Strings 2011 Conference, San Francisco.
There was a hush from the packed audience of world-renowned scientists, distinguished guests, journalists and TV reporters when the man in the elegant Armani dark suit stepped behind the podium. The three days of the latest convention of top physicists from around the world had come to an end and they were all waiting for this moment. Richard Greene, the smartest man on Earth as Time Magazine put it, was scheduled to take questions from the press. At 35, Greene had already been compared to the greatest physicists who had ever lived. He had been instrumental to the latest theoretical advances in physics and was among the few physicists capable of handling the phenomenally complex mathematics of string theory. Greene had already won the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize—prizes that are only awarded to great mathematicians—and rumours had it that the Nobel Committee was seriously considering him for their next laureate in Physics for his on-going works on the tentative reunification of general relativity and quantum physics, a theory that would finally explain and link together all known physical phenomena and predict the outcome of any experiment. The Theory Of Everything.
Before he had time to acknowledge his illustrous audience, a hand shot up from among the crowd.
– “Tim Welder for the Scientific American. Prof. Greene, what do you think of Leonard Susskind’s latest theory about the Cosmic Landscape, a theory that suggests that there’s an infinite number of universes where anything that is not forbidden must happen? Doesn’t it sound a little bit preposterous and how do you answer to the anti-string community claim that string theorists don’t make predictions but only excuses?”
A murmur of amusement ran through the assembly. Greene smiled and leaned closer to the microphones. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. This great line from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sums up my esteemed colleague’s conclusion. Leonard did not come up with that claim to make an ‘excuse’ for the shortcomings of string theory. He came to that conclusion because the theory dictates it. Like Max Planck with light quanta or Paul Dirac with the positron, he came to that conclusion because the mathematical equations demand it.”
– “Sandy McGowan for The New-York Times. Dr. Greene. First we have the strings, then the branes, then extra dimensions followed by cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy, Higgs particle, alternate universes, parallel universes and honestly, when we hear physicists say that the Moon isn’t there when nobody looks at it, the whole thing just sounds plain crazy.”
Greene turned to look at the beautiful reporter in her tight blue dress. “Miss McGowan, before I answer your question, allow me a small digression. You’ve called me ‘Doctor’ and I thank you for that although a more appropriate form would be ‘Professor’. I’m pretty sure you’re well aware that the title ‘Professor’ is the highest academic ranking one can hold, and so yes, it is a lot harder than becoming a Doctor with a Ph.D. Now to your question. Yes, I admit that these notions seem crazy but allow me to quote Niels Bohr on this: We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.”
– “Peter Higgins, London Times. Professor Greene. What do you make of the gravitational field surges recently detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in both Washington and Louisiana and alleged to be coming from South Africa? Could it be a gravitational wave?”
Greene took a moment to compose himself. “No, Mr. Higgins, It is not possible for a gravitational wave to be originating from Earth. Predicted by Albert Einstein to exist on the basis of general relativity, a gravitational wave is a fluctuation in the curvature of spacetime—a mathematical anomaly. The only known sources for gravitational waves are at present binary stars and black holes. I would have simply to surmise that whatever LIGO had detected was a false positive.”
– “But, what if it were one?” asked one of the TV reporters.
Greene slowly shook his head. “If it were one, it would mean that a probability wave function from a parallel universe had tunnelled and collapsed within our universe. The chance of it happening is the same of you walking through a wall. It is highly improbable but quantum theory does not forbid it.”
– “So it could be a live Schrodinger’s cat that had just appeared out of thin air somewhere in South Africa while the dead one remains on the other side?” shouted someone from the crowd as a joke causing an uproar of laughters.
– “No. You’re mistaken alternate for parallel universe. You see, an alternate universe would be exactly like ours with the same laws of physics but different for a single quantum event. A parallel universe, on the other hand, is a universe with a completely different set of physical laws. It might be conducive to life as we know it or not and if there’s life, then the laws of physics in our universe might affect it differently. It might not be able to survive in our environment or it might be able to do things we consider impossible.”
– “Jeff Bloomfeld, Washington Post. So your next visit to South Africa has nothing to do with these incidents?”
– “No. As you know, South Africa is right now undergoing a tremendous national effort to fill the vast gap between their researchers and the international community of scientists in theoretical physics since the end of apartheid. I’ve accepted the South African Institute of Physics invitation to advise their newly built facility in Johannesburg on the directions of research to take in string theory.”
