. Bye.”
Fred pressed the button to hang up the call. Then, “Detective Granger, I want to yank all our random processors from all the high stakes gaming devices. If it can cause someone as intelligent as Dr. Stone to commit suicide, thinking that in a parallel world life will be much better, think of all the other copycats that will follow. We need to keep this quiet, at least the real reason. Detective Granger, I know you cannot make promises on this, but could you pass on my concerns to your agency and to others who will be involved?”
“That seems very prudent.” Said Dennis.
Then Fred turned to me. “I know this is your chance for a Pulitzer. I want your word you won’t publish the real reason for Dr. Stone’s death. You can report about the death, but don’t make the connection to the suicide to the Lottery, especially the quantum nature of the Lottery. It may seem self-serving for me to say this, but really, I am concerned about copycat suicides. Once people hear about Many Worlds and winning Billions, there are going to be some that will commit suicide over it. I want to get all the Q-Corp quantum random processors out of the gaming industry.”
“Okay” I reluctantly saw the point. I didn’t like it, but I saw the point. Shucks, if any story was going to get me on the Drudge Report, this was the one. That’s why I waited a couple of years before publishing this story. No one’s interested now. It’s old news.
So why did Dr. Stone die, even though he won the Lottery? Barbra’s theory was that Peter’s code in the PDA had a bug. She worked with the GBI in investigating Peter’s PDA. They discovered that Peter wrote a little program in his PDA to scan Mega Billions Website for the live drawing update. Peter’s program was quite simple, it would read the results and check it against his lotto ticket number he chose. This would work fine for 99.999% percent of the numbers, but there is a handful of numbers that don’t look random to the to the lottery computer. These numbers include “000,000,000,000”, “111,111,111,111”, etc. There are other numbers, such as pi, 3.14159265358979323846…, e, 2.718281828459045…,. Then there are the physical constants of the universe, the speed of light, and Planck’s constant. The software engineers were concerned that the hardware might be malfunctioning if it generated one of these numbers. When the quantum random generator delivered lottery number, the computer would check it against the list of suspect numbers previously mentioned. If number matched on of the numbers on the list, the computer would put the quantum random generator through a series of tests, which would last for two minutes. The computer would output to the live website a series of dashes and commas, “---,---,---,---“ until the diagnostics completed. This had the unfortunate effect of delaying the live radio and TV drawing announcement, and caused Peter’s PDA program to pick up the characters “---,---,---,---“ and compare it against his selected Lottery number of “662,606,931,128” (the digits of Planck’s Constant), which were not equal. This was the first time the quantum random processor had generated one of those special numbers. Had Peter written his program to wait for a valid number on the Lottery Website, or just picked a different number, his program would have worked correctly.
It was ironic that Peter tried to manipulate himself into the winning world, only to get terminated by a logic error, and he purposely terminated himself everywhere else, if the Many Worlds Interpretation is true. If the Copenhagen Interpretation is true, Peter was both incredibly lucky and not lucky. But what do you do with the third interpretation?
I’ve always been fascinated by lava lamps. You know, the lamps with undulating blobs of whatever, heated by a light bulb, that rise and fall. I could spend tens of minutes watching my old lava lamp. If that entertains me so easily, it’s no wonder I could stare at the glowing deep blue wispy fuzz ball in front of me in the ground floor lobby of Q-Corp. The baseball-sized glowing ball floated inside the center of a one-meter diameter glass globe, which was mounted on one-meter tall stainless steel pedestal. The real fuzz-ball, a Bose-Einstein Condensate, actually resides in the steel pedestal. The glass globe is a fancy display device of what was going on inside the pedestal. At times the fuzz ball slightly elongates horizontally, then gently bounces back into its spherical shape. Sometimes I seem to influence its shape almost imperceptively if I walk briskly around the pedestal and suddenly stop. I couldn’t tell if it the changes in the condensate were really my imagination. It’s almost like it is watching me. I know others are watching me. The security guard keeps an eye on me. I will get strange looks from others passing by, going to the elevators coming back from lunch. But that’s normal for me.
“You like our trade-mark?” Peter asked as he approached me from behind, after one of my hand-waving exercises to see what the ball would do. I had not seen the famous Dr. Peter Stone for several months. In spite of all that was going on in his life, he looked well rested.
“Yeah, sort of like an expensive lava lamp.” I said.
