The Cosmic Ray Heresy Read online

  "Time is money," I said. "We save it, invest it, and budget it. Sometimes we spend too much time on frivolous things and we may all be living on borrowed time. Money is a metaphor for time. Time is also relative. This is not a metaphor. This is a fact."

  For a week we had been studying Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. One of the simplest physical theories mathematically it is one of the most difficult to understand. It says some very weird things about space and time. I clicked on my PowerPoint presentation and the equations for the Lorentz Transformation filled the large screen at the front of the room. In the next slide I directed my laser pointer at the relativistic equation for time variance.

  "Let's look at a possible consequence of the relativity of time." Another click and we had a slide with two cartoon characters standing beside a spaceship ready for launch.

  "Let me read the caption. The type's a little small. The younger guy with the wild hair, let's call him Albert, says to the older guy, 'Goodbye, Dad. Have a good trip.' The older guy says, 'Thanks son. See you in about 10 years by my clocks'."

  Click. In the next slide the ship was pictured heading for a distant star, circling it, and heading back to earth. A speedometer visible through the ship's porthole read, ".99c" or 99% the speed of light.

  "I want you to calculate the time as measured by the son's clocks on the earth for this trip and compare it to the ten years recorded by the dad's spaceship clock. I'll give you five minutes."

  I heard a few groans and some mumbling. I should be entertaining them, not making them work. While the students got busy with their calculators I sat, took the CDF envelope from my briefcase, and fished out the photos. There was one of me and my sister, Colleen, on the beach last summer in Ocean City New Jersey, one of me, Olivia, Vicki, and Joey, at a playground in Fairmount Park, one of me and Vicki making hoagies at the parish fair, and lastly, the one showing the four of us sitting at a picnic table at the Philadelphia Zoo; the original photo not the altered version with the bomb. There was a paper plate with cupcakes on the table. My mother took the one at the beach and the school Principal took the one at the parish fair. Both were on my hard drive. I had no idea who took the playground and zoo pictures or how any of them wound up in the hands of the CDF.

  I saw the first hand go up.

  "Doctor Donnelly?"

  "Okay," I said putting the photos back in my briefcase. "Hold on to your answer for a sec, Anna."

  I stood and clicked. The final slide showed the spaceship landed on earth and the occupant leaping out holding a tennis racket. He is greeted by a man with a long beard leaning on a cane. The caption under the old man read, "Welcome back, Dad, long time no see." About a third of the class grabbed their calculators to correct an error.

  "The trip took ten years as measured by the dad's clocks on the space ship. Now, Anna, what did you get for the time as measured by the son's clocks on earth?"

  "I got seventy-one years. That would make the son older than the father. If the son was, say, twenty at takeoff and the father forty, the father would now be fifty and the son ninety-one. That's weird. I know that's what the math says but I don't know if I should trust it."

  "Well, your answer is correct. As for trusting it, do you have a GPS navigation system in your car?"

  "I don't have a car."

  "Okay. does anyone here have a car with a GPS system?"

  A few hands went up.

  "Keep those hands up. OK, we have three people here, four including me, that fully believe in the theory of relativity. That little GPS receiver on the dashboard is communicating with satellites that are whizzing around the earth. Both the satellites and the receiver in your car have internal clocks and those clocks must run at the same rate for the system to accurately locate your car. Problem one."

  I clicked and the next slide was a drawing of satellites orbiting the earth.

  "Because of their speed the clocks in the satellites are running slower than the clock in the receiver, just as the special theory of relativity predicts. Problem two."

  I clicked again. This slide showed the earth and two clocks; one far from the earth and the other on the earth's surface.

  "Here's something we haven't studied yet. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that clocks closer to a large mass, like the earth, run slower than clocks farther away. Because of this effect the clock in the receiver on the dash runs slower than the ones in the satellites. (Click. A clock with legs is running to catch up with a faster clock. A few chuckles from my audience.) When you take both effects into account the earth clocks lose 38 millionths of a second each day compared to the satellite clocks. That's not much but if it's not corrected the clocks get out of sync and the system would quickly lose the ability to pinpoint the location of your car. When the friendly voice tells you 'turn left into PACom Parking lot' (Click. A car is shown headed the wrong way on a one-way street) you might find yourself headed East on the Schuylkill Expressway West. But the clocks are in sync (Click. Two clocks are holding hands and smiling).

