Interlude: Science News

MIDNIGHT BURGER

Leif:

Hey, I picked up some news feeds at our last stop.

Ava:

Only news about Paul Giamatti please.

Leif:

The Large Hadron Collider is a total bust apparently.

Ava:

Ha. Dummies.

Leif:

They’re nowhere on the hierarchy problem.

Ava:

Still?

Leif:

The Higgs is still inexplicably light.

Ava:

This is beautiful. They build a supercollider the size of a small town and it doesn’t work so they build another supercollider the size of a bigger small town and it doesn’t work so they build ANOTHER supercollider the size of the worlds biggest small town and guess what? What’s the definition of insanity again?

Leif:

You’re not bummed out by this?

Ava:

Particle physics only exists for me to make fun of it.

Leif:

It says a lot of the particle people are jumping ship, moving to more provable fields.

Ava:

Look at them. Picking up their lunch tray to move to a cooler table.

Leif:

This sucks, I was excited about these colliders.

Ava:

Which one? The first one that didn’t work or the second one that didn’t work or the third one… that didn’t work?

Leif:

I secretly had hopes for naturalism.

Ava:

You would, you dirty hippie. I dance on the grave of reductionism.

Leif:

Why are you talking like these are failed experiments? They found this Higgs with these colliders.

Ava:

Yes, and then what happened?

Leif:

Apparently it was all down hill from there.

Ava:

I mean, scientists fail all the time but has there ever been such an epic airball like this? There are now three increasingly larger, miles long circles on the earth that cost billions of dollars, what are they going to do with them? Make the worlds biggest sumo circle?

Leif:

I don’t know. You’ve gotta have a dream right?

Ava:

This stuff hasn’t matched up with the Planck scale since the 70s and they still said, “no no it’s fine, we’ll just make a big thing that smashes things together, that’ll fix it.

Leif:

But I like big things that smash things together.

Ava:

You and the rest of the standard model dum dums.

Leif:

Can we talk about how nothing matches the Planck scale? If the universe was injected with the appropriate level of Planckian energy, everything would explode.

Ava:

That’s why it’s supersymetry time, baby.

Leif:

I thought supersymetry was impossible.

Ava:

It’s improbable, sounds like the other ideas that failed after three giant supercolliders are the impossible ones. What else have you got for me?

Leif:

CalTech is back on their Planet X bullshit again.

Ava:

What is this?

Leif:

They have a theory that there’s a planet past Pluto.

Ava:

Who cares?

Leif:

CalTech apparently. They have new mathematical evidence of a Neptune sized planet way past Pluto.

Ava:

If there is we should blow it up just to be mean, can we blow up a planet yet?

Leif:

These little pet theories drive me crazy. You know they’re only talking about this because it sounds cool to donors.

Ava:

If they discover it they should sell the naming rights to the highest bidder. I want there to be a Planet Funions.

Leif:

Pringles Planet.

Ava:

Would someone from Planet Funions be a Funionian?

Leif:

Funionite, I think.

Ava:

What else?

Leif:

The Flatiron Institute has a theory about Immortal Stars.

Ava:

What’s that?

Leif:

They’re saying that if a star balances perfectly at the edge of a black hole it can constantly feed on the accretion disc so it never runs out of fuel.

Ava:

I’m perfectly balanced at the edge of Gloria’s kitchen, never running out of fuel, am I an immortal star?

Leif:

Oh THIS is infuriating. NASA has suspended all spacewalks again.

Ava:

Why? Did somebody get mugged?

Leif:

They’re having a problem with water collecting in the helmets.

Ava:

Water?

Leif:

Yes.

Ava:

In the space suit?

Leif:

Yes.

Ava:

In space?

Leif:

Yes.

Ava:

You know Leif, I’m no engineer but I feel like water doesn’t need to be in a space suit.

Leif:

You would be right.

Ava:

What’s causing it?

Leif:

This is where it get really fun. They don’t know.

Ava:

Water is, inexplicably, showing up in space suit helmets and NASA has no idea why.