“You won’t find this at Wal-Mart,” Peter chuckled.
“The condensate is bigger, have you gotten it colder in there?” I asked. I remembered the last time I saw this it was a golf-ball size.
“Very good, yes, we got it colder, that’s why it’s bigger.”
“But it’s absolute zero in there, how can it get colder?”
“Well, it’s not absolute zero, but it’s very, very close to absolute zero.” Peter sad.
“What do you use these things for, besides being an expensive lava lamp replacement for a corporate lobby?” I asked.
Peter smiled, “There are some mysterious things we’re doing with the government, but I can tell you that Cal-Tech and Carnegie-Mellon are putting together an arrayed gravity-wave telescope using these things to probe the structure of the distant, young universe. Lawrence Livermore Labs are building a hypersensitive seismometer.” Peter motioned, “Come, You wanted to see what products we have. I have a few interesting things to show you.”
“Lawrence Livermore, aren’t’ those the nuke people?”
“Yes.” Peter replied as we walked into the elevator. “They also work in the nuclear non-proliferation arena and are looking around the world at possible nuclear tests, especially with terrorist groups.”
“By the way, thanks for granting me an interview. I know you don’t give out many these days.”
“You’re welcome. You write fairly about me. You’re interested in what we’re doing and take the time to learn about the science in what we do, unlike many of the others. I’m not the fair-haired kid any more. All the news and science programs are passing me by. They couldn’t get enough of me before. The transporter trial backfired on me along with my divorce. Now I’m considered a crackpot. My ex has gotten the media wrapped around her little finger, as well as the majority of the Q-Corp stock holders.” Peter said, looking down. The elevator door opened.
We walked over to Peter’s corner office on the top floor. “So, there is going to be a big share-holder’s meeting in two weeks. You’re ex is plotting a coup da’ta. What do you think is going to happen?” I asked.
“She’ll win and kick me out, unless I can buy enough shares to get controlling interest, and my chances for that is extremely unlikely.” Peter said with remarkable candor. “All the banks and financial institutions have turned their backs on me since my identity is in limbo after the transporter trial. Unless I can pull a rabbit out of the hat, I’m done.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve. I’m going to have a party Friday night where I’ll reveal the ace. I want you to come.” Peter said.
“I’ll be there. What’s the ace?”
“You’ll have to wait for Friday. But it’s going to be late, 11:30 at night. Can you make that?”
“Sure, I won’t miss it. You’ve got me curious. Any hints?” I asked.
“No hints. Just come. I think you’ll find it interesting. I want a fair reporter from the media, and you’re as fair as they come. Come to the lobby at 11:30. No later. You’ll be escorted here at 11:30 sharp.”
We entered Peter’s office. The floor to ceiling windows showed a hazy, smoggy, hot summer day in Atlanta. I could barely make out the downtown skyline through all the haze. Peter’s large oak desk sat diagonally in front the corner windows. His desk was clean, with a few items on top. Each seemed to have a purpose. One item that caught my eye sat on front of the desk. It was a polished rectangular granite stone, about 2 inches high and a foot wide. It had inscribed on it: 6.62606931128413 x 10
“What number is that?” I asked, pointing at the polished granite stone.
“That’s Planck’s constant. It’s used to describe the quantized amounts of energy in photons and other very tiny particles. Max Planck discovered it around 1900, and it is recognized the historical start of quantum physics. In my graduate studies working at CERN, I refined the constant to 15 decimal places. The staff at CERN made this plaque for me, saying this is Planck’s constant engraved in Stone, a play on my name. It’s sort of a lucky number for me, an immutable law of the universe, a number I live by, the basis for Q-Corp.” Peter Stone then motioned to the other side of the office, an alcove which had a couple of white leather couches sitting at right angles to each over, and a large low “coffee table” filling in the square made by the two couches.
“You wanted to know what we’re doing. I’ve got a few interesting things we’ve developed. Have a seat” Peter walked over to the table and motioned for me to sit down on one of the couches. On top of the table was a PC, a slot machine, various gadgets including a cell phone/PDA, and a white football helmet with the blue fuzz-ball logo on the side.
“You’re making sports equipment?” I asked, surprised, standing next to the table, looking down on the helmet.
