Experiments in Gravity
and Time Distortion
storygravandtime.htm
A wee story I once wrote, but never published.
© by R. Fleischer
It was the second to last day of the Symposium. This was the day set aside for seven small seminars. But all of the seminar rooms were empty and dark, except for one; the seminar by Garfield and Lefkinson, entitled "Experiments in Gravity and Time Distortion."
The hall was packed to standing room only. Expectations were high, talk rampant. Dr. Garfield was often spoken of as THE Einstein of the century, his was a world-wide household name. It was Garfield who had put forth the now accepted General Theory of Gravity in 2205, proven in 2217, with experiments in anti-gravity following shortly thereafter. Anti-gravity devices were now the predominant power source in the world, in this year, 2241. Dr. Lefkinson, famous in his own right for showing, in 2220, that time and the speed of light were not always absolutes, had collaborated for some years with Dr. Garfield.
There was a small anti-grav power unit, and a laser apparatus, and some complicated looking electronic controls and a sophisticated computer, all on the table at the front of the room. Curiously, there were also two small square glass containers, one containing a living mouse, one containing a common hen's egg.
About 2 hours into the seminar, the simple appearing apparatus was energized, the egg and the mouse seemed to shimmer slightly, and then one began to simply fade out, as the other grew brighter and more distinct, and they oscillated, slowly, back and forth, smoothly, like a sine wave. The speaker's invited a member of the audience to touch the mouse or the eggs with a glass rod. This created a huge gasp from the packed audience, which was totally astonished to see the glass rod pass seemingly through, unimpeded, the mouse and then the egg, when they were at their dimmest.
The Doctor's admitted that they had only a theory, no proof, of why this was possible. The postulation, hardly accepted by many in the audience, was that the mouse and egg had their actual existence transformed, and at the dimmest, they were partly out of phase with reality and time that existed in that room, in that world, in that universe.
Dr. Lefkinson announced that they were constructing a much larger apparatus, capable of using human volunteers. The seminar ended.
Scarcely two months later, experiments with the human volunteers began. Nothing particularly unusual was noted, or reported, during these first experiments.....EXCEPT, that the two subjects reported that from THEIR standpoints, the OTHER seemed to fade in and out, and NOT them.
The Doctor's discussed the experiments at great length for two days, then they repeated the experiments, instructing the subjects to try to walk to and contact the other subject. The subjects tried, but from THEIR viewpoint, they never reached their counterpart, but from the Doctor's viewpoint, the subjects walked through each other. Discussions were off the wall following this. Comments went so far as to include such things as the Mobius Strips Paradox in time,,,,a hypothesis which had never been tested, as no one had figured a way to test for it.
The Doctor's made a joint decision to modify the apparatus such that the two subjects, through mirrors, could have their images focused at the same point.
The apparatus was fired up, and energized. At that instant, everything disappeared. There was NO earth, no Solar System, No Universe....nothing. Time and anti-time had cancelled each other. There was nothing, not even time itself.
Seemingly out of nothingness, out of the nothingness that was not material, not of time, came sub-atomic particles, followed, eventually by hydrogen gas, followed, eventually, by elements.
Time began. Gases cooled. Suns and planets and moons and primordial soup and life appeared.
Drs. Garfield and Lefkinson were born.