Leif:

No idea.

Ava:

How much water?

Leif:

A few years ago this one guy had his helmet fill up halfway before he got back to the ISS.

Ava:

Halfway!

Leif:

Yes.

Ava:

With water.

Leif:

With water.

Ava:

In space.

Leif:

The guy almost drowned. In orbit.

Ava:

Are they going to maybe look into this?

Leif:

I’m quoting directly: “Water leaks have been an intermittent issue for the suits for years. There are still continuing issues with evidence of water in the spacesuit helmets after the conclusion of an EVA or even, in some cases, during an EVA, with no clear root cause for the problem.”

Ava:

No clear root cause.

Leif:

That’s right.

Ava:

Summing up here: for years NASA astronauts have had their space helmets filling up with water and no one can explain why.

Leif:

Correct.

Ava:

We’re so dumb.

Leif:

We’re idiots.

Ava:

What else?

Leif:

Uhh, they now have a catalog of over five thousand exoplanets.

Ava:

Gee, I wonder if any of them have intelligent life.

Leif:

Seriously this is like reading the local newspaper of your ass backwards hometown.

Ava:

I love it. What else?

Leif:

The surface of Mercury is covered in diamonds.

Ava:

Boring.

Leif:

HR 6819 is not a black hole, turns out.

Ava:

What is it?

Leif:

It’s interesting. It’s a binary star system but the little star is dying because the bigger star is eating it, stripping it of all its fuel.

Ava:

I was in a relationship like that. I was the big star.

Leif:

… Aw man…

Ava:

What?

Leif:

This sucks.

Ava:

What? Wait, let me guess. The Earth is flat.

Leif:

Voyager I.

Ava:

There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.

Leif:

The information they’re getting back is all jumbled. They think it might be malfunctioning.

Ava:

Of course it’s malfunctioning, wasn’t it launched during the Hoover administration?

Leif:

1977.

Ava:

Well, Leif, c’mon.

Leif:

I know.

Ava:

What? …Aw, Leif, was this your favorite grandparent?

Leif:

Yeah, kinda.

Ava:

They had a good run.

Leif:

You’re right.

Ava:

Honestly, I forgot it was still out there. That’s impressive.

Leif:

I know. It was a real workhorse, y’know? It’s like watching someone you l ove get senile.

Ava:

What’s the power source?

Leif:

Radioisotopes.

Ava:

Well… 1977… it’s going to run out of power in a couple of years anyway.

Leif:

Yeah, it is. I’d give anything to give it a tune up. Upgrade the power system. Give it a flame job.

Ava:

Fuzzy dice.

Leif:

Yeah. Damn.

Ava:

Leif, you seem heartbroken.

Leif:

I guess I am kind of. Voyager was the last cool thing NASA did.

Ava:

It was pretty cool.

Leif:

I remember sitting there at Berkeley, watching the Space Shuttle put some frigging CNN satellite in orbit and just thinking “What are you guys doing? Where’s my Mars base you assholes?” The International Space Station? Why?

Ava:

Leif, nobody wants to live on Mars.

Leif:

I want to live on Mars.

Ava:

We’ve been there three times. You didn’t get off.

Leif:

I know.

Ava:

It’s like Nevada without Las Vegas.

Leif:

I know.

Ava:

And 300 below zero.

Leif:

I know, I know.

Ava:

Don’t armchair quarterback NASA, they have to deal with Congressmen from Tennessee who think the world was made six thousand years ago.

Leif:

I know.

Ava:

Have you ever watched a congressional hearing? It’s like watching Hee-Haw.

Leif:

Complaining about NASA is every engineers God given right. I had this guy on one of my design teams once. He was from Luxembourg. He lived in America for most of his life but his favorite thing to do was to complain about Luxembourg. I guess that’s me now.

Ava:

You’re really mad at Earth, aren’t you?

Leif:

Look, do you have any idea how frustrating NASA is to an engineer? They’re sitting on a mountain of cool designs that are never going to happen.

Ava:

Maybe it’s the Teds’ fault.