“Try it on, this is one of our most unusual products.” Peter lifted the helmet up off the table and fit it onto my head, as if I was being coronated. It was comfortably padded, but it felt a little loose on my head. Peter picked up something that looked like a Palm Pilot or a pocket PC. He took out the stylus and tapped a few things. “Sit down on the couch. Relax, you find this interesting.”
I sat down and sank into the leather couch. It felt so good to get off my feet. It felt real good. The gnawing little headache I had today was gone. This couch does wonders. Peter tapped a few more things. It got very quiet. I was really enjoying this. Peter’s leather couch was feeling really comfortable. Noise canceling, I thought. This is even better than my Bose headphones. There was something about this noise canceling that was different, very different, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I realized the always persistent ringing in my ears was gone. Sweet. “Nice noise reduction.”
“I am going to play something, enjoy.” Peter said.
A clear melody played, sending a shiver down my spine. The music was so beautiful. Tears came to my eyes. I closed my eyes and flowed with the music. It was very familiar, I had heard it many times before, but I couldn’t remember the name of the melody. I didn’t care -- I was really enjoying this.
The music ended, I felt reenergized, refreshed. Peter tapped a couple more times and told me to take off the helmet. “Wow, that was great! You’ll give Bose a run for the money. When will you start selling these, and how much?” I took the helmet off.
“The price is $150,000, so you won’t be seeing these in these in Best Buy.” Peter said. “It’s not a sound system per se. Nothing came through your ears.”
“But I heard music.”
“You thought you were hearing, but I was playing the music directly into the audio part of your brain.”
“Amazing.” I remember what was odd about the silence. “That noise cancellation, you did that in my brain too. I have tinnitus, ringing in the ears. That was silenced too. Were you fiddling with other things too? I felt real good.”
Peter smiled and nodded. “This is a wireless brain sensor and stimulator. We’re able to map the audio portions of the brain, including some abnormalities such tinnitus, and actively cancel it as it plays the music. It’s not a cure, mind you; you’ll notice the ringing come back gradually. This also cancels pain, and stimulates some of the pleasure and well being areas of the brain. By the way, you recognize the tune I played?”
Instantly I recalled where I hear the music before, from an old TV series, “The theme music for Mash. I normally find it rather bland. You were playing with me there. You made it sound more interesting than it was.”
Peter laughed, “Yeah, sorry about that. I was tugging on the heart strings in your brain.”
“Cancels pain, makes you feel good, you must be selling these to medical clinics.”
“Good guess. These are going through FDA trials. But you’ll never guess who our first customer is.”
I looked blankly.
“The California State Correctional Department.” Peter said.
“Music therapy? Drug treatment?” I guessed.
“No, death row. The state of California is concerned about the cruel aspects executing its death row inmates. They stopped using gas, went to lethal injection, but they are worried that might have some painful aspects to it. This helmet allows the inmate to request their last music, puts them in a euphoric state, eliminates pain, and then terminates all brain activity in an instant. In trial runs with inmates without executions, just putting them to sleep, there have been some inmates that sought to terminate their appeals and die sooner if they are guaranteed the helmet at their execution.”
“Thank you for not terminating my brain activity.” I said, putting the helmet quickly back on the table. I see you have a slot machine.
“Yes, that is one of our hot selling items. We guarantee quantum randomness, no bias. We have an interesting history in gambling. We first got into in a few years ago after the big Powerball scandal.”
“Oh yes, I remember that. The balls were not so random. Several people figured it out and developed a strategy to make a tidy profit on purchasing large spreads of Power-Ball tickets.” I said.
“That’s right. That developed into quite a scandal. We had just patented the quantum random hardware and we pitched it to GTECH, who runs most of the lotteries, for a modest price we’d set them up with a new lottery system with an ironclad guarantee of uniform randomness. They bought the idea; we got our foot in the door and then the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City followed in buying our slot machines. We’re everywhere now.”
“Quantum slot machines? Why? Is it really more random?”
Peter answered, “Well, it’s all how you market your product. We guarantee fairness by our utterly random quantum uncertainty processor. It cannot be hacked. For the gambler it means the house can’t bias the machine against you. For the casino it means there is no way the users can exploit any non-random features. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
“What do you mean by quantum random?” I asked.
