BODY TIP "._ UVlfJG CLOCKS THAT MAKE US TICK C FA! ' R-THAN-L!GHT SPACE PHONES KREEiBASING PERUVIAN STYLE RhLlCS ftiUm THE DAWN OF TIME ALIEN ANIMALS & PSYCHIC POWER FOR HIRE onnrui VOL. 6 NO. 12 SEPTEMBER 19

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON

::-Xr;iM:v!-: I ~- TT " GURNFv vVli ...Av- n GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR: PAUL HILTS

CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Gurney Williams III 6

OMNIBUS Contributors 8

COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 12

FORUM Dialogue 14

"LIFE Biomedicine Daniel Kagan 18 PSYCHIC POWER FOR HIRE Mind Daniel Kagan 20

THE BODY Health Joel Davis 22 BREAKTHROUGHS Technology Phoebe Hoban 26 BOOKS The Arls Michael Bishop 30 EXPLORATIONS Travel Paul Raeburn 32 STARS Astronomy Robert Freitas, Jr. 34

AR7IFCIAL INTELLIGENCE Computers Paul Hilts 36 FREEBASING PERUVIAN STYLE Continuum 39

CLOCKS THAT MAKE US RUN Article Len Hilts 48 ArTEP THE CH NA SYNDROM: Article Paul Bagne 56

ADAGIO Fiction Barry B. Longyear 64

CHANCE AND DESIGN Pictorial Pierre Cordier 72 RELICS FROM THE DAWN Interview: John Gliedman 80 OF TIME Bias Cabrera EINSTEIN'S SANCTUM Article Edward Regis. Jr. 88 ALIEN ANIMALS Pictorial Pat Ortega 94

SPACE PHONES Article Charts Sheffield 102

TOOTH FAIRY- Fiction Carol Carr 106

ANTIMATTER UFOs, etc. 111

QUIRKY QUARTZ Phenomena Manfred Kage 148

GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 152

LAST WORD Humot Mike Wilkins 154

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People who want to understand ' science' dern science. '' should turn to Ibe story of Gilgamesh, The astronaut moves into capture the. a legendary king whose adventures were r*- *f i tfrui! to slashed into ciay at least 3,000. years- .''-., grasp-. Low on fuel, ne :s forced- id go ' before. Ghrist The ' oid epic. provides. art . home --inth"!s case to a welcoming : space instruct L =nq the ?ate^t . shuttle---empty-handed. It really happened scientific expeditions, from adventures in . last "pr Many ssif remember the'brave- space fo the forays '" or social scientists- but unsuccessful -attempt by astronaut irying to decode the mysteries of ' love George Nelson more vividly than they will

. To T=t I fear m t h recall the/actual capture, when a robot arm' an arrogant womanizer am heii-raiser, plucked the satellite from space.'.- '.-'"-.'' '.'jangled warning ceils in the tvlesopotajnian .' . .'.There-are other examples of how-science-' city of Uruk. But the king not was just an . sometimes marches wrong For example. insensitive fwam: he was also a skilled social scientists . in tne Seventies wanted to mason who built burnt-brick walls, a great- tost the' hypothesis thai to attract someone, rampart, and a magnificent temple. it pays to play hard-to-get. Five times... '; des! 'hey-.ran studies id-confirm the old folk narrative we Know,- the story also contains -.'wisdom:- Five times, they •lopped. Finally, some of the elements of a modern potboiler. they stumbled onto a hypothesis thai

In one funny and- pit :".' worked: Playing easy-Ac~g& enhances' -' ': asks Gilgamesh to many her. The . king attractiveness, particularly r \oi: have a doesn'l ' just refuse. Ho calls her "leaky ; a reputation : for' being' hard-to-get. In other-' ?',:.v -.words,, it, pays to play hard-lc-get with' 7 engine of assault/ For telling these truths; everyone except the person you wan tier

Gilgamesh is ' ' FIRST . punished by Ihe-oeathcf get-got by The scientists' major contribution

his best friend. The resulting ' grief spurs- him arose from failure. We lea! ned something on to undertake a' dangerous "' . -quest 1Q.-.- when, fhey were unable to confirm- an find ' UUDRD out everything there is to know about -'V:- ancientmyihabQut-iove. . ;;i- ; .

life ':'' ' and death. In a tradition iater described Finally, most, gyGurney Williams II! and important, the Gilgamesh.'

. m the epics of-Homer and Virgil --and. storyhas a rough-hewn finish His adven- practiced symbolically by modern •iGood scientists scien-'. tures are written- in-'stone. but answers- tists— Gilgamesh goes on long a journey about life and death are not. Despite the' .';' don't begin with His goal Is to lino ;: certainty, a man named utnaplshtim,' modern myth that researchers can solve any' :! iheonly human granted eve-iast;ng. life.- . -problem, .modern science no matter how : seems to beget But when tne king finally arrives. at riddles- . more than solutions. Many ot the confident they must appear ' UtnapishtifTi's realm, he ':'•' Ms asleep.- best researchproiecis generate results that on grant applications.^ exhausted, unable to learn the secret of in/turn create more challenging questions; -I existence. As a consolation prize, Uinap- A\ -he beginning of his elegant book ,'.-.' ;.:.;' Ishtim. informs Gilgamesh of a mysterious':" 7ho Discoverers, noted historian Danlol J. "' uncerwater plant thai restores youih \o ': men. .But almost as soon as Gilgamesh tings the',historyof'sc!ence: I "This!s a story a plant, -. such aserpent steals it-from ..' his without end. All the world is siii! an America. grasp. So the king returns to iJruk, writes his The-.most- promising words ever written ''>.j-k

' memoirs in stone, lies down like a'hocked' on' the. : maps of human knowledge are terra-. 'i t fish," and dies.., incognita- unknown -territory." /"

' How :; does this strange ': story relate to-. These stories : .'bear repeating because . ' science' First. Pike the works ot : scientists; some pragmaiists today want to rewrite'-/;;

; might have said, "I don't - " ';' set ou! to prove V' : touchdown in Ijruft with enough miracle'. I

: anything. I simply -":--''- pose questions. 1 accept plan; to reverse,-,as.if by magic, the : whatever answer em\ physical ravages of aging. They want htm- ' ". : on the answer, i then ask another to explain all

' question." The ' '; '' person who actually said "When Gilgamesh returned home, "they those words, to an Omni interviewer, was .want the story to conclude, "he went on Jonas Salk, whose . research led to the. a twelve-city. tour to -promote tbepanacea. discovery o! the pollQ vaccine.' ,V Good There, wasthen no more to be'knowri or.' sefenttsts'don'i begin with eorfalnty.nc . fdtd.noneedTor Homer. The king's- reputa- -. matter how confident ' they must apoear on tlon spread througncu 1 t-'frcvonastingly granf applications. Small world: Gilgamesh.. tne man who put Second, once the quest is. under way,' -I'. ahend. to risky quests Finally, the king Gilgamesh makes mistakes and eventually mqve'dtoa-sijbu.rbof Urukandns.eb.his ' fails asleep at the critical moment:'. And.. sklif as a mason tc build the world's largest today, 300 miles above Earth, lone a astro- backyard barbecue pit. "DO naur hies to grapple wiih a giant as .elusive

'' '.''', as Utnapishii.ms'. secret. Its, huge- energy Ou/rwy Williams Hi. !h? executive Sditc: of . ':: .;...:„. ' ' ' ,! . .. '!! .. dociibri, published by McG'aw-HUi: .

MIRIBU annruii

is sub|ect to the beat of retreat, and it Humanity has been home to most of at Three Mile Island, an army of workers is different drums— biological the superstars of twentieth-century science, preparing to clean up the rubble inside timekeepers that impose a rhythm 14 Nobel Prize-winners among them. To the reactor. A job like fhis has never been on our lives. And in "Clocks That Make find ouf more about the residents of this done before, and it poses unusual risks Us Run" (page 48), author Len Hilts reveals intellectual cloister and how their surround- to the thousands of men—each working that these mechanisms have a greater ings enhance their scientific creativity, very short shifts —who, with help from impact on our lives than anyone had Omni contributor Edward Regis, Jr. paid robots, , will have to remove the mangled imagined. They're capable of influencing several visits to the institute. The result fuel rods from the facility. In "After the China our moods, job performance, mental (page 88) is "Einstein's Sanctum," an in- Syndrome" (page 56), freelance science aptitude, and sexual prowess. Chronobiol- depth look at genius at work, featuring writer Paul Bagne takes readers into the ogists believe that understanding these interviews with such institute stalwarts as reactor building where suited workers, like pacesetters will afford us greater control over theoretical physicist Stephen Wolfram, who astronauts on a distant planet, labor under our mental and physical health. For has been called the new Einstein. the watchful eye of a mission-control center. example, studies suggesr that in some theories Often suggest surprising possi- "For its time, nuclear power was cases depression may result from foul-ups bilities that take can us beyond our present awesome," says Bagne. "It seemed we had in body clocks. Furthermore, recent investi- boundaries of thought and experience. tapped into the ultimate source of energy. gations indicate that the effects of some Suppose, for instance, that you were asked But we lost control of it. Now we have to drugs can vary, depending on when they're to send to the stars —possibly to extrater- return the genie to its bottle —for a price." taken. "Today." Hilts says, "we're on the restrial civilizations— a signal that could Bagne has written about nucfear and verge of payoffs that could help us lose be picked up and interpreted light-years renewable energy for Mother Jones, The weight, fight disease more effectively, and from Earth. How would you do ft? In "Space San Francisco Chronicle, and The Los handle shift work more efficiently." Phones," on page 102, Charles She/field, Angeles Times syndicate. Science isn't all test tubes and particle vice presideni of EarthSat. speculates In "Adagio" (page 64). this month's first accelerators, and not every scientist does that future communicators may use fiction offering, Barry B. Longyear presents his work in a laboratory. Some of the most tachyons — particles that may exist only in a psychological drama about five people profound insights have come from scientists theory—as carriers of interstellar marooned on a strange planet—with little working quietly in their rooms, with nothing messages. Tachyons appear to be the best hope of escape. Longyear, who has wriften but pencil and paper. At the Institute for candidates because they move faster six novels and numerous short stories, is Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, than the speed of light. Sheffield says. "More the only science-fiction writer to have this is what scientists Founding do. director and more, we are exploring the universe, won the Nebula, the Hugo, and the John Abraham Flexner declared the institute particles using and radiation invisible Campbell awards. A collection of his work, was to be "a haven where scholars and to human senses. There is a vast area of entitled It Came From Schenectady, will scientists may regard the world and its new territory awaiting exploration." be published this fall by Blue Jay Press. And phenomena as-their laboratory without being To solve a problem of a different sort, in "Tooth Fairy," on page 106, Carol Carr ' carried off in the maelstrom of the immedi- scientists here on Earth are using all their describes a. bizarre encounter between an ate." This is exactly what [he place has ingenuity to salvage a crippled nuclear- obsessive young woman and her bewil- become. This was Einstein's intellectual power plant. Five years after the accident dered, hapless psychiatrist. DO e omni Hitachi s visual-tactile robot can Nearly two decades ago, Hitachi began turning arms and seven camera eyes, developed to handle objects as fragile as eggs. common science fiction into startling industrial independently assemble home appliances such because its sensors detect size, fact. The device: The company's first servo- as vacuum cleaners. shape and required pressure to manipulator, a key component in the develop- attain sensitivity almost equal to The best ot worlds is yet to come ment of real robots to eliminate the monotony, that ol a human hand. danger and dirty work of manufacturing. Our vision of the future includes robots with artificial intelligence that will learn from their Your mechanical right-hand man own experiences. Personal robots that will take Today, the results of Hitachi research are in the drudgery out of household chores. And

use all around you. Robot welders using micro- much, much more. computers and built-in sensors to detect weld We'd like you to share in the beneiits of lines automatically. -Spray- painting robots ca- our scientific research, covering the next gener- pable of remembering up to 2,000 instructions ation of lasers, sensors and other electronic and performing 99 different painting tasks. devices. For improved business efficiency. Robots on wheels for transporting parts and For a higher quality of life. Two goals we've warehouse stock. pursued for 74 years as part of our commit- In fact, we are constantly coming up with ment to a better world through electronics. innovations and' new applications. One of the latest: A visual-tactile sensing robot with multiple