  "You can trust the accuracy of your GPS system because the engineers who designed it believed firmly in relativity and have adjusted the clocks so that they stay together. Time is not money. It's not a thing. It can be different for different observers moving with respect to one another and if that violates common sense, then what?"

  Anna smiled. "Chuck common sense?"

  "Right, at least with our notions of time. Einstein said he had to abandon common sense to get anywhere with relativity theory, but?"

  I paused and clicked on my last slide. It was a group photograph of physicists at a conference early in the last century. Einstein was sitting dressed in a suit and tie. I aimed my laser pointer at his shoes and his bare ankles. He had forgotten to wear socks.

  "But, you may not want to go as far as Einstein did." I raised my voice above the laughter. "I told you we were going to have fun this semester. Wait till we get to Quantum Mechanics."

  No need for a bell. The clatter of forty physics, chemistry, and math majors packing up to leave signaled the end of class,

  "I'll see about half of you in lab this afternoon. Lab reports are due. Will somebody please wake up Mr. Ortaldo in the back row?"

  I let Ortaldo sleep. He loads trucks all night at the UPS depot out in West Chester. Besides he got A's on the first two quizzes. I should encourage more sleeping.

  CHAPTER 9-JOE'S VISIT

  Back in my office I took another crack at finishing the coffee and checked my new emails, deleting most, marking some as spam, and saving the important ones. The most interesting one was sent from a parishioner at St. Elizabeth's- apparently the woman I had seen taking pictures of the church. She said I might be interested in a souvenir of Sunday's shootout. Attached was a short video. I was very interested and ran it again and again.

  "Playing video games again, Frank."

  Joe Amanti's two hundred-fifty pound bulk filled my doorway

  "Not a game, Joe. Did you hear about the excitement at St. Elizabeth's yesterday?"

  "Sure did. I came down to ask you what happened."

  "Come on in and I'll show you what happened.. One of my parishioners sent me a video clip taken on her cell phone. Pull that chair over."

  I turned the computer monitor so that Joe could see the screen and clicked on the attachment to the email."

  "Tell me what I'm seeing."

  "That's the side of the church near the statue. The woman who took would be standing at the bottom of the church steps."

  As the camera panned left the grotto came into view.

  "Is that you on the steps?"

  "Me with a young man who had just returned from Afghanistan. Here it comes. Listen."

  "Holy smoke. Shots?"

  The picture jiggled before the screen went blank.

  "Only one shot, and echoes, and that sharp sound like the crack of a whip that you hear right before the bang."

  I ran it again

 
; "Rifle shot," Joe said. "The whip-like sound is a sonic boom from a bullet travelling faster than sound."

  "The soldier thought it was a rifle too."

  "And the bullet hit the statue?"

  "Went right though the heart and out the back. A temporary replacement. Plastic. The police sighted through the holes and think the shot came from an opened window across the street. The cop I talked to thought it could have been some kids with a twenty-two who have been shooting at tombstones and statues in Laurel Hill cemetery at night. They recovered the mangled bullet and will compare it to the ones found in the cemetery."

  I ran it again.

  "Snap- bang-echoes," Joe said. "Let me hear it again. How far to the window?"

  "Maybe thirty yards."

  I ran it again.

  "Doesn't seem right," Joe said.

  "What doesn't?'

  "The time between the snap and the bang. It seems too long. At thirty yards it should be less than a tenth of a second. Tell you what. Forward that email to me and when I get time this afternoon I'll analyze it in my electronics' lab."

  I clicked on "forward", brought up Joe's email address, and hit "send".

  "Done. Thanks Joe."

  "No problem."