“Quantum randomness is where we generate random number, or a series of random numbers, quantum mechanically. We generate a sufficient number of quantum events at the subatomic level that produces the distribution and range of the possible numbers we want. We can make the random distribution uniform, or behave in any of the well know distributions, such as Poisson or binomial. For GTECH, we provided the software to make a uniform distribution from 0 to 999,999,999 for their Mega Billions game. That means each number in that range has an equal chance of being generated. For slot machines, it generates a quantum uniform random distribution for each reel. This is a simple slot machine here; it has 3 reels with 5 symbols on each reel. Each combination has a one in 125 chance.”
“Hmmm,” I was remembering the little bit of quantum physics I read was thinking out loud, “Imagine putting a slot machine and a player in a sealed box. The player pulls the arm on the machine, through quantum processes it arrives at the pattern of oranges, cherries, lemons, etc. If the player and machine are sealed off, from those of us on the outside, there is a multitude of all possible outcomes happening all once, until the player comes out or we peer in.”
Peter smiled, “You’ve been reading to much pop-science. That’s a popularized view of the Copenhagen Interpretation.”
“Huh?” I asked.
Peter answered, “You’re statement is a typical view popularized by pulp science writers. There are at least three kinds of views to explain what happens during these weird microscopic random quantum events. The first view interpreting quantum physics was developed in Denmark, which is why it got its name, the Copenhagen Interpretation. Basically this view says that when a random quantum event occurs, all the possible outcomes of that event exist at that moment and keep existing until an observer from the outside looks, which forces one particular outcome to be resolved. You’ve heard of Schrödinger’s Cat?”
I nodded.
Peter continued, “Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment to show how incomplete the Copenhagen view of quantum physics is. Suppose there is a quantum device, composed of a radioactive atom that has a 50% chance of decaying in one hour and a detector that detects the decay. That device will activate poison gas if the atom decays. We put that device and a cat in a box and seal it for an hour. We open the box at the end of the hour. Just before opening the box, we ask the question: what is the state of the cat? In popularized books it says the cat is simultaneously both alive and dead, until you, the observer, look in and force, by your mere observation, one outcome to happen. Schrödinger presented this as a thought experiment to show some problems with the thinking in quantum physics at that point in time. Quantum physicists today say that any sufficiently complex aggregate of matter will cause the microscopic quantum indeterminacy to be resolved. The cat is such a complex aggregate of matter, hence there will never be a weird state where the cat is both dead and alive.”
“So, this simultaneous quantum states isn’t real?” I asked.
“Oh they’re real. You’ll have simultaneous quantum states, such as a quantum bit being both 1 and 0 at the same time, but when it is observed, or interacted with, it will come out as either 1 or 0, but not both. So, when you pull the lever on the slot machine, the quantum random processor will have all the various outcomes actually existing at some brief period of time, but as the components of the computer system interacts with it, it resolves into one set of values that we observe.”
This sounded strange. “So what causes it to become one value?” I asked.
Peter answered. “That’s the big question, and there are several possibilities. One possibility is that it just happens, the many different simultaneous states becomes one, randomly, without cause. Take the atom in Schrödinger’s box. When the atom decays, it will do so without any traceable cause whatsoever. We can assign a probable outcome, but we can’t find the cause for it. In fact, there is no cause.” Peter paused.
“There is another possibility that’s going to sound stranger. Instead of the simultaneous states resolving into one event, it all happens. As the as the surrounding matter interacts the simultaneous states, reality splits into all the possible outcomes. Its not just the subatomic particle that splits into all the possible outcomes, but everything else too, the entire world and universe. In other words, as we observe it, all the possible outcomes split into different worlds, including us looking at the results. By world I mean a version of the universe. So, with our fifty-fifty atom decay, when we observe it, two of us along with everything else branches into two different worlds, each world identical with each other at that moment, except that in one world we see the atom decay, in the other world we don’t see the atom decay.”
Now that sounds weird, I thought. “These are virtual worlds of some sort, not two real ones where there are two real me’s.”
“These are two real worlds, with two real you’s and two real me’s, along with two real everyone else.” Peter answered.
“But which one is the real me?” I asked, puzzled.
“They both are the real you.” Peter answered.
I reached for the slot machine, pulled the lever and watched the fruit spin by on the displays. They settled on cherry, orange and bell. “So, the quantum random processor creates a series of quantum events, that works uniformly on selecting one of the five pictures in each of the three reels. Let’s see, that makes 125 different combinations. Since each combination has a possibility, there 125 worlds different worlds now, each with you and me looking at the slot machine display having the same conversation.”