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Alternative | Weaponry first, the chicken or the egg, the fact

I as was distraught and dismayed by remains that they exist simultaneously, Barry Last's letter in Communications and one generates the other. [April 1984] as he was by "the concept of Such space missions as the Soyuz- laser warfare in space." Apollo link once held the promise of Far from threatening to cause the defusing the cold war. It is sad that today's "demise of all mankind," space weapons space missions fuel it. offer the best hope for preventing a Paul Hoffmann nuclear war. They provide an alternative Troy, NY to illusory arms-control and arms-reduc- tion treaties, which, historically, have Rancher's Beef always failed to prevent war. And they Having just read Roger Revelle's interview decrease our dependence on a strategy [March 1984], I am thoroughly outraged of deterrence through nuclear retaliation. at his blanket condemnation of ranchers Such space-based antiballistic-missile whose cattle graze on public lands. [ABM] defense devices as the kinetic- We are cattle ranchers and have been energy weapons of Lieutenant General for five generations on 36 sections

' Daniel Graham's Project High Frontier and (roughly 21,000 acres). Our ancestors the particle-beam weapons advocated settled these lands in pioneer days during by Professor Gregory Benford ["Zeus the 1870s and 1880s. in Orbit," September 1981] could not We consider ourselves stewards of penetrate the atmosphere. So they could these lands and have carefully managed not be used offensively against any our herds through the years to best nation on Earth. At worst, they could attack maintain the status of our production. other spacecraft, but we already have We have federal and state grazing to live with killer satellites deployed by the leases as well as private lands in our Soviets, anyway. allotment, and we have not gotten rich It reaily is not such a contradiction, quickly— or even slowly—while conducting then, for a right-to-lifer like Phyllis Schlafly our business. to support space-based ABMs. As We are constantly monitored by the Robert Heinlein noted, "High Frontier is Bureau of Land Management and other as nonaggressive as a bulletproof vest. agencies, and we found out years ago There is no way to kill anyone with High that if you take care of the land, it will take Frontier— all that High Frontier can do is care of you.

prevent killing. It is so utterly peaceful If Revelle wants to find the real villain, that the most devout pacifist can why not investigate the big oil companies support it with a clear conscience." who have oil and gas leases on these The real contradiction in all of this is lands? They come in, build roads, drill that the liberals who oppose the policy of locations, pollute and sear the landscape, nuclear deterrence also the oppose and then drive off and leave it to the only realistic alternative. ranchers to try to patch up the mess as Tom Crunkleton best they can. Atlanta We are raising our grandchildren on this ranch, and we hope they will continue Once-Peaceful Space to respect the land in the same way as I found James E. Oberg's article "Critical we have. I know of no cattle ranchers in Cosmonauts" [Space, April 1984] very this or any other area in our state who intriguing. Despite the semantics of Soviet deserve Revelle's attack, and I think he propaganda, it seems apparent that has about as much business writing the USSR has a killer-satellite program, an article about cattle ranching as I do and the Pentagon has a $500 million writing about oceanography. weapons-in-space program. Patricia Lyman While people argue about which came Carlsbad, NMDQ DIALOGUE FDRUfUl

Omni we/comes speculation, theories, Forum editor Leslie Epstein responds: Bad Blood commentary, dissent, and questions from The effects of methyipherr-date hydro- In Marc McCutcheon's article "Criminal readers in this forum. open We invite chloride, or Ritalin, are currently under Genes" [Continuum, March 1984], he you to use this column to voice your hopes investigation at the Kalamazoo Child states that "bad genes" can be passed about the future to and contribute to Guidance Clinic, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. from criminal parents to their children the kind of informal dialogue that Gener- CIBA-GEIGY does indeedseem to be and thai these genes cause (or can cause) ates breakthroughs. Please note that interested in the effects of this drug, but criminal activity in these children. It is we cannot return submissions and that the research is not as yet completed. much more likely that this propensity for the opinions expressed here are not Ritalin is being tested on children who criminal action is caused by the overall necessarily those of the. magazine. suffer from minimal brain dysfunction perception and influence of the criminal to see whether it affects their verbal parents rather than by bad genes. Stuttering Cure? productivity. Children who suffer from If we believe that criminal behavior is What happened to me is balding. For hyperactivity, distractibility, or hyperirrita- innate, we must then believe that a person years I had been socially impaired by a bility often find it difficult to communicate has no choice but to accept his or her severe stuttering disorder, which also verbally. When taken with other drugs. criminal activities. We know that this took a heavy emotional toll. Ritalin does seem to alleviate some is not true. If it were, it would be impossible In April 1983, it became apparent thai I of the symptoms in hyperkinetic children. for criminals to reform. suffered from the sleep disorder But research and results are varied. Certainly, some chemical imbalances narcolepsy (unrelated to stuttering). Psychiatrists- my have noted an increase in can cause spotty criminality, but to Iry to My physician prescribed the sympatho- verbalization skills with continued use of apply this theory to the whole range of mimetic-amine Ritalin, a methylphenidate the drug, but there are adverse side criminal behavior is ridiculous. hydrochloride marketed in this country effects to consider, such as addiction Dan Oakley by the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation. and, in some cases, psychotic episodes. Charleston. IL This medication proved highly effective The use of Ritalin to correct stuttering against such symptoms of narcolepsy has yet to be explored. Religious Furor as sudden episodes of sleep, loss I strongly object to the articles of of muscle tone, and sleep paralysis. Of Inhuman Treatment evangelism that have been appearing in course, I was pleased. Your interview with Dr. Robert G. Heath your magazine lately. The most nauseat- My pleasure turned to exultation when [April 1984] was most enlightening and ing example of this type of presentation is

I discovered that my stuttering had ironically limed. My fourteen-year-old son, James Gorman's "Righteous Stuff" [May suddenly ceased as well! I speaking am Thomas, Jr., was brutally murdered on 1984]. A better title lor this piece would of a dramatic change in my speech December 28, 1983, while standing in line have been "Unrighteous Gibberish." Any pattern, from stumbling over every other at a McDonald's reslaurant in Waukegan, student of history knows thai religion word to flawless, uniform articulation. Illinois. The killer was a diagnosed has caused more brutal torture, murder, To make sure of ihisseemingly incredi- schizophrenic. emotional tyranny, and mental stultifica- ble connection belween Ritalin and the I had read the article on April 21, 1984, tion than any other single institution. radical improvement of my speech, I after attending Ihe murder trial and Omni is a magazine ;ha: allegedly exists skipped one dose. I once again lapsed listening to testimony Irom psychologists for the advancement of scientific and into humiliating stammering. and psychiatrists from April 16 to 20. artistic creativity. Students of history know To my shock, my doctor had never Dr. Heath's critics worry about the that religion has been a bar to both heard of Ritalin for using stuttering. I possible Ireatment inhuman his patients science and the arts. It is an insult to wondered whether CIBA-GEIGY receive. I had ever But believe that not exploring philosophers and atheists everywhere for received any other reports concerning every avenue of treatment for Ihese articles like Gorman's to appear in publi- beneficial effects the drug might have on patients does a disservice to family, cations dedicated to progress. speech disorders.. I several wrote friends, and innocent bystanders, who More than 200 years ago, Scottish lengthy, detailed letters to the firm, but ' become victims of schizophrenic acts. philosopher David Hume destroyed all no one responded 10 my queries. I . encourage Heath not to be deterred in rational arguments for God's existence. Could this mean that the suffering of his search for a cure for schizophrenia. Man's only divinity lies within himself, stutterers is trivial to CIBA-GEIGY? Does His critics are possibly among Ihe many and his only immortality is his legacy to Ihe company regard it as a subject not hosp:ia; : doctors who /ed my son's future generalions. Reason is the only worthy of research? murderer 38 separate times. true oracle of man. Robert Rogers Thomas Degan, Sr. Jeffrey Governale Dumbar. WV Kenosha, Wl ChicagoOO H OMNI DIALING FOR DONORS

By Daniel Kagan

^^\ young mother sits devastated (NATCO) were inundated with inquiries could be alleviated by salvaging organs #^^bul determined before ihe U.S. from potential organ sellers. "I got three to from accident victims. # » Congress, in her arms a five calls a week for about a month after Bui physicians and health professionals frightfully ill toddler sags weakly, dark that," says Amy Peele, Chicago-based often hesitate to ask bereaved relatives circles cupping his eyes. The mother is president of NATCO, which has dozens if they will consent to the organ removal pleading for a liver, a transplant from of members nationwide. Her colleagues and therefore some lose potential transplant recenlly deceased child. Without around ihe country also received calls. donors. Peele would like to see these it, the boy will soon die. Not surprisingly, almost all the inquiries professionals make the donor Since request the 1980 introduction of the were from people who were desperate regardless of the family's emotional state. highly effective immunosuppressive drug for money. Right now this job falls io the eliie corps cyclosponne, organ transplants have "Most of the people who call about of NATCO coordinators. emerged as an important method of selling an organ are not capable of giving Arthur Caplan, who's on sustaining staff at the life in individuals whose informed consent," explains medical Hastings Center— a private institute that kidneys, liver, lungs, or heart have failed. ethicist Arthur Caplan, who also receives focuses on ihe study of bioethics— Unfortunately, though, there aren't inquiries from prospective donors. "Some suggests two dramatic alternatives enough spare organs to go around. The think that giving up a kidney has no risk to the problem. problem was catapulted into the news associated with it, that it's like giving The first is called presumed consenl last year when Dr. Barry Jacobs, of blood. Others want to donate their liver: and entails ihe passing of legislation that Reston, Virginia, announced that his- They don't know they have only one. And would enable hospitals to simply assume International Kidney Exchange, Ltd., would there are those who are desperately that anyone who dies begin brokering in circumstances kidneys surgically poor and will do. anything, including killing where his organs can be harvested removed from living donors who had sold themselves by selling heart a or a liver, would have consented to their removal. them for cash. in order to help their families." Kidneys, corneas, livers, lungs, and bone Members of the U.S. Congress and a Despite the large number of patients marrow would be taken as a matter of plethora of physicians immediately awaiting organ transplants— there are policy. Reversing current practice, anyone descended on Jacobs, denouncing the 6,000 to 7,000 waiting for kidneys alone- who didn't want to donate would buying of be organs as unethical. Many transplant groups say that the shortage- responsible for carrying a nondonor card. feared the poor would become organ This neat solution has a few constitu- farms for the rich, and they argued that tional kinks. "Most philosophers and since it is illegal to sell people into slavery, theologians think it's possible," says selling parts of people should also be Caplan, "but most politicians acknowledge outlawed. Jacobs and a scattering of that it's politically unfeasible. People are supporters countered that a classic not going to give the state that kind of marketplace effect would raise organ authority." But Caplan has another alter- supply to meet the demand of waiting native, this one called required request. patients and would certainly function "Since the biggest problem in the better than the existing voluntary system. system is ihat people don't make the In fact, some customers had beaten request," he explains, "we would simply Jacobs to the idea. Several months prior pass laws at the state level that would to Jacobs's announcement, isolated require medical personnel to ask families newspaper ads had been appearing, about donation at the time of death. placed by individuals offering to sell The family could say no, but the voluntar- kidneys. The Tampa Tribune ran such an iness would be removed from the ad from a twenty-seven-year-old hospi- tal side of the equation." unemployed man asking $30,000. In Congress also has been working on Detroit, a bankrupt businessman named the problem and has two bills in the Steve Pollack was willing to sell one of works that will, among other things, set his kidneys for $25,000. up a computerized transplantation network In the splash of publicity following the to match donors and recipients and Jacobs story, -the number of newspaper establish a national registry of transplant ads increased dramatically. Organ trans1 ;.#* % recipients. The days of a mother begging plant groups like the North American for an organ to save her child's life may . Transplant Coordinators Organization soon be coming to an end. DO "