  CHAPTER 10-OLIVIA'S TEA PARTY

  When Joe left I went to the laboratory down the hall to check the equipment for my two o'clock lab. Two of the six groups would use the Millikan Oil Drop apparatus to measure the charge on electrons, two would use spectrometers to study the spectra of hydrogen and helium gases, and two would study cosmic rays. The oil drop apparatus was ready to go. I put a crown glass prism and hydrogen and helium discharge tubes on each of the tables with the spectrometers. The small aquariums we use for the cosmic ray experiments went on the two empty tables. Beside each I placed a felt-covered board, a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a digital camera, a light source, and an electromagnet. I measured the length and width of the bottom of the aquariums and called Charlie Hanson in the chemical supply room and ordered two eight by twelve- inch slabs of dry ice that I would pick up later. I locked the cabinets, turned off the lights, and headed for The Pig.

  At the salad bar I filled a Styrofoam container to take to Olivia's eleven-thirty "tea party"; quinoa with raw carrot, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, celery stick, and a generous scoop of hummus. Set a good example. At my first tea party I got a decidedly cool reception from the Organic Only/Whole Foods crowd when I showed up with a burger and fries. You would think I brought a jug of Thunderbird to an AA meeting. I tossed a bag of chips-baked not fried-onto my tray, paid, and put a plastic knife and fork and a couple of napkins in the pocket of my corduroy sport coat. I headed for Munchkin House

  Olivia had set out napkins and paper cups on a small table. Her friends Jason and Michelle sat with us.

  "What's that, Livy?"

  "Pickle slices."

  "Can I have one?"

  "Eew! It's Sour."

  Mrs. Bertino, one of the teachers, was circulating with a plastic pitcher.

  "Would you like some lemonade, Doctor Donnelly?"

  "I didn't know your daddy was a doctor."

  "He's not a real doctor, Jason. He doesn't help anybody. He's a h'retical fizz-sist."

  "She means theoretical physicist, Jason," I said and wondered if the CDF would prefer my description or Olivia's.

  "Do you stick people with needles?" Michelle asked.

  "Never."

  "He just scribbles on paper. Don't you Daddy?"

  "Sometimes, sweetheart."

  "My daddy caught a shark," Jason said.

  "They can eat you up."

  "My daddy killed it before it could eat him. He hit it on the head."

  Olivia topped that with, "I petted a shark at the Please Touch Museum."

  Fifteen more minutes of this talk therapy helped clear my head of thoughts of rifle shots and the CDF. We sang the clean up song and marched our paper plates and cups over to the Trash Monster and tossed them into his open mouth. We could use a Trash Monster in the faculty dining room.

  On the way back from Munchkin House I stopped in the Newman Center which housed the Catholic campus ministry and went in the chapel. Occasionally I help out the chaplain, Tim Boyle, and say Mass or hear confessions. I could use a little help myself and this was a good place to ask for it.

  John Newman was a nineteenth century Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and eventually was elevated to Cardinal. I felt close to him. I had no desire to be a cardinal but I did wish to remain a priest.

  I knelt at the altar and prayed. I asked God to bless my mother, Olivia, Joey and Vicki. I prayed for Connie. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through your mercy, rest in peace. I thanked God for bringing me Vicki in the midst of my sorrow. If it be your will Lord, show me the way.

  On the way out of the chapel I nodded to a student sitting in the back and stopped to browse in the small library off the chapel. The student followed me in.

  "Doctor Donnelly?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you have a minute?"

  "Sure. What can I do for you?"

  "I'm in Dr. Amanti's physics class and we're having a big test tomorrow."

  "Dr. Amanti gives challenging exams," I said. "Were you soliciting divine help?"

  He laughed. "Something like that. I need it. I'm confused about kinetic energy, potential energy, work; all that stuff. I don't think I really know what energy actually is."

  "I'll tell you a little secret. Neither do physicists, but we know what it can do, and how to calculate it and keep track of it. What's your name?"

  "Kevin McCoy."

  "Sit down Kevin. Let's see if we can get you ready for whatever Dr. Amanti throws at you tomorrow."

  I took meeting up with Kevin just when he needed help as a sign that God was listening to people in that chapel. I hoped he listened to me.