“You got it.” Peter said. “And in one of the worlds you’d be remarking about the 3 bells and the slot machine lighting up with the jackpot notification.”
I pointed out the window, “And everyone else in the world goes along for the ride?”
“Yes,” said Peter, “and you and me also go along for the ride whenever a quantum event happens, anywhere in the universe, whether it be Las Vegas, inside the sun, wherever.”
“So there must be billions of you and me in all these different worlds.” I said.
“No.” said Peter, “You’re way under, it’s a stupendous number of you and me, and unimaginable numbers of worlds are splitting off all the time.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of.” I said. “That defies common sense.”
“Einstein’s Relativity defies common sense, but that doesn’t make it not true.” Peter answered.
I sat and thought for a moment. “Can we observe these other worlds?” I asked.
“Not that I know of.” Peter answered.
“Then how do you know this is true?” I asked.
“Because it answers some questions, solves problems that have been around for a long time.” Peter answered. “What are the chances for intelligent life to evolve out of the Big Bang when the universe started billions of years ago?”
“I don’t know.” I answered.
Peter stood up, “Here is where our wacko creationist and Intelligent Design people are right. What are the chances, at the beginning of the universe in the big bang, for the right proportions of matter versus antimatter to develop, for the nearly perfect uniformity of expansion, but not too uniform, for scores of physical parameters to develop that would lead to life, for the earth to form at the right distance from the sun, to have a moon just like ours that protects and churns the environment. I can list hundreds of fine tuning parameters, that if they were off by a hairs breath, life could not exist. Let’s say the odds are 1 in a billion, or one in a trillion, or one in ten followed by thirty-five zeroes. With the many worlds interpretation, worlds were spawned off in stupendous numbers. Most of them are very strange and uninteresting worlds, where nothing develops, not even stars and galaxies. But in a very few of those worlds, proportionately speaking, things do turn out just right for stars and galaxies, but even from those worlds, most of the splits will result in nothing leading to life, just stars, galaxies, even planets. But again, a small proportion of those worlds, things are right, that lead to life, and out of the worlds that split out of those, a small proportion leads of those lead to intelligent life.”
Peter sat down again, “So, by virtue of us being here, when the odds are staggering against us, gives very strong evidence that this many worlds interpretation is right.”
“So you don’t see any possibility for God in all this?” I asked.
“God? What on earth for? Who needs God when you’ve got the Many Worlds Interpretation? We’re free to make the world the way we want to, do what we want. Why, I’ve even found a way to manipulate the world splitting to my advantage.” Peter said.
“How can you?” I asked. “You said we couldn’t see the parallel worlds.”
“I’ll explain everything Friday. Come here Friday night, 11:30.” Peter looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting. I need to cut this interview short. Come Friday.” Peter stood up.
I stood up, “Thanks, I’ll be here. Oh, by the way, what is the third way?”
“What?” Peter asked.
“You said there are three kinds of ways to interpret quantum events. You listed Copenhagen and Many Worlds. What’s the other way?” I asked.
“Oh. It’s an option nobody takes seriously. The third approach is that everything is a fixed pattern, past, present, and future. No freedom, just a frozen pattern. Obviously that’s a dead end.”
“Oh, I see.” I left.
...
I suppose that all the few gentle readers that read this story have figured out how Peter discovered to manipulate the Many Worlds to his advantage. I did not. But even if I did figure this out, it went a direction I would not anticipate.
I left my house at 10pm. I did not want to miss this party, meeting, whatever. I arrived at Q-Corp at 10:30. I sat in the parking structure right next to the entrance in visitor parking. I turned on the radio to pass the time. Nothing much was on the news. I switched stations and picked up a local Atlanta talk radio guy. Callers were talking about how many tickets they bought for the Mega Billions Lottery and what they would do if they won tonight. The jackpot was at 110 billion dollars. The drawing was at 11pm. I remembered Peter saying the Q-Corp quantum random processor generated the jackpot number. Was Peter going to manipulate the worlds to win? How?
As I mused about this, I recognized an old Lexus pull in beside me. It was detective Dennis Granger of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Dennis looked right at me, smiled and waved. Dennis got out, I got out too.
“What brings you here.” I asked.