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/ Daniel Kagan

Twenty-five hundred years ago in that price change would delivered be to tinued the practice. Instead of predicting Greece, the Oracle at Delphi Harary's house. Targ explains: once a week, they tried it more often and got was a thriving concern. Anyone 'There were four conditions — up, down, poor results. Harary began to experience rich enough to contribute gold to the temple's more than twenty-five cents, and less displacement, a problem well-known in coffers could put his questions about the than twenty-five cents. White might say, for psi experiments. His remote-viewing future to the shrine's wise abilities men. They would instance, 'If silver is going up more than remained, but the images came randomly. then pass the questions along to a temple twenty-five cents, I'll associate that with a Delphi has gone on to other projects. priestess, an experienced psychic who bottle. Or if it is dropping more than that, the They are currently working in psi-based would describe to the graybeards oil what she associated object will be a pancake.' and gas prospecting, and they're working saw. The wise men, in turn, would It was Targ's job to act as the intermediary on a three-year consulting contract with analyze her images, put them into verse, between Harary and White. "I would say and Atari to develop computer games that relay them to the client. to Harary, 'On Monday we're going to give incorporate psi-based elements. In other words, the Delphic Oracle was a you something. What do you see? He In Delphi's oil-prospecting work, a drilling business, a consultancy on future events might say, 'I see something that looks like a company comes to the partnership after that—for a fee—delivered psychically pancake' Then I would ask White, 'What it has used traditional geological derived predictions means to on affairs of state, have you got in front of you?' And he would establish that a parcel of land finance, war, is likely to politics, and personal fortune. say that one of the objects was a pancake. hold oil. Delphi then uses remote viewing Today in Mateo, to San California, a "I would then ask White what that meant, "see" the terrain and narrow the business partnership, drilling aptly named Delphi and he might reply, 'In this case, it means sites to the one Associates, or two most profitable. Delphi is doing what the original silver's going down more than twenty- not only picks the best sites but uses oracle did: offering clients psi-derived five cents.' And then I would call our broker remote viewing to assess underground prognostications for business decisions. and 1 " say, 'Sell silver. conditions and give And they are a rough estimate turning a nice profit. In December 1982 Delphi made nine of what the well's output will The three Delphi be. partners, physicist silver-futures predictions with this method. So far Delphi has done several Russell Targ, psychologist such pre- Keith Harary, Their broker traded on seven of these screenings for two oil companies. In each and businessman Anthony White, are and made $100,000. case, Targ eminently says, the forecasts he and his qualified to deliver state-of-the- By the following spring, they had discon- colleagues made were correct. art psi services. White is a Stanford MBA Oil probes are one-shot affairs, but the with 15 years of experience as a financial Atari contract is long-term. Delphi's consultant and venture-capital specialist. computer games test psi skills by using Targ and Harary spent ten years each the computer's ability to generate random at the prestigious SRI International organi- game factors, a feature used in many psi zation doing government-funded psi experiments. While engaged in a shoot- 'em- research. Before that, Harary made a name up game, for example, random targets for himself as a supremely talented practi- might pop up. By "knowing" when these tioner of remote viewing—using mental will appear and preparing for them, a impressions to "see" distant objects, places, game player can earn extra points. and people. Although many parapsycholo- "These will be skill and action games gists are skeptical that psi is advanced with psychic elements," explains Targ. "The enough to be of any practical value, Targ, premise is that you will develop your Harary, and White are not. psychic abilities by playing the games. It's When the Delphi partners got together in like an ESP teaching machine." 1982, their first undertaking was to predict The first game, due out in time for the the movement of silver futures by using 1984 Christmas season, is called Mind precognition and remote viewing. White and Race, after Targ and Harary's new book of Harary would set themselves up in different the same name. Two other games are houses, no communication at all passing scheduled for release in 1985. between them. For each trial, White's Business is doing well. "We're supporting job was to choose a common object to three families," says Targ. And if there is represent one of four fluctuations in the silver anything Delphi Associates has already market. The experiment was done over a shown, it is that "psychic functioning is alive weekend; once the price fluctuations were and well. People are making money with known on Monday, the object representing psi, and Delphi is supporting 20 OMNI itself." DO PANNING A PANACEA

By Joe! Davis

have begun to eat them like thousand milligrams People of C each day.) to thirty-eight, who were of similar height candy. In health-food stores and Recent findings on the effects— or lack and weight. None of the men recruited pharmacies across the country, thereof of vitamin — C megadoses on for the experiment were involved in any vitamin C tablets sit by the cash register, humans, however, distress may those who regular exercise program. In one study, the offering the promise of good health. They swear by the vitamin's healing properties. participants took either 300 milligrams of may sting the tongue slightly, but offer For example, Pauling claimed that he C or a placebo. A second test group used profit sweet to their purveyors. and his wife felt better after consuming large 1,000 milligrams of C. In both cases, America's obsession with ascorbic acid vitamin C doses; other investigators also neither experimenter nor subject knew who started in 1970, a consequence, perhaps, reported this effect. Mow Robert Hodges, of was getting the real compound. of double Nobel Prize-winner Linus Pauling's the University of Nebraska Medical Center, The researchers found no significant book Vitamin C and the Common Cold. has suggested a cause. The body's adrenal difference in the performance of those In it he contended that vitamin C not only system, he says, which manufactures people taking ascorbic acid and those cured the common cold, but prevented adrenaline and endorphins, probably being treated by placebo. it as well. Nine years later, he coauthored produces larger-than-normal amounts of "Taking supplemental vitamin C doses another book that claimed that large doses those peptides in response to the unneeded under a gram doesn't hurt sports perfor- of ascorbic acid also helped in the treat- high doses of vitamin C it's receiving. mance," says Driskell, "but it doesn't improve ment and cure of cancer. In other words, this sense of well-being performance, either." The question of what constitutes a occurs not because a person is taking While vitamin C's benefit to athletes megadose is a thorny one. The recom- megadoses of vitamin C, but because his seems negligible, its usefulness in a far mended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin body is now working to cancel out the more critical area—cancer therapy— is still C is 60 milligrams. A few doctors, therefore, ascorbic-acid overload. being investigated. Several studies have consider any amount over this to be Another claim frequently made for at least sugoesfeQ' that ingesting ascorbic a megadose. But most researchers and supplemental vitamin C: It Improves athletic acid may help protect humans from some scientists cite a higher figure—doses performance. Robert Keith and Judy forms of carcinoma. In late 1982 a exceeding 1,000 milligrams. (Many vitamin Driskell, then at Virginia Polytechnic Institute researcher at the Albert Einstein College of C enthusiasts, when suffering from a cold and State University, decided to test this Medicine, in New York City, reported statis- or just feeling poorly, will consume several theory a on group of men, ages twenty-five tical evidence of a link between inadequate amounts of vitamin C and cervical cancer. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller and her colleagues conducted a computerized statistical study of 49 women whose Pap smear results indicated problems, and 91 "controls" with no sign of cervical cancer. After carefully evaluating the subjects' eating habits, the researchers discovered thai women with positive Pap smears had significantly less vitamin C in their diets. Further study showed that 23 percent of those with questionable Pap smears had daily vitamin C intake of less than the RDA. This doesn't prove, however, that supple- mental doses of vitamin C safeguard women against the occurrence of cervical cancer. The research looked merely for statjsticaJ correlations between the frequency of positive Pap smears and differences in the women's diets. Wasser- theil-Smoller found only an intriguing statistical relationship between the two, she says, not a causal connection proved by controlled clinical trial. More disturbingly, some scientific data Vitamin C: it's touted indicate ascorbic-acid megatherapy may 22 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 12fl SPONGE POWER EREAHTHRDUEH5 By Phoebe Hoban