Leif:

No, sadly, the NASA mess is all us. We sent two Voyager satellites into the unknown with gold records on them. Earth’s greatest hits. Whale songs, kids, Blind Willie Johnson. That was supposed to be the opening act. “Here we come, cosmos.” We were supposed to move out into the stars. Now look at us. Now it’s just a bunch of billionaires launching themselves into low orbit saying “ wheeeeeeeeeeeee”… it kind of sucks being stuck in our native timeline. I have to check back in on Earth and get depressed.

Ava:

You didn’t have to check back in.

Leif:

Yeah I guess I didn’t.

Ava:

When did you leave?

Leif:

Earth? ‘94.

Ava:

Wow. You missed a few things.

Leif:

I kept in touch. That was a mistake.

Ava:

Wait you found dark matter, a lifelong achievement, when you were in your twenties?

Leif:

I got my masters degree at 19. What do you want me to do? Get a phd in engineering? Who does that?

Ava:

Leif you seem mad that you left E arth but also glad that you left Earth.

Leif:

It’s me.

Ava:

What is.

Leif:

It’s me. Earth is me. I am Earth.

Ava:

Wow, you really were raised by hippies.

Leif:

Tons of potential but decided to do this other thing instead. That’s Earth, that’s NASA, that’s me.

Ava:

Ah.

Leif:

Do you know what I mean?

Ava:

Yes. Leif you have, what I like to call, a mean case of the “I was never featured on an episode of Nova blues.”

Leif:

This isn’t about my ego.

Ava:

No, but it is about how you see yourself. Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself and maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on our home planet considering there’s a fascist galactic empire out there putting their thumb on the scale.

Leif:

The problem is, sometimes I can’t tell the difference. Sometimes I can’t tell if it’s Earth getting screwed or Earth screwing itself. And sometimes I can’t tell if I’m getting screwed or I’m screwing myself. I discover dark matter on Earth, nobody ever knew. Carl Sagan made a gold record and sent it out into the great beyond trying to talk to the rest of the universe. Then, after that? Crickets. I am Earth.

Ava:

Leif, do you honestly think Sagan was trying to reach alien races with this dying satellite of yours?

Leif:

What else was he trying to do?

Ava:

He made a disc of solid gold and he put on it everything good about humanity. He said “this is us, not anything else, the good stuff, that’s us.” He made it official. He wasn’t trying to talk to the stars, Leif. He was trying to talk to us. That’s all he was ever trying to do.

Leif:

Fine, Carl Sagan was great. I’m not. What?

Ava:

No I’m saying… where is it, hang on.

Rummaging through books and papers.

Leif:

Don’t give me some quote that’s going to change my life.

Ava:

No, actually it’s going to depress the shit out of you, hang on… Aha. Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Published in 1995, the year after you left Earth.

Pages flipping.

A Va:

Here we go: Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Leif:

Shit.

Ava:

This is what he was fighting against. His whole life. Carl Sagan, baddest motherfucker in the joint, failed. Everything in this passage came true. And you’re sitting there feeling sorry for yourself because you’ve done more and seen more than any engineer in the history of the world?… get it together, dude. You and I are more on the brink of constant discovery than anyone in the history of our world. The catch is, no one may ever know. And that’s okay. I don’t need people to know I’m right, Leif. I just need to be right. Long story short: be more like me. It’s great over here in this booth.

Leif:

I’ll consider it. Okay?

Ava:

Good. What’s some good news? I’m sure there was some.

Leif:

There is one.

Ava:

Let’s hear it.

Leif:

The James Webb Telescope.

Ava:

Really?

Leif:

They finally got it in orbit. It’s almost ready to go.

Ava:

Is there a “but” in there?

Leif:

Honestly, not really. It’s up, it’s working, pretty soon now we’ll be able to look deeper into the universe that we ever have. They’re saying we might be able to even see planets light years away, even see what their atmospheres are made up of.

Ava:

… We’re going to photobomb the shit out of that thing.

Leif:

Absolutely.

The end.