“I suppose it’s the same thing that brought you here. Dr. Stone invited me to a party about some sort of announcement. I was curious to see what he is cooking, so I came. You have any ideas what this is all about?”
“I don’t know. He said he figured out some way to manipulate quantum physics to get certain things he wants. My theory,” I said, “is that he’s figured out how to win the Mega Billions Lottery through some quantum physics voodoo.”
“Sounds pretty far fetched.” Dennis said. “But if he did, he could face a lot of trouble for fraud or insider information.”
“It’s almost 11. Let’s listen to the results. Here, get in.” I climbed in my car, Detective Granger climbed in the passenger side of my car. I turned on the radio.
“This is the Mega Billions drawing, with an estimated 110 billion dollar annuitized payout. Let’s get started. These are nine digits, and the first digit is… the first digit is, well folks, we seem to be having a slight technical problem. We’ll get started shortly. You know that the game pays for pre-K and the Hope scholarship, was well as conservation efforts.” There was a pause in the program. I grabbed an envelope and pencil. “I’m told that they solved the little technical problem and they are ready to begin. The first number is now coming up, six, followed by six.” I jotted the numbers down on the back of the envelope. The announcer repeated the numbers, I checked them on the envelope, then put it in my pocket. The announcer finished, “Thank you for turning in to the Mega Billions Lottery game.”
I turned off the radio; we got out of the car and walked to the lobby. The door glass turn-style doors were locked. The security guard let us in through the glass door next to the main revolving door.
“You gentlemen are here to see Dr. Stone?” the guard asked.
“Yes sir.” I answered.
“I’ll escort you up at 11:30 pm. You can take a seat over here.” The guard pointed to some padded benches nearby. I could see the pedestal that held the Bose-Einstein Condensate in the center of the lobby.
Others came in. A well-groomed man came in. He looked at his watch looked over at us, walked over and sat down next to me. “So you’ve come to the party too. I don’t know what Peter is planning, but it ought to be interesting. Peter wants us all to wait down here, I don’t know what for. My name is Fred Jake. I’m the Chief Counsel for Q-Corp.”
“I’m Earl Flask, with the Atlanta Casual Observer, and this is Dennis Granger, he’s with the GBI. Dr. Stone invited us both to the party.”
“I remember you both now. You reported on the Transporter trial, and Detective Granger, you’re the lead investigator. Peter may have thought he won the case initially, but he has paid dearly for that victory. He’s a great scientist, but he doesn’t see the consequences of his actions beyond the immediate moment.” Fred looked up at the woman approaching. We all stood up.
“Oh goodness, sit down. Fred, good to see you. Who’re your friends?”
“This is Earl Flask with the Casual Observer, and Dennis Granger with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They are guests of Peter. They were at the Transporter trail. Gentlemen, this is Barbra White, she is the head of information technology.”
Others came in as 11:30 approached. We stood, talking. Everyone seemed to be in a pleasant mood. Another security guard came in, “It’s 11:30, the party is in the executive conference room on the top floor.”
“Thanks Charlie.” Said Fred, “We can find our way there, we’ll take our guests with us.”
We all got into several elevators and rode to the top floor. I followed everyone into the conference room. Sandwiches, tarts, tortes, cookies, chips, fruit, bottled water, Coke, and various other sodas were arranged on the table. We gathered the food, talked, when the lights dimmed, the theme music from Mash started, and the large flat panel monitor flickered to life in the front. We all took seats in the black leather chairs around the room. Fred and Dennis sat on either side of me, Barbra across on the other side of the conference table.
I leaned over to Fred, “Is Dr. Stone a Mash addict?”
Fred turned and gave me a funny look, then, “Oh, you mean the TV series.” He shrugged his shoulders, “I have no idea.”
The music faded. Peter was on the plasma TV in front of us, smiling, looking as if he was looking around the room and at each of us. Everyone quieted down.
“Thank you all for coming tonight.” Peter’s image said. I was wondering why Peter wasn’t here at his own party. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing and why this video. Let me explain.
“I’ve been researching quantum physics for some time now. Many of you know there are various interpretations of the weird things that go on in quantum physics. The one I’ve been fascinated by is the Many Worlds Interpretation. For those of you who know this stuff, please bear with me as I explain it to the rest of the audience.” Peter gave a similar explanation that he gave me earlier in the week.