want to take my electricity from the University of Hawaii professor who 1,200 liters of oxygen processed from sea!" exclaims Captain Nemo of the formerly served as chief scientist on the 36,000 to 60,000 liters of seawater.) Nautilus, I the fabulous submarine that Navy's Polaris project. "That's where To release the oxygen it has soaked up, probed the ocean depths in Jules Verne's we now stand with oceanographic explo- the sponge is then vacuumed or exposed nineteenth-century classic 20,000 rations. But this will change the entire to a weak jolt of electricity. This produces Leagues Under the Sea. The batteries nature of our understanding of the seabed oxygen to fan the combustion process that power the Nautilus on its oceano- and, for the first time, really open up or to act as an oxidant in a space-age fuel graphic odyssey are charged by sodium, the ocean depths." cell. A similar sponge, containing cleverly extracted from seawater. So far, the biggest obstacle to devel- carbonic anhydrase, can be used to Now two scientists at Duke University's oping a practical underwater engine has absorb and then vent the carbon dioxide Marine Biomedical Laboratory have been the lack of a readily available. emitted by the engine. found a way to extract oxygen from abundant oxygen source. A typical inter- Aquanautics Corporation, a San seawater— an important step toward nal-combustion engine actually Francisco marine-equipment firm that building an underwater engine that could consumes nearly eight times as much paid £1 million for the rights to the someday give small submersibles the oxygen as fuel, and transporting the Bonaventuras' basic patent, has mobility of the futuristic Nautilus— or of necessary, bulky oxygen is supplies contracted Makai Ocean Engineers, in today's full-scale nuclear-powered simply not feasible. Hawaii, to design an engine that submarines. The is key to their process But the hemosponge solves this basic compatible with the hemotechnology. If is a protein taken from blood. problem by transforming the sea itself all goes according to plan, a working It all began eight years ago, when into virtually a endless, on-site oxygen prototype of a one-kilowatt gasoline Joseph Bonaventura, who codirects the source, When seawater is pumped engine should be ready by early Decem- lab with his wife, Celia, mixed some of through the hemosponge, the heme ber. "This could represent an order-of- his own blood with a liquid plastic, enzyme naturally binds with the seawater's magnitude jump in capability for producing a dark-brown, spongy material oxygen molecules. (There is about 3.5 submersible vehicles," says Makai's with a unique property: It extracts pure to 5 milliliters of oxygen in every liter president, Joseph Van Ryzin. "Having a oxygen from air or seawater. The so- of seawater; so to operate a one horse- readily available, cheap source of energy called hemosponge takes its name from power engine for two hours would require is on a wish list so far away, most its active ingredient, heme, an oxygen- submersible operators haven't even binding blood enzyme. While the hemo- begun to consider it." sponge may eventually be developed A heme-based engine could theoreti- into a backpack-style artificial gill that will cally supply as much as 30 to 300 times enable divers to breathe underwater the power of today's batteries, contends (Continuum, April 1984), the Bonaventuras Taylor Pryor, Aquanautics's director of are focusing their efforts on combining research. The successful demonstration the oxygen-extracting technology with a of a one-kilowatt model leads Pryor to submersible engine. Their goal is to predict that a full-scale 15-kilowatt engine create an underwater vehicle as practical will be developed within the next few as an automobile. years. Several manufacturers of marine Right now most submersibles are hardware have already expressed interest severely limited. They are powered either in using the engine to power both by batteries that require frequent manned and unmanned submersibles recharging or tethered to a surface ship and diving robots. that provides a life-support system. There are already plans afloat to As a result, submersible travel has long squeeze the hemosponge into various been restricted both in terms of time and futuristic designs. Since it provides a distance. But what if you could run a ready source of pure oxygen for breathing, diesel or other common internal-combus- hemotechnology could eventually pave tion engine underwater? Then, experts the way for underwater habitats and believe, the ocean world would become recreational facilities. Craven hopes to the next frontier, combine the hemosponge technology with "Imagine if you had to explore the a design for a submarine that can be continental United States with just. three roughly crafted out of cheap materials. or four jeeps," says John Craven, a The hemosponge: a space-age fuel ceil This would make do-it-yourself submers- 26 OMNI CONTINUED ON FWGE 141 KS THE ART By Michael Bishop

year the Swedish Academy A chilling irony of the Last book is that beyond flying machine and destroys his device struck a small blow for the the island, these boys' parents are fighting for fear of what others may do with it. legitimacy of science fiction by a savage war of their own—all in the In Golding's play, set in the third century awarding the prestigious Nobel Prize for name of civilization. A.D., a Roman emperor sends the inventor Literature to the seventy-three-year-old The Inheritors, written in 1955, casts a Phanocles to China to keep him from English writer William Golding. Until this discerning eye on our prehistoric ances- developing a steamship and a printing surprising turn of events, it appeared that tors. Earlier writers had depicted the press. The emperor fears mankind's the academy agreed with several influen- Neanderthals as bloodthirsty brutes. But potential to misuse even Ihe most well- tial American critics who regard science Golding makes them much more sympa- intentioned products of technology. fiction as no more praiseworthy than thetic and sensitive than the technologi- "A steamship," says the emperor, "or greeting-card verse. cally advanced Cro-Magnons, our anything powerful, in the hands of man, There can be no doubt that SF has immediate ancestors. Again the implica- Phanocles, is like a sharp begun knife in the to attract large numbers of readers tion is that although technology may hands of a child. There is nothing wrong in recent years. Isaac Asimov's Founda- improve our ability either to build or to with the steamship. There is nothing tion's Edge, Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: destroy, it doesn't give us the wisdom lo wrong with man's intelligence. The trouble Odyssey Two, and Robert Heinlein's Friday decide which is better. is his nature." have all made The New York Times best- Golding makes his sharpest statement Both Golding and his urbane, pagan seller list. Yet critical respectability for the about-human nature and technological emperor accept the Judeo-Christian field has not been forthcoming. progress in his play The Brass Butterfly doctrine of humanity's fallen nature. In For Golding, a balding and bearded (1958). Based on the novella Envoy his essay Fable, Golding summarizes his schoolmaster of a man, the Nobel was not Extraordinary, from the anthology war experiences: 'Anyone who moved necessarily a ticket lo superstardom. Sometime, Never (1956), this three-act through those years without understanding The day after he won the $190,000 prize. drama bears a striking thematic resem- that man produces evil as a bee a policewoman near his home in Wiltshire blance to Ray Bradbury's short story produces honey, must have been blind gave him a traffic summons, poinled at "The Flying Machine." or wrong in the head." a no parking sign, and asked, "Can't you In the Bradbury tale, an emperor of In 1964 Golding published The Spire. read?" Far more seriously, the selection ancient China executes Ihe inventor of a An allegory about the desire of a medieval ol Golding ignited a small controversy dean to build a 400-foot spire atop his within the academy. One angry member, church, the novel focuses on the inability sevenly-seven-year-old Arthur Lundkvist, of technology to fulfill every human denounced Golding as "a little English ambilion. Both the American and Soviet phenomenon of no special interest," manned space programs were getting Does Golding's Nobel prize signal major off the ground when the book first new critical respect for science fiction? appeared. The dean's spire could very Probably not. Most SF writers emphasize well be a. cunningly disguised symbol for humanity's potential to overcome inborn those upward-rushing rockets. Consider- limits through space exploration, biological ing the documented successes of engineering, and the creation of new manned missions since the mid-Sixties, cultural forms. Golding. by contrast, Golding's novel strikes us today as stresses the basic failure of technology overcautious, if nol downright fearful. to fortify us morally. Using SF conventions, In his essay On the Crest of the Wave, he writes a kind o! cautionary anti-SF Golding writes: "Our humanity, our Lord of the Flies, Golding's first book, capacity for living together in a full and published in 1954, embodies the Golding fruitful life, does not reside in knowing message that education and intelligence things for Ihe sake of knowing them or aren't necessarily the antidotes to our even in the power to exploit our fallen human nature. In the novel, a group surroundings. . . . Our humanity resides of English schoolboys who have been in the capacity to make value judgments, stranded on an uninhabited coral island unscientific assessments, the power to at the beginning.of World War III attempt to decide that this is right, that wrong, establish a society similar to the one L .. ", this ugly, that beautiful, this . J«C L -if- just, that unjust. they have left. They rapidly decline into a Yet these are precisely the questions which nightmare of savagery and superstitfon. William Golding: a Nobol for science- fiction. science is not qualified to answer. "OQ 30 OMNI Is This a Black Hole at the Core of our Milky Way Galaxy?

basics all the A BARREN plain in Mew Mexico, 27 antennas the layman. Articles take you step by step from the of the Very Large Array radio telescope have way to the frontiers of astronomical knowledge! charted the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy for the While other people remain Earthbound, you can be exploring the Galaxy, the outer reaches of space. You can HNfirst time. (The core of the Galaxy is normally the solar system, hidden from view by dust clouds and the glow of be eye -witnessing the most awesome phenomena. Contemplat- intervening stars.) The resulting images show ing the most astonishing possibilities. Challenging your mind three curving streams of gas which appear to be falling into a and stretching your imagination. maelstrom at the center. At the very core, pulling everything in, You'll be inuotued! there seems to be a supermassive "something" — perhaps a ASTRONOMY involves you intellectually and emotionally. And black hole. — if you choose to become one of the tens of thousands of Black holes are conjecture— hypothetical bodies so dense that amateur astronomers, ASTRONOMY will be your guide also. the gravity field around them does not allow light or anything else We'll show you how to observe and photograph the planets, the to escape. Yet they appear to exist at the core of all galaxies. And stars, and celestial phenomena. How to use a telescope —or perhaps elsewhere. build one from scratch. The mass of three Suns crushed into Discover ASTRONOMY Magazine now a space smaller than this period (.)! and receive a Free "MAN FLIES FREE" Poster When a large star has spent its nuclear fuel, it blows apart in a Return this coupon today. You'll receive 12 issues of colossal explosion which we call a supernova. All that remains is ASTRONOMY for only $15—59 off the single-copy price. And a tiny, hot, burned-out core. Compressed by its own gravity, the with your paid subscription, you'll receive a free color 21" x 30" core shrinks, becoming denser and denser. If the star is heavier wall poster commemorating the historic space walk made from than three Suns, gravity crushes its matter into a space smaller the Shuttle Challenger, when "man flew free" for the first time than the period at the end of this sentence. The star "blinks off no tether, no lifeline. and a black hole is the result. — An incredibly destructive force? Yes, but astronomers think the black hole—or whatever it is— at the core of the Milky Way may

i fascinated have been there from the beginning. And it may hold the secret by it all and I want to to how the Galaxy began as well as how it might end. Astronomy 5I krknow more. Start Are we alone in the Universe? my trial subscription 'o ASTROMOMY—satisfaction, Astronomers may get to the heart of the matter (in the ultimate guaranteed. My In'j oiuctcry sense!) within your lifetime —maybe within the next few years. price is just Sl5 for a full Meanwhile, other fascinating discoveries are taking place. year— 12 monthly issues. solid particles Astronomers have recently discovered bands of I save Sg off the single-

orbiting several other stars, including such naked eye stars as copy price. And 1 qet a free Vega and Fomalhaut. These stars are surrounded by rings of 21" x 30" MAM Fl IF.S poster with paid relatively cool, small solid material perhaps no larger than grains FREE my subscription. of sand which may be the stuff of planets in some early stage of creation. The system of planets we inhabit may not'be unique Q Bill me later. enclosed— after all. D Payrrienl There are billions of stars in our Galaxy alone— so somewhere else in the Galaxy there may be a solar system like ours. It's perhaps the most exciting indication yet that "mankind is not alone," Presenting ASTRONOMY Magazine.