  CHAPTER 11-MARTHA'S VISIT

  In my office I settled in to tackle a problem that had been bugging me for days. An hour later I was still frustrated and decided to switch from mathematical physics to religion. I googled "Code of Canon Law", came up with the Vatican web site, and scrolled down to the section titled, "The Obligations and Rights of Clerics". Canon 277 concerned celibacy and the second paragraph read: "Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful."

  Observe continence-they weren't talking about bladder control- is a fancy way of saying, "stay away from women". Stay away from half the human race. Stay away from Vicki Meyers.

  "Got a minute, Frank?"

  Martha Greenberg poked her head in the door.

  "I looked at the clock. "How about ten?"

  "More than enough. This is the agenda for Thursday morning's Faculty Senate meeting," she said plopping a folder onto my desk and her ample self into the chair in front of my desk.

  "I hope you're as opposed to this plan to grant credit for 'life experiences' as I am. Next thing you know we'll be giving credit for breathing. The other item up for debate is the proposal to close Munchkin House. Do you know what private day care could run us?"

  Martha was the resident atheist in the psychology department and despite our theological differences we were good friends. She was one of the few persons with whom I could seriously discuss religion. Like many atheists she was more knowledgeable about the faith than many believers. "Gotta know your opponents, Frank."

  After Connie died Martha was determined to fix me up with one of her graduate students, despite my collar. "You can't be in mourning forever," she had said. "It's unnatural for a handsome red-headed Irishman your age to be alone. Surely it can't be against their silly rules to share a pizza or a movie. Celibacy is a commitment not to marry. It says nothing about being a little friendly."

  Rachel Townsend, a Clinical Psych grad student, was one of her projects. We did see a few movies and share pizzas but Rachel's idea of
"a little friendly" differed from mine.

  "I like your taste in sweaters," Martha said eying the windowsill behind me. "Pink becomes you."

  "It's Vicki's. She forgot it."

  "Toss it to me. I can't stand seeing it rolled up in a ball like that. By the way, how are things going with you two? Any word yet from the puppet masters in Rome?" she said nodding at the manila envelope with the pretty stamps on my desk.

  "Nothing yet. It takes a while. We're hoping for the best."

  "Uh huh. Why not a 'fait accompli' while they drag their feet? Get married and let them react."

  "I know how they would. I'd be excommunicated."

  "Black balled at the country club."

  "So to speak."

  "Join another club."

  "I like the one I'm in. I like the membership. I like the course I play on even with all its water hazards and sand traps. I just don't like the club's rules and regulations committee. Besides, Vicki doesn't want us to do it that way. She doesn't want to feel I had to trade the priesthood for her."

  "Would you?"

  "What?"

  "Trade."

  "I'm hoping it won't come to that."

  Martha stood up and gave me back the sweater neatly folded.

  "Cashmere Mist," she said.

  "What?"

  "The perfume on the sweater. It's Donna Karan- Cashmere Mist. Keep plugging, Frank, and you'll eventually score a birdie."

  "I need a hole-in-one."

  "Gotta go. I have a two o'clock seminar on Freud."

  "I thought his theories were pretty much discredited."

  Martha turned at the door. "Keep it quiet, Frank. I need the job."

  CHAPTER 12-COSMIC RAYS

  Ten minutes before the students arrived for lab I took the slabs of dry ice from the cooler and placed them in two shallow trays to keep them from sliding around. I saturated the felt-covered boards with isopropyl alcohol and put the boards on the open tops of the tanks. I then sat each of the aquariums on a dry ice slab. Lastly, I positioned the light sources to direct bright beams through the aquariums. What I had were two cheap, but effective, diffusion cloud chambers.

  The earth is constantly bombarded with subatomic particles from space; mainly protons which bump into air molecules and produce showers of other particles- electrons, pi-mesons, mu-mesons-a veritable zoo of particles. Collectively they are known as cosmic rays. The particles themselves can't be seen but when they pass through cooled alcohol vapor they leave trails along their paths, similar to the vapor trails left by jet airplanes in the atmosphere. Some tracks are straight. Some are jagged. Some look like the letters V or Y. When a magnetic field is brought close to the chambers the tracks formed by electrically charged particles curve.