“I’ve found a way to manipulate the Many Worlds, to exploit it.” The room got very quiet. I saw Barbra from across the table. She leaned forward to listen. I thought I detected a hint of concern in her posture. “Tonight, I conducted an experiment with the Mega Billions Lottery. As many of you know, the jackpot numbers are generated using the quantum random processor developed at Q-Corp. It generates a number from 0 to 999,999,999, where each number has an equal probability of being generated. That means one trillion worlds are split off at that moment. One of those worlds has the number I selected as the winning number. I have gone to that world.”
“Peter, no!” Barbra blurted. There were others in the room that looked very agitated. I obviously was missing something. So Peter found out how to travel to the winning quantum world. What’s the big deal?
The image of Peter continued, “Some of you might be figuring out how I did this, but let me explain it to everyone. One great philosopher said you must loose your life in order to find it. That is the key to manipulating the many worlds. Tonight, one trillion of you and me were split into the one trillion worlds during the lottery drawing. What I’ve done is terminated myself in all the worlds except the one I got the winning number.”
I finally got it. I looked at Barbra, then Fred and the others. They were sitting stunned in disbelief. Barbra was on here cell phone, I could make out she had called security and was having them search for Peter.
“The only real question was how to terminate the nine-hundred ninety-nine billion, nine-hundred ninety-nine million, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine of me and just leave the one in the winning world. I thought of the transporter. That would work quite nicely, after all, I’ve been through it before, with the original of me terminated, it would work pretty much the same way.”
Barbra quickly said to into her phone, “Check for activity in lab three in the past hour. Send someone there. Now.”
“But that lab has been off limits to me since the trial, and it takes a crew to get it ready. Instead, I opted for the California termination helmet. I programmed my PDA to receive the results of the lottery off the Internet, and if I won, the PDA would announce I won and turn off the helmet. I’d be refreshed, energized, knowing I am in the world were I won. If I didn’t win, it would painlessly, without me being aware of it, terminate all my brain functions for good.”
Most everyone was silent. Barbra was still talking to security on her phone. I heard Dennis Granger speak into his phone, “This is Detective Dennis Granger with the GBI. I’m at the Q-Corp Office tower and there is a possible suicide going on at this moment. We need paramedics and officers on the scene immediately.”
Peter continued in the video, “I’m sitting in my office. The doors are shut. It is possible you all are in the same winning world that I am in now. In that case, when you enter you’ll find me alive. Most likely, you will find me dead. But if you find me dead, know that I am taking advantage of the winnings to make a better Q-Corp.”
The video ended, the Mash music resumed, the lights brightened. Barbra, Fred, Detective Granger dashed out of the conference room and ran to the Peter’s office suite. I was right behind. Barbra opened the door. We entered. The lights were dim. I saw a figure slouched at the desk. It was Peter, with the death helmet on. Dennis walked over to behind the desk, placed his fingers on Peter’s neck, waited a moment, and shook his head.
“I guess this isn’t the winning world.” I said.
Just then the phone rang on Peter’s desk. Fred stepped over and pressed the speaker button. “Hello?” Fred said.
“Peter!” shouted a voice on the other end, “Is that you? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
Fred broke in, “I’m not Peter, Peter is not available at the moment. Can I help you?”
“Who’s this?” the voice asked.
“I’m Fred Jake, Chief Counsel for Q-Corp.”
“I’m Richard North, CEO of Gtech.” The voice continued. “Oh I see, Pete’s too chicken to talk to me himself, he’s having the company lawyer do the talking. I know you’re there Pete!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Fred.
“What’s the matter is that Pete won the whole stinking lottery, and the whole thing stinks like fraud to me.”
“What?” Barbra interrupted, “Peter won the lottery? The Mega Billions Lottery?”
Barbra walked over to Peter’s desk and looked at the PDA. Detective Granger walked next to her, they talked quietly looking at the PDA.
Richard continued, “As usual, right after the drawing our ticket transactions for the period are checked to see if there is a winner. Dr. Peter Stone came up as the winner. My people recognized the name and called me. I checked with my Chief Counsel, got him out of bed, to see if Pete’s playing and winning violated any agreements between our companies on this. So far we don’t see anything in our legal papers that bars employees of Q-Corp in playing the Lottery. But when the public finds out that winner of the biggest jackpot ever is the CEO of the company that makes the random processor that is the heart of generating the lottery numbers, its going to look very fishy. It looks very fishy to me. This is going to make my previous troubles with the power ball scandal look like a cakewalk.”