If discoveries such as these interest, enthrall, or excite you, then join us now in the quest for knowledge as a subscriber to ASTRONOMY Magazine. By reading ASTRONOMY every month, you'll appreciate the significance of discoveries that few other GUARANTEE world, people even begin to grasp. If you don't agree that ASTROMOMY is out of this you can cancel at any time, receive your money back on all unmailed ASTRONOMY is brilliantly illustrated — mainly in color— for issues, and still keep your MAN FLIES FREE poster free! astronomy is the most beautiful of all sciences. The magazine is authoritative— it's written largely by astronomers —but edited for — — —

SEAL SURVIVORS EXPLDRATIDfUS By Paul Raeburn

^^\ fierce roar broke the stillness both a battleground and a nursery when attacked divers and surfers, elephant #"^% of the beach. Sand flew in the elephant seals, for the first time this seals have been found to be responsible m » air as two battle-scarred century, dragged themselves onto a every time the offending animal could elephant seals, each weighing two tons, mainland beach to breed. be identified, Le Boeuf says. He has lost clashed in a bloody fight. Drawing back, The reappearance of the elephant rubber rafts to the teeth of elephant they bellowed challenges ai each other, seals was part of a biological success seals, and researchers have been bitten their mouths and jagged teeth silhouetted story. In the late nineteenth century, in the back and legs as they fled. against the sky. The stakes were frighten- fishermen hunted the northern elephant Despite the seals' bulk and their clumsi- ingly high. The male who won this seal, Mirounga angustirostris, to near ness on land, they can cover short encounter —and other battles like it extinction. Fewer than 100 remained at distances faster than a human can run. would become a biological "survivor," that time, and fishermen, dissatisfied Such quick movements last only a destined to mate with dozens or perhaps at finding so few of them, moved on to moment, and so the speed that the seals even hundreds of females. The loser other prey. The animal was eventually can achieve on land has never been would spend the entire breeding season given legal protection, and slowly their calculated accurately. flopped in the sand, alone. numbers increased. Since 1960, the The resurgence of the northern elephant "It's a high-risk, high-gain strategy," elephant-seal population has doubled seal would seem to mark a happy says Burney l_e Boeuf, Ihe leading every five years, and last year 25,000 ending, one of the few such outcomes in authority on the elephant seals. "Only a pups were born. Nol all those pups were the chronicles of human destruction of few males belong to this club— the born at Aho Nuevo, but the beach there animals and their habitats. Yet the return breeders —and the entrance requirements is the only place where the northern of the seals poses a disturbing question. are very high." elephant seals breed on the mainland. All of the elephant seals alive today are Le Boeuf, a professor of biology at the Elephant seals can weigh up to three descendants of the handful that remained University of California at Santa Cruz, tons and reach a length of 16 feet. They a century ago. How does a species conducts his fieldwork on the elephant are not only the largest ol the pinnipeds change when it passes through such a seals on a windswept spit of land called the family to which seals, sea lions, and genetic bottleneck? Le Boeuf believes the Aho Nuevo, a few miles north of the walruses belong —they are also the change is dramatic. "When an animal university. In 1975, Alio Nuevo became nastiest. In cases where seals have comes back from something like that, you can't say it's the same animal," he says. Using blood samples taken from seals at five different breeding areas on the Pacific coast, Le Boeuf has analyzed the genetic makeup of the elephant seals. He was surprised to find no genetic variation in 125 seals sampled. Although they lived and bred in different areas along the coast, the seals seemed to be as closely related as identical twins. As far as Le Boeuf's analysis could show, the seals might all have descended from the same set of parents generations ago. Researchers believe that this genetic straitjacket limits the seals' ability to cope with changes in their environment. Biolo- gists wonder, for instance, what might

happen to the seals if the squid supply their primary food —were to be drastically reduced. When the animals lost their genetic diversity, they might also have lost the flexibility to adapt to new eating patterns. With individual animals so genetically similar, a food crisis could present as great a threat as the fishermen Once on the edge of extinction, elephant seals a t making a comeback on a California beach. of a century ago.DQ 32 OMNI RED RECTANGLE

8y Robert Freitas, Jr.

some photographs il looks like a very border of the constellation Monoceros (the were the strong stellar winds and large Infat hourglass with a pair of stars at its unicorn). Although this star was first interstellar molecular clouds that are the waist. It measures about one fifth of a light- spotted in 1915, the rectangle— 10,000 usual companions of a new sun. Absent, too, year from fop to bottom and lies about times fainter — remained undetected for were young stellar kin nearby. Condensing 900 light-years from Earth. Bright spikes of nearly another 60 years; it cannot be seen gas and dust clouds typically give birth light emanate from its sharply defined without large a research-grade telescope. to many stars simultaneously, not just one corners, and its overall symmetry is pleasant The center "star" was first identified as at a time. Most astronomers now agree that to view. Rare and beautiful and crimson- a visual double, or a pair of suns, but the Red Rectangle is probably old, in a colored, it is called the Red Rectangle, a astronomers have yet to see the other half late'stage of evolution. In other words, the mysterious celestial spectacle that at of this binary system. Still, they are sure nebula is not condensing into stars and onetime in its past may have harbored a the second star is present, albeit hidden, planets, but is instead material that has been planetary system like our own. since it would take the heat of two suns ejected from the central pair of stars. Astronomers who have been observing to generate the high temperatures that have If this viewpoint is correct, however, there the Red Rectangle since its discovery been recorded ihe from rectangle, are still a few questions that have yet to in 1973 are still at odds over why it has its Both of the stars are giants, which means be answered. For example, wouldn't the distinctive shape and what stellar mechanics they must either in very be a early or very nebular matter be thrown out in all directions are at work in its core. late stage of their evolution. When the more or less equally? Why is so much At the moment, the rectangle is believed rectangle was discovered, scientists initially of the rectangle's dust concentrated to be a member of a very rare and not thought it was a young object and that in a disc? fully understood class of objects known its binary star as had only recently condensed Mark Morris, an astrophysicist at Columbia bipolar comelary nebulae. Most nebulae from surrounding nebula. Since Earth and University, has proposed an explanation. are clouds, soft edged or irregular in shape its sister planets coalesced from a rotating Morris says that bipolar nebulae like fhis and composed of interstellar dust or gas. disc of gas and dust that surrounded the siart out as close binary stars; that is, the There are thousands of these scattered sun during its formative stages, the Red larger member of the pair becomes unstable through the Milky Way Galaxy, though only Rectangle was seen, by analogy, as a and swells to become a giant. Eventually a few are bright enough to be visible to distant solar system in the making. it expands beyend the point where the the naked eye. Cometary nebulae are fan But there were flaws in this theory. Absent gravitational forces of the two suns cancel shaped, like the broad tail of a comet, each other exactly. and bipolar or biconical nebulae look like Provided ihe stars have not become two flaring comets stuck together, head tidally locked, as Earth and its moon are, to head. Roughly one dozen bipolar matter from the larger, expanding giant first cometary nebulae have been discovered swirls rapidly outward toward the smaller within a few thousand light-years of Earth. So star. There il is caught by gravity and the rectangle, with its unusual, crisp, linear hurled, by a slingshot effect, into space.

edges and squarish outline, is a unique . This process forms a temporary equatorial object—an anomaly among anomalies. disc of dust and gas, giving rise to a the best current explanation of the bipolar nebula, which may last just a few rectangle's hourglass shape assumes that thousand years. dust is concentrated in a flat, thick disc But the stars in HD 44179 are about 100 at its waist, and that the disc is surrounded times farther apart than the stars in Morris's by a much larger, thin, spherical cloud of theoretical model. To account for the Red gas and dust. The rectangle's bright, central Rectangle, he admits, "One is forced to star resides in a "hole" at the middle of invoke the presence of a third star in this the disc. Its light escapes only through the system." As yet. no astronomer has been top and bottom of this hole and is reflected able to discover such a third star. by particles in the surrounding cloud. This Whether there are two suns or three, any creates two roughly conical beams that planets that may exist nearby are probably point north and south, forming its distinctive now being destroyed by this giant, hourglass shape. expanding sun. If intelligent creatures live The rectangle's central stars (HD 44179) on these worlds, they surely realize that the are so brilliant that anyone can see one end is near, and perhaps they have a of them with a good set of binoculars if he better understanding of the mystery of the knows where to look— near the southern Red Rectangle: How many stars in the hole? Red Rectangle than we ever will. DO 34 OMNI HARDBALL SOFTWARE ARTIFICIAL IfUTELLIGEfUCE By Paul Hilts

avey Johnson was a disgruntled group of analysts and statisticians that In a couple ballplayer. He of ways, computers are was mired in the is changing the way people think about helping to bottom of the Baltimore reshape the way people look at Orioles baseball. These statisticians (called saber- baseball. First, the machines batting order, and he knew he was better give the metricians, after SABR, the Society for manager a way than that. He was sure he could to measure the real risks be ot more American Baseball Research) are help and benefits of various plays. to his learn—get more hits and score Second, challenging some of the grand old game's computers provide a better, more runs— it he batted in the second more accurate oldest, most cherished notions. They have spot, but how could measure of each player's day-to-day he prove it to manager turned to the computer to gather and Earl Weaver? Johnson performance. The computer can reorganize had a degree in correlate as much information as possible this information mathematics, and he had spent to show, for example, a some time on baseball strategy and performance. programming computers; player's absolute value, isolated from the so he borrowed SABR comprises nearly 5,000 people, team and not dependent time on a mainframe to amass statistics on placement about half of whom are primarily interested that would back him in the batting order. up. He dropped the in the analysis of the game and its printout records. The Chicago Cubs pioneered on Weaver's desk, hoping that Society computer members have pored over statistical the man who was analysis for teams, toying briefly so wedded to statistics descriptions and box scores of more than with a mainframe would see the logic of the new batting in the mid-Sixties. But as a century's worth of games, seeking the order. Weaver was unimpressed, Gabe Paul, then the general manager and minutest details and the grandest schemes of the Cleveland Johnson stayed put in Indians, said at the time, the batting order. in baseball. The best-known sabermetri- "Computers are But Johnson went on to become coming. They are ready for a cians— professional statisticians like Pete us, but we are not quite successful manager in the minor ready for them." leagues, Palmer, Bill James, Dick Cramer, and Dallas The teams were lacking and this year he moved to the major both the sheer Adams— have published their own theories leagues, as manager number-crunching power that has become of the Mew York Mets. on strategy and performance measures. available in the last five Ever since his encounter with Weaver, years and a statisti- Their goal is to enhance people's enjoyment he has called on cal, theoretical framework. Some of the computer analysis to help of baseball through better understanding clubs him run his clubs. were willing; they just didn't know what of what's happening on the playing field, questions to ask. Sabermetrics In using a computer, Johnson joined has a as illuminated by better statistics. provided the questions and more than a few answers, The vast number of variables in baseball performance has daunted people up to now—day versus night games, grass versus artificial turf, lefty versus righty, ballpark dimensions, weather, and travel. The computer is the best possible way for people to make sense of such a wide range of data. But as the late Branch Rickey, one of the game's true geniuses, put it, "Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas." Earl Weaver, who managed the Baltimore Orioles for 16 years, kept a complete file on every player in the American League, but he kept it on index cards, Weaver used statistical analysis, but he never saw the need for the computer. Six clubs currently use computers: The Chicago White Sox, the Mets, and the New York Yankees use Dick Cramer's Edge 1.000 program; the Texas Rangers, the Atlanta Braves, and the Philadelphia Phillies use Edge's competitor, Baseball Analysis, JBP^ by sabermetricians Steve Mann and Pete Palmer. The a real numbers Oakland As used Edge 1.000 for game with the ni computerized analysis called sabermetrics. a few years, but are now giving it a rest CONTINUED ON PAGE ian conjTiruuunn

THE MEDIUM IS THE BOMB

our lifetimes, he says— na- this age oi nuclear confrontation, the bomb has come lo and need. When that happens— in dismantle their mean global despair and futility. Nobody knows what to do tions will spontaneously bombs. In is troubling That's a big jump, De Kerckhove admits— almost too big to with it. Now a Canadian philosopher adding a the process by question to the tangled debate. Should we ban the bomb or imagine today. He suggests that we hasten putting of them in public praise it? For the past several months Derrick De Kerckhove building more bombs and by images urgency has been raising eyebrows by telling colleagues and reporters places. "The bomb is generating an immense sense of pushing, squeezing, that "the bomb is a good thing." But before you dismiss him as in all cultures," he says. "It is a cramp— consciousness a right-wing fanatic, you should realize that he sees the bomb urging us ahead. It is doing more to unify world as a symbol as well as a weapon. This small, blunt object, says than anything the United Nations ever dreamed up." activists think of Kerckhove's vision? De Kerckhove, symbolizes universal destruction. It's a symbol What do antinuclear De "It stinks," says Jim Stark, president of Operation Dismantle, a so powerful that it will make pacifists of us all. symbolize De Kerckhove. who teaches at the University of Toronto, be- Canadian group. Stark says nuclear weapons de- disarm the gan forming his ideas as a student of philosopher Marshall spair, not unity. He says action, not evolution, will promoting a worldwide referen- McLuhan, who taught that history is a series of information rev- bomb. To that end his group is piecemeal vote: olutions, each of which drastically alters human thought. The dum on nuclear disarmament. Stark envisions a printing press, lor example, took the Bible from the clergy and Costa Rica will put the question on its ballot in 1986, and the its United Nations has repeatedly endorsed a nuclear freeze. Even gave it to the masses, triggering the Reformation and social !J upheavals. Television was another revolution, McLuhan sr " the Soviets, says Stark, have informally told him that they would actually benefited humanity by creating an electronic "global participate. And as the votes against the bomb spread from of the referendum could be in- village." With each new information technology, it was the me- country to country, the moral force Stark, will forced to disarm. dium of information — not politics, economics, religion, or any- escapable. Governments, says be true. He argues, thing else—that changed human history. In other words, "The De Kerckhove says that may someday come Stark's group proves that medium is the message." however, that the mere existence of De Kerckhove thinks that the bomb represents a new medium the evolution he speaks of has already begun. Why else would powerful anti- of information. Its mere presence proclaims a message of uni- virtually every advanced nation have broad and major pres- versal destruction. The message is so powerful that it tran- nuclear movements? Why else would the bomb be a scends language, culture, and even the weapon itself. Indeed, idential issue 40 years after the first one exploded? And why not since the Middle Ages have so many people thought about would the military— in their own perverse way—show signs ot the end of the world. "The bomb." says De Kerckhove, "which evolving? They did that by proposing the neutron bomb, which intact. 'At first the idea is is pure and total destruction, has become pure and total infor- will kill people but leave structures Kerckhove. 'At the level of bomb as infor- mation. It is the most powerful communication medium ever." revulsive," says De

it are in the di- What McLuhan -like revolution does this new medium hold? mation, however, implies that concepts moving software, next step the ideological bomb, De Kerckhove predicts that it will trigger the most important rection of The may be thinking may changes in human psychology since the invention of writing. which kills ideas without killing people. Ecological the military." Because it represents final destruction, the bonjb is a barrier soon reach that our technological thinking can't pass. We mus"t develop new Is the bomb a weapon or a modern-day icon? Will it kill us or higher mental plane? Will any of us survive ways of thinking to evolve around it. People are being forced to push us toward a has put think globally rather than nationally. Soon we will experience a until it does? We will, says De Kerckhove. The bomb new, planetary consciousness: Today's industrial values of pro- society against the wall. "The bomb is forcing the whole world duction and power will yield to the ecological values of balance to change. We have no choice but to evolve."—DOUGLAS STARR coruTiruuurui

BEARDED GIRLS CHEAP FISH up table scraps, j pulverized compost, and even yard While vacationing in Brit- Tired of paying high trimmings, sometimes ain's East Anglia region, prices for fish? Then grow supplemented with com- Dr. J. Hubert Lacey came your own. mercial fish food. Some upon the statue of a young Michael Hartman, of the people suspend a light girl with a beard. Florida Institute of Technol- above the tank to attract It was a village church's ogy, says you can raise bugs, which then fall into the memorial to Saint Uncum- fish in your backyard for as water, where they are eaten ber, a ninth-century Portu- little as 50 cents a pound. by the fish. guese saint. The teenage Hartman teaches students Fish are normally har- girl managed to keep her at the Jensen Beach, Flor- vested after five or six vows of virginity and pre- ida, college how to do months, depending on the vented her marriage to exactly thai. All that's re- location, at an average the king of Sicily by growing quired, he says, is a body of weight ot 0.5 to 0.75 a beard. Unfortunately, water, table or garden pounds. Fish gardeners in her father, the king of Portu- scraps, and some finger- Florida and other warm gal, angered that his plans lings, which can be bought areas can grow their fish to had been upset, ordered or taken from a river or lake. larger sizes or sometimes her crucifixion. to fit the psychological Fish can be raised in get in two "crops" a year A psychiatrist profile interested of the anorexic; an backyard ponds, large The cost averages one in anorexia nervosa, Dr. intelligent, upper-class wading pools, old concrete dollar per pound, depending Lacey, of St. George's Hos- young woman of high moral septic tanks, or even con- upon the ratio of commer- pital Medical School, in standards, afraid of adult crete burial vaults. A wading cial fish food to scraps. London, hypothesized that sexuality and the obligations pool 12 feet in diameter Hartman ticks off some of this legend may represent imposed upon her by high and 3 feet deep holds about the advantages of fish an early case of extreme social status. 2,000 gallons of water, gardening: You get low-cost, anorexia. Her story struck a sym- Hartman says, enough to pollution-free, high-nutrition Unable to convince her pathetic chord in girls raise 100 pounds of fish in a food while making use of father that her loyalty lay throughout medieval Europe, growing season. That otherwise wasted products. with God and not man, La- Lacey explains: "The only amount of water also acts You can also make money cey speculates, the dis- way women could get close as an effective heat sink, by setting up a roadside tressed princess went into to God was by renouncing preventing rapid changes in stand to sell your surplus. seclusion, refused nourish- or changing their sex. Some temperature, which are His students sell their sur- ment, and prayed that became nuns. Others, like deadly to fish. plus to the college cafete- she be deprived of all her Saint Joan of Arc, assumed The fish are fed ground ria, — Robert Deckert beauty as a way out of a man's attire. And others, the unwanted marriage. God like Saint Uncumber, starved seemed to answer her themselves." prayers by allowing her to Although her assistance grow a beard. is no longer sought, as "Development of body, late as the sixteenth century and occasionally facial, hair she was known as the is not uncommon among patron saint of girls hoping extremely emaciated anor- to escape from unwanted exic women," says Lacey, suitors, or wives wishing to "The downy hair is believed "uncumber" themselves to help temperature regula- of difficult husbands. tion in the absence of — Daniela Faibes adequate subcutaneous fat tissue." "Everything happens in " Saint Uncumber, accord- particular. Commercial fish terms like the one above are strictly high ing to Lacey, also seems —Paul Zweig tech. But you can make your own in a pond, pool, or septic tank. 40 OMNI —

TOBACCO : were skeptical, but

MERINGUE PIE when it was mixed with

water and beaten, it looked The surgeon general has just like egg whites," she

determined that cigarette said. "By itself, it tasted

smoking is dangerous fuzzy. But as soon as sugar

to your health. But he didn't was added, it tasted exactly say anything about eating. like regular meringue." cigarettes. Sheen points out that the In fact, tobacco may be protein contains no fats one of nature's most nutri- or carbohydrates. "It also tious foods, according lacks salt, so it is a good to Shuh Ji Sheen, a plant supplement for people with pathologist at the University kidney malfunctions. And

of Kentucky. Working with it would make a good food retired UCLA biologist S.G- for postoperative patients, Wildman. Sheen has devel- who need high levels of oped a process that re- protein." Sheen notes. moves most of the toxins He also claims that the EXERCISE WITHOUT pel, whose Futureshape from tobacco, leaving an protein contains negligible EXERTION clinics in California and New edible plant protein. nicotine, in the five-parts- York have attracted many He has also come up with per-billion range. "There is a family of plants re- Wani to. exercise but movie stars, a recipe for tobacco me- whole to including don'! want to work up a Athletes have tried it; the ringue pie. lated tobacco, and white pota- sweat? Now there are ma- Soviets used it on cosmo- Sheen uses young plants tomatoes fewer toes, that we eat all the chines that will do it for you. nauts during- the Salyut only—they have In clinics opening across flights; and NASA will con- toxic substances than ma- time," Sheen points out,

i those have much ihe country, you can wire sider it for the first space ture plants— harvesting "And foods yourself up with electrodes station. There's only one them when they're about more nicotine—about five million." and let electrical pulses problem with electromuscu- knee-high. He crushes parts per work your muscles for you lar stimulation; Experts the leaves to extract to- — Sherry Baker no sweat, no racing heart, aren't sure whether it works. bacco juice, then heats the no iatigue. Research has yet to liquid to crystallize the "it takes a very unusual Developed to prevent show that electrical stimula- white protein, which can be mind to undertake the muscle degeneration in tion is beneficial, even for removed easily from the analysis ol the obvious." paralyzed patients, electro- the inactive muscles of liquid residue. The tobacco" —Alfred North Whitehead muscular stimulation uses paralyzed patients, accord- crystals can be baked, weak electric shocks to ing to Dr. Phillip F Gardiner, whipped, jelled, and even make muscles contract. of the University of Mon- made into mayonnaise In normal exercise, the treal, who has studied To prove that the protein brain sends an electrical its effects on animals. And is tasty as well as practical, signal through the nerves to exercise without effort Sheen whipped up a lemon from the muscle, causing it to does nothing for the heart meringue pie, made contract. In electromuscular and lungs, nor does it help four pounds of tobacco stimulation, the brain is someone lose weight. "If leaves, for the Newspaper there is any benefit at all," Food Editors and Writers

ichine delivers an says Gardiner, "I think it Conference, held recently in electrical pulse directly to is because people contract Lexington, Kentucky. the muscle, making it jump their muscles voluntarily Clare Eschmann, food involuntarily "The sensation in response to the electrical editor of Georgia's Macon is very similar to being stimulation, It's like using Telegraph and News, was those sampled next to a nozzle in a Ja- a cattle prod to make them j among who cuzzi," says Lawrence Ap- exercise."— Michael Skoler i the tobacco-protein pie. CDfUTIfUULIRJl

Massa to last forever. In HEAVY SUBS fact, the zoo has already made elaborate prepara- When he was a young concrete. tions for his passing. Massa boy, playing in the bathtub Of course, a heavier- will be subdivided and par- with his toy airplane, Heinze than-water craft would drop

celed out to a number of Lipshutz first hit upon the to the bottom once it research institutions that are idea: Planes are heavier stopped moving. So an eager to have a look at than air, he reasoned, so inclined "landing runway" the' organic makeup of this submarines should be built (consisting of a series of unusual beast. His brain heavier than water. That rollers) could be used when will go to both Johns Hop- way, submersible craft could in port, Lipshutz says. And kins,- in Baltimore, and to have superihick hulls and at sea, inflatable rafts would Montefiore Hospital, in New could probe to the deepest enable the craft to cruise York, where neuropatholo- ocean depths without crum- on the surface. gists will look for signs pling under the intense The craft would have SUBDIVIDING of Alzheimer's disease and water pressure. wings (like a jet plane) and A GORILLA for age-related changes Lipshutz, now sixty-four would either be nuclear in the neurons themselves. and a retired British Airways powered or would carry

Massa, the gorilla, is one His heart and arteries will pilot, is still firmly convinced giant battery packs. of the Philadelphia Zoo's be examined by the zoo's of his idea's practicality, And because of its ability most cherished senior citi- research staff, which is despite rebuffs from the to operate at any depth, zens. A resident of the particularly interested in British Admiralty, the Penta- Lipshutz says, his subma-

zoo since 1935, Massa is seeing if his coronary arter- gon, and elsewhere. "The rine could outmaneuver and not only the world's oldest ies have hardened due to heavier-than-water craft outfight any ship at sea. living npnhuman primate, atherosclerosis. Massa's is an idea ahead of its time," .— Eric Mishara

but at 52 he has more than bones will go to the Smith- Lipshutz says, "and it is tripled the average life sonian, while the distribu- being ignored, just like the. "The taste tor science is an span of gorillas in the wild. tion of his other organs will Wright brothers' airplane acquired one. The Ameri- Zoo officials attribute be overseen by a veterinar- was ignored at first." can people have not yet Massa's unprecedented ian from the University of Today's buoyant subma- acquired that taste." longevity to veterinary care, Pennsylvania. rines (which have ballast —Edward Teiler protection from infectious The' payoff for all this tanks and thin-skin metallic diseases (he lives behind a activity may well be an in- hulls) can't safely submerge "Amateurs are always short." glass enclosure), and a creased understanding below 1,500 feet, Lipshutz —Walter Hagen controlled diet that would of the aging process in one be the pride of any health- of the gorilla's closest rela- food nut: brewer's yeast, tives.: man. "We think," says whole-grain cereals, milk the Philadelphia Zoo's

- solids, and an impressive research director Bob Sny- passel of vitamins and der, "that Massa's longevity minerals. has been a matter of intro- For the moment, Massa's ducing what we've learned heaith seems to be remark- from human populations ably good. Although most to captive animals." The of his teeth are gone and he knowledge gained from has such' predictable aging Massa's demise may problems as arthritis and amount to a returning of the a decline in muscle mass, favor.— Bill Lawren his last physical showed his heart functions and "Judge a man by his blood pressure to be admi-' questions rather than by rably normai. his answers."

Still, no one expects — Voltaire 42 OMNI " .

operation seem to be favor- In one recent study, a able. "For the first few taped message instructed '•*#*)&&. months," he says, "about anesthetized patients to rub half the subjects stay free of their ears alter they awak- cocaine, But as time goes ened from surgery. Nine on, more and more of them of eleven patients did in fact go back to the drug. rub their ears, although "The only real cure for the they couldn't recall being pastelero," says Nahas, told to do so. And when "seems to be to go to Chile, Bennett told anesthetized where drug control is so surgery patients that one of .SSHMl strict that cocaine is simply their hands was becoming not available." — Bill Lawren warmer than the other, that is exactly what happened. "Physical laws are not Because the anesthetized " FREEBASING, nations, and violent or even amusing. patient seems to be in PERUVIAN STYLE suicidal behavior, "it's —Fran Lebowitz such a highly suggestible worse than.heroin addic- state, Bennett says, careless

In Peru Ihe chewing of tion," Nahas says, "because "No matter how unlikely a surgical chitchat, which coca leaves has, for centu- heroin addiction does not thing is, if it happens, it goes on in many operating ries, been as common as necessarily lead to mental happens. rooms (and was popular- Ihe drinking of coffee or soft —Stanislaw Lem ized by the movie/TV series drinks in America. Confronted with this M*A*S*H), is lousy medical The small amounts of growing problem, Lima sur- VERBAL CUTS UNDER procedure. 'A surgeon's cocaine in the leaves pro- geon Humberto Hinojosa THE KNIFE negative remark could have vides a constant source has taken a drastic step. an adverse effect on the of stimulation, enabling Working with 30 desperately You're out cold while a patient's recovery." he says. workers to perform stren- ill pasfeteros (addicts of surgical team works on your But, Bennett suggests, uous and tedious tasks Ihe paste), Hinojosa has anesthetized body. Then the anesthetized surgery at high altitudes. developed a form of brain the surgeon says to his patient might benefit from But recently this ancient surgery in which part of the colleagues, "This is the the surgeon's words of habil has taken on a new cingulum—a nerve tract worst bone graft ever." encouragement for a and insidious form: The that connects parts of the Or perhaps a nurse speedy, complication-free leaves "are ground and deep brain with the cere- makes a disparaging remark recovery. — Eric Mishara mixed with kerosene and bral cortex— is removed. about the condition of your sulfuric acid, forming a The theory is that this will vitals. Does such surgical sulfate paste in which the cut down the nerve im- banter have any effect cocaine content is highly pulses that cause pasteleros on the anesthetized patient? concentrated. When to demand more and more There's new evidence smoked as a cigarette, the of the cocaine paste. that it does. "There is every paste produces a head- Nahas, who recently went reason to believe that the blasting high. to Peru to investigate the patient continues to hear

The problem is, cocaine operation, feels that the and process verbal com- sulfate also produces what treatment may be as bad as ! ments during anesthesia," University neurol- the disease. "The opera- says cognitive psychologist Columbia ] ogist Gabriel Nahas calls tion," he says, "is technically Henry Bennett, a research I the "ultimate addiction." In primitive. The patient's associate at the University of is not immobilized, California Medical School Latin America, where an head | estimated half million young and it's done with' a bare I at Davis. In clinical studies, people havefallen prey to knife., without any precision Bennett has shown that a the habit, addiction can whatsoever." surprising degree of human lead to weight loss, acute - Nahas concedes that the awareness does exist dur- paranoid psychosis, halluci- immediate results of the I ing anesthesia, , CDruTinjuunn

LOUNGE RATS was a lounge where the rats According to Thimann, could drink from six spouts, there may be yet another A California researcher three dispensing water analogy between aging in has accomplished whai and three offering a 10-per- plants and in humans. It most scientisls had though! oent-alcohol solution fla- is known, he says, that was impossible; He has vored with anise. plants undergo rapid oxida- turned laboratory rats into Most of the rats drank tion in the presence of alcoholics. The in secret, alcohol moderation, but charged particles called according to UCLA psy- two or three rats (about free radicals — the same chologist Gaylord Ellison, is 9 percent) in each colony process that many biologists to provide the rats with a developed an extreme think is a key to aging in lounge where they can preference for alcohol, man. "While it's too soon to go to drink. about the same percentage say whether there's any Ellison's findings run of people who become AUTUMN AND AGING relationship between free counter to the theory that problem drinkers in society. radicals and aging in rats will not drink enough Ellison says the heavy Many a songwriter has leaves," notes Thimann, alcohol to alter iheir behavior drinkers less ate than other evoked tears and sighs by "there are people looking at if provided with olher rats, were much less active, comparing the changing both plants and animals sources of food water. spent and more time in their of leaves in autumn to the who are definitely barking In previous alcohol re- burrows, and ranked in 1 low aging of man. But 1 plant up the same tree." search with animals, the dominance in social situa- biologist Kenneth Thimann, — Bill Lawren subjects were studied for a tions. The alcoholic rats of the University of Califor- few months while isolated tended to drink on a regular nia at Santa Cruz, is right, ATOMIC BEANS in small cages and did schedule, sipping alcohol that comparison also has a not become problem drink- before feeding and again strong basis in hard sci- Pity the poor bean lover. ers. But human alcoholism before Ihey went to sleep. ence. Thimann suggests Though healthy people develops over a period When alcohol was withheld, that the same process on a normal diet can pro- of time, so Ellison designed the drinkers became more is responsible for both duce nearly two quarts studies that would simulate active but remained low changing leaf color and the of intestinal gas daily, the human conditions. in dominance. wrinkling of human skin. habitual bean eater may He studied ten colonies Ellison hopes to find out In plants, Thimann ex- have to contend with several of 27 rats for six or seven whether the rats become plains, the process begins times that amount. Now months each. The animals' socially subordinate be- with a shift to what is called scientisls are attempting to habitat included a parklike cause of their heavy drink- negative nitrogen create a "clean bean." recreational area where ing or if they become alco- balance—a phenomenon In India, researchers at they could socialize. Nearby holics because of an initial that occurs when leaves the Bhabha Atomic Re- inferior social status. He lose more nitrogen than they search Centre, in Bombay. also hopes to be able to are able to take in. When are irradiating beans with predict which rats in a that happens, protein mole- cobalt 60 to reduce the colony will become alcohol- cules begin to break down, amount of oligosaccharides ics.—Joel Schwarz and without protein, chloro- they contain. Oligosaccha- phyll in the leaves disinte- rides are complex sugars "Even the most overstuffed grates. The leaves lose their that usually end up in the domestic cat demands a green color, leaving [he lower intestinal tract, where nocturnal prowl and the intrinsic yellow or brown of a host of bacteria feast chance to leap on an un- the remaining leaf tissue. away on them. The resulting suspecting bird." Likewise, he adds, the fermentation is not unlike —Desmond Morris aging body excretes more that which creates the

nitrogen than it can manu- bubbles in champagne. In "It is the task of science to facture from food. As in this case, however, the turn the impossible into the leaf, proteins begin a bubbles are not nearly so You can 'r make a rat an the boring." system-wide breakdown; the pleasing to the senses. alcoholic without a lounge. — Robert Ornstein result is wrinkled skin. Though the radiation ex- 44 OMNI KISSING BUG TOO MANY TIGERS? grown so large that ihe animals are now killing one called the kissing bug As recently as 12 years another. Eighteen tigers, It's (chinche or vinchuca) in ago, the majestic Indian about 16 percent of the population, have died Latin America, and its bite tiger was in sad shape. Its park's over is responsible for one of the numbers had dwindled in intramural batfles insidious last seven years. Third World's most to 1,B00, down from 40,000 the For man, ihe story is even health problems. a! [he turn of thecenfury. east India's Keri For when the bug bites— So in 1972, an alarmed worse. In have usually in the face (thus Indian government district, 112 people kissing appellation)— it responded by launching been killed by tigers since the defecates into the wound. Project Tiger, which ulti- 1978, with 21 dying in than irradiating This leaves a parasite mately set aside 15 natural 1983 alone. infected as many exclu- Himendra Panwar, who that has periments have been suc- sanctuaries as the Tiger, remains as 20 million impoverished some sive domain of the imperiled runs Project cessful in eliminating campesinos (farmers or prey. calm. Battles among tigers, of the offending sugars, tiger and its have he says, are the animals' countryfolk) with a crip- according to Alfred C. Ol- The program may controlling their pling, sometimes fatal illness chemist been top.successful. Offi- own way of son, a research known as Chagas' disease. that a recent population and have noth- with the U.S. Department of cials estimate with overcrowding. The insidious thing about sugars census will show that the ing io do Agriculture, such which thrives As for ihe attacks on man, the chinche— of the problem. tiger population has nearly are only part from southern Mexico to doubled since 1972. Unfor- Panwar maintains that "it "These sugars," he says, and been would be wrong to conclude northern Argentina "may be responsible for tunately, there have Chile and the disease it undesirable side that by increasing the tiger — half the flatulence caused some population we are increas- causes is. that symptoms but the fiber effects. "The tiger is sate, by beans, to appear until ing human casualties. In- don't begin also contributes to yes," says one official. "But portion as many as 15 years afier turning on his many cases," he says, "it's the problem." Olson feels now he is people the original "kiss." Accord- in a been the intrusion of that the radiation technique own kind and man that has caused ing to Dr. Rafael Cedillos, unknown search for more jungle into the area may present parasitic- the problem." The organiza- director of the even though Ihe beans space." risks, begun disease division of the World According to Chandrbhan tion has recently do not become radioactive. "The an attempt io fence off the Health Organization, "Radiation doesn't simply Singh, director of a 'tiger natural habitat so bug attacks people as disap- reserve in Corbett Park, in tiger's make the sugars then shows up northern as io reduce these deadly children, pear," he says. "What needs the foothills of between man when they're between exactly India's Shivalik Mountains, encounters to be investigated is thirty-five, and beast.— Bill Lawren' twenty-five and happening to the Ihe tiger population has what is turning the laborers and and other com- sugars campesinos into invalids." in beans when they pounds Specifically, Chagas' You could are irradiated. disease can cause disor- creating nonbiological be ders of the intestines and compounds that will ulti- esophagus or, more seri- cause more prob- mately ously, myocarditis—a lesion than the sugars lems on the heart that can pro- themselves." duce irregular heartbeat or research has' Olson's coronary insufficiency. shown that blanching beans When this happens. Cedillos for five minutes, soaking says, "It can lead to sudden four to 16 hours, them for death. The heart simply discarding the soak and stops beating." water can safely eliminate Ten to thirty percent of to 50 percent of their up the people infected with flatulence-causing poten- - Chagas' disease ultimately tial.— Rick Bolmg CDRJTinjuurui

develop heart damage, and many. Using a new heat- HEROD'S TOMB chamber in it," says SRI the death rate can reach shock process, Barry Mc- physicist Lambert Dolphin. as high as 10 percent. Al- Donald and William Wimpey Herod the Great is one of "It may well be Herod's though the disease can have fused cow cells with the Bible's most infamous tomb. He was probably sometimes be treated with cells from a tomato plant, monarchs, vilified for his trying to conceal it, and the drugs, the best way of creating a typical-looking attempt to kill the predicted tower was a good place. attacking it is through pre- tomato plant with lough, Messiah by ordering the It has no entrance:" ventive measures. "The leatherlike skin. slaughter of Bethlehem's SRI's radar uses ex- kissing bug lives in cracks The new process is similar children. tremely short pulses that and crevices in the walls to that used to create mono- But Herod was also penetrate into the ground or of houses," Cedillos ex- clonal antibodies, because known for erecting several through rock, up to several plains. "If the wall can be it involves removing the massive palaces and a hundred feet below the plastered over, the insect outer wall from cells and huge fortress. When he died surface. Seismic sounding cannot proliferate." then fusing them into pairs. in A.D. 4, the historian Jose- employs high-frequency identify Even if the governments The difference in the Ger- phus recorded, the king sound waves to respond favorably, ihis man experiments is that was buried amid crowns, faults or cavities as small as may not be enough. There instead of using chemicals jewels, and gold at his one foot in size. is still the problem of edu- to fuse -the cells, the re- spectacular fortress at Her- The SRI explorers turned cating the rural poor. In searchers place an elec- odium, some seven miles their findings over to Ehud the southern Mexican state trode into the culture me- southeast of Bethlehem. But Netzer, of the Hebrew of Nayarit, for example, dium and deliver an the exact site has never University of Jerusalem, people are known to actually extremely short burst of been found. who has been excavating at eat the kissing bug. The current to create the desired Now there's a high-tech Herodium for ten years. belief behind this unlovely fusion. clue. Using ground-pene- "It is a needle-in-a-hay- custom has to do with According to A. trating radar and seismic stack search, but this gives nothing less than love itself, DeMaggio, a plant-develop- sounding, a team from SRI Netzer a hot lead," Dolphin The chinches, say the ment physiologist at Dart- International, a California- says. "If Herod's tomb is people of that area, are the mouth College, this type of based think tank, has "seen" found, it will rank as one of most potent of aphrodisi- work is going on in several through the stone and the major archaeological acs. — Bill Lawren laboratories around the sand and has found a secret finds ol the century, and it world. Ultimately, the goal is chamber. will be the first time an "Aggression is not fore- to create plants with certain "We discovered that a important find can be at- stalled by amiability." specific genetic traits, very large tower, sixty feet tributed to the kind of —Samuel Florman giving them a better resist- in diameter, that was thought equipment we used."

ance to the effects of to be solid has a large . —Sherry Baker TOMATO COWS weather extremes, disease, or insect attack. In addition, Allow us to introduce the attempts are being made amazing tomato-wheat- io enhance protein content cow. With all the character- in these new agricultural istics of a giant stalk of hybrids. McDonald and wheat, the skin can be Wimpey, encouraged by tanned and used as leather, their initial success, have and several udder blos- embarked on a new project, soms provide the grower aimed at producing a to- with a steady supply of mato-wheat-cow superhy- tomato juice. brid.With the soaring costs Bizarre as this may sound, of raising cattle, the re- it is not that far from reality, searchers hope to develop in view of the recent devel- an easily grown, protein- opment of a true plant- rich "plant" for production " animal hybrid at the Univer- on "wheat ranches n audience to the Wise Men: He couldn't sity of Hamburg, in Ger- . — Rick Boling w ground-penetrating radar is on his tail. Our moods, health, mental acuity—all are under the sway of CLOCKS THAT MAKE US RUN BY LEN HILTS

Question: When is a 2,000-calorie meal fattening? Answer: That depends on what time you eat it. Dr. Franz Halberg, profes- sor of laboratory medicine and pafhology at the Univer- sity of Minnesota, probed this mystery in a study conducted a few years ago. Each day for a week, he fed six volunteers a single meal — eaten at breakfast time—that consisted of 2,000 calories. Then he gave the same participants the identical 2,000-calorie meal as supper for a week. On the breakfast-only schedule, all six people lost weight. But on the supper regimen, four of the six gained weight. Even the remaining two lost more on the breakfast diet than on the supper diet, Dr, Halberg's conclusion: A calorie is not the same at

breakfast as it is at supper. This study and hundreds

like it at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, the University of Califor- nia, and other institutions

all point to the importance of timing, Investigations are increasing our understanding of the body's complex system of clocks and reveal-

PAINTING BY VLADIMIR VELICKOVIC ing that these rhythms can influence every- In related studies, Dr. Erhard Haus, chief All of these systems operate independ- thing from mental health to worker produc- of pathology at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical ently. Yet they are marvelously synchronized tivity. In addition, these discoveries are Center, in Minnesota, discovered that some in what may be one of the most intricate and spawning such new "rhythm" sciences growths as have their own temperature cycles, complex mechanisms known to mart Con- chronopharmacology, which examines the separate from the cycles ol the surrounding trol of the body's myriad systems is vested relationship between time and drug admin- healthy tissue. Other researchers have found in a number of regulators, or clocks. Some istration. Just as with food, the hour at which that a spreading cancer is most vulnerable of these are still unidentified; others have you take medication may be nearly as im- it's when growing and the cells are dividing been recognized by their activity, but their portant as the medication itself, fastest. It's conceivable, then, that matching locations haven't been pinpointed. For example, L-dopa, used in treating the treatment to the time of the cancer's vul- Scientists believe that they have located Parkinson's disease, disrupts the daily, or nerability could enhance the treatment's ef- one of the key timekeepers in a tiny clump circadian, rhythms ot lab animals when it's ficacy. Specialists at several research cen- of cells in the hypothalamus, just above the administered certain at hours. They suffer ters are also examining the relationship point where the optic nerves cross as they from scientists what call dyschronism, between circadian rhythms and depres- enter the brain. Called the suprachiasmatic

symptoms of which include irritability, lack sion. "Early data suggested it's —and still not nucleus (SCN), it cues sleeping, waking, and of concentration, and insomnia. When taken proved—that some depressed patients have other activity patterns. at another point in the animals' cycles, body an internal circadian clock that may run too Researchers also suspect that a number the drug has no adverse elfects. Such tran- fast," Dr. says Daniel Kripke, professor of of regulators lie elsewhere in the brain, in the quilizers as Valium and some of the medi- psychiatry at University the of California at adrenal glands, and probably in the liver. cations prescribed.for hypertension may be San Diego. Approximately 40 patients have These control functions from hormone se- influenced by chro no biological factors. taken part in his studies to date. According cretions to body temperature. Furthermore, studies at the University of to Kripke, lithium, which is an effective treat- The links between this internal mecha- Arkansas and the University of Minnesota ment for depression, slows down the body's nism and the outside world are called Zeit- lend support to the theory that in some rhythms. This occurrence lends credence gebers (German for time givers). These ex- cases, circadian rhythms can influence the ternal factors cue the body's clocks and can effectiveness of treatments. even upset them. The earth's day/night cycle In one trial, Lawrence E. Sheving, profes- is a Zeilgeber. Stress can be one, and so sor of anatomical sciences at the University can fear— as when the jet you are riding in of Arkansas, injected 300 mice with leu- plows through an area of extreme turbu- kemic cells. divided his ^Early data He "patients" into 12 lence and turns you into a white-knuckled groups of 25 and administered chemother- suggest that some of passenger. Social contacts, like stimulating apy to all of them. Each group, however, re- the patients conversations or painful verbal battles, can ceived its medication at a different time. get the clocks ticking faster or slower. Food Sheving found that the cure rates differed: -who suffer from depression and drink are some potent Zeilgebers. 52 percent of those receiving the chemo- Our pacesetters will also react to a , may have break therapy at 5 a m were cured; only 16 percent in a daily pattern—traveling to a different time of those receiving the chemotherapy an interna) circadian at 8 a.m. zone or changing your work hours, for ex- were restored to health. clock that ample. In fact, chronobiologists cite shift work Dr. William Hrushesky, assistant professor as a typical cause of dyschronism. simply runs too fasf.9 of laboratory medicine and pathology at the Changing shifts is not too different from University of Minnesota, looked at this flying from Tokyo to New York; in both cases,

clockwork approach and it applied to a the internal clocks are set for one rhythm, group of cancer patients. During the first but the body is moved to a place or condi- phase of a two-part study, alternated he the tion that requires a different set of rhythms. times that two chemotherapy drugs were to the clock/depression theory. As always, the clocks reset themselves— administered. Pat Quien, patient a with ovar- For the past 100 years, scientists have and this usually happens within three to six ian cancer, volunteered for the timed pro- been publishing papers on the subject of days. But until then, the workers' body gram. She noticed considerable a differ- circadian rhythms. At the turn of the century, rhylhms will be out of kilter. ence in her body's reaction to the drugs at educational psychologists conducted stud- The result can be more than worker dis- certain hours. "You were back on your feet ies to see at what time of the day school- comfort. Scientists see an example of upset sooner if you took the cisplatin at six in the children were most alert. Based on their body clocks in the Three Mile Island nu- evening," she said. It that there findings, appeared teachers designed schedules that clear-plant accident. The men at the con- were certain hours of the day when a patient slated difficult subjects, such as arithmetic, trols changed shifts every week, on a rota- could better tolerate the drugs. for the morning, when the children's perfor- tional basis, which meant that their clocks In the second part of this ongoing study, mance was thought to be best. were out of sync most ol their time at work. Dr. Hrushesky juggled three variables —the Since then, interest in chronobiology has As a result of this, chronobiologists would time, the order, and the inlervals at which the been cyclical, with knowledge in this area expect them to have memory lapses and drugs were administered. His goal: to increasing see rapidly within the past decade. difficulty