It’s the end of the world as we know it.
You know math is the map of science. When I was a boy I was fascinated by physics. There was so much there that seemed to get to the heart of the meaning of everything. I always thought if we could just the answers to the problems all would be understandable. My particular obsession came when I learned that our existence at one point in time was just the happenstance of probability. This point was just where we were most likely to be but that there was a slim chance we could be anywhere in the universe. Ok it was so incredibly thin as to be able to be discounted.
But I always wondered what would happen if we could change the equation and find out what it would take to increase the probability of something being somewhere else. The problem really is that the mass and energy that make up real things is just to dominant a factor for the other variables to really be a factor. It would take the changing of universal constants to be able to dictate where an object was likely to be.
Most people looked at this with some fascination but got down to using the real world consequences of matter tunneling into usable products. I could not. I mentioned I was obsessed right? What would it take to change a universal constant? The answer was unclear but as time went on others found that high energy environments could change the way the universe behaved. The four basic forces of the universe were found to be one force at extremely high energy levels. I wondered what would happen in even more exotic environments.
The best that I could figure out would that a significant change in just a few variables would result in a sudden instantaneous change over the entire universe shifting the likely location of everything to the universes geometric center.
The fuel of stars is nuclear fusion. Stars fuse the smallest atoms together into bigger ones eventually limiting somewhere around iron. Stars do not make enough energy to fuse heavy elements together and extremely heavy elements were not stable enough to last more than a fraction of a second. But I thought the amount of energy that would come from fusing heavy elements would produce enough energy to change the universal constants that were in my way.
That’s where my work ended. The heavy elements had the same short lives on Earth as everywhere else in the universe. Then a few years ago researchers found how to create stable fusion for power. Then they found that with the high energy conditions of fusion combined with intense magnetic fields could stabilize heavy elements for days. Usable quantities of Californium could be produced. Even more, heavier elements were made with new found atomic shells.
I managed to find a position on the Milken Team and gain access to these materials. I found that it was likely I could get these heavier elements to fuse if I could increase the magnetic field even more while maintaining the high energy conditions of the fusion reactor. This seemed an insurmountable problem but again the work of others provided a solution.
Now I know you’re thinking, “Why did I invite you over to dinner?” and “I didn’t realize how off the rocker he was.” Well, I’ve set up an experiment that should start automatically in the next few minutes. Either there will be a very large nuclear accident or the relocation of everything in the universe to one point. I admit that the consequences of my actions are unknown even to me. I don’t know if a new big bang will result. If the actions of people cause the continuing rebirth of the universe. My only defense is I was compelled to act as I have and if this were our last few moments I wanted to spend them with a good friend.
And then everything ended and then began.