There was a long pause.
“Richard,” Fred finally said, “I think we can help each other out of this problem.”
“I’m all ears.” Richard said.
“First of all, Peter is dead.” Fred said.
“What?”
“Peter is dead. We don’t know the reasons, we just found just before you called. In fact we have a GBI agent with us who is investigating this.”
The phone was silent.
“From what I understand, the winner must personally come forward and claim the prize.” Fred continued. “So, what I propose, is that since the winner cannot, we keep this matter to ourselves, and the law enforcement agencies. We will cooperate with law enforcement, the Gaming Commission, and Gtech to see if fraud is involved. If there is any hint of suspicion, we’ll yank our processors out and pay for a replacement. I think there is a compelling public interest to keep this quiet, at least for now.”
Fred put the phone on mute, then said to Detective Granger, “Let me explain this to you after I’m finished here.”
“You think you can get a deal with law enforcement and the Gaming Commission?” Richard asked?
“Yes.” Said Fred.
“How?”
“I’m working that out right now. Let me call you back with the details.”
“Okay, call me when you have more details. Bye.”
Fred pressed the button to hang up the call. Then, “Detective Granger, I want to yank all our random processors from all the high stakes gaming devices. If it can cause someone as intelligent as Dr. Stone to commit suicide, thinking that in a parallel world life will be much better, think of all the other copycats that will follow. We need to keep this quiet, at least the real reason. Detective Granger, I know you cannot make promises on this, but could you pass on my concerns to your agency and to others who will be involved?”
“That seems very prudent.” Said Dennis.
Then Fred turned to me. “I know this is your chance for a Pulitzer. I want your word you won’t publish the real reason for Dr. Stone’s death. You can report about the death, but don’t make the connection to the suicide to the Lottery, especially the quantum nature of the Lottery. It may seem self-serving for me to say this, but really, I am concerned about copycat suicides. Once people hear about Many Worlds and winning Billions, there are going to be some that will commit suicide over it. I want to get all the Q-Corp quantum random processors out of the gaming industry.”
“Okay” I reluctantly saw the point. I didn’t like it, but I saw the point. Shucks, if any story was going to get me on the Drudge Report, this was the one. That’s why I waited a couple of years before publishing this story. No one’s interested now. It’s old news.
So why did Dr. Stone die, even though he won the Lottery? Barbra’s theory was that Peter’s code in the PDA had a bug. She worked with the GBI in investigating Peter’s PDA. They discovered that Peter wrote a little program in his PDA to scan Mega Billions Website for the live drawing update. Peter’s program was quite simple, it would read the results and check it against his lotto ticket number he chose. This would work fine for 99.999% percent of the numbers, but there is a handful of numbers that don’t look random to the to the lottery computer. These numbers include “000,000,000,000”, “111,111,111,111”, etc. There are other numbers, such as pi, 3.14159265358979323846…, e, 2.718281828459045…,. Then there are the physical constants of the universe, the speed of light, and Planck’s constant. The software engineers were concerned that the hardware might be malfunctioning if it generated one of these numbers. When the quantum random generator delivered lottery number, the computer would check it against the list of suspect numbers previously mentioned. If number matched on of the numbers on the list, the computer would put the quantum random generator through a series of tests, which would last for two minutes. The computer would output to the live website a series of dashes and commas, “---,---,---,---“ until the diagnostics completed. This had the unfortunate effect of delaying the live radio and TV drawing announcement, and caused Peter’s PDA program to pick up the characters “---,---,---,---“ and compare it against his selected Lottery number of “662,606,931,128” (the digits of Planck’s Constant), which were not equal. This was the first time the quantum random processor had generated one of those special numbers. Had Peter written his program to wait for a valid number on the Lottery Website, or just picked a different number, his program would have worked correctly.
It was ironic that Peter tried to manipulate himself into the winning world, only to get terminated by a logic error, and he purposely terminated himself everywhere else, if the Many Worlds Interpretation is true. If the Copenhagen Interpretation is true, Peter was both incredibly lucky and not lucky. But what do you do with the third interpretation?
posted by Earl Flask | 12:01 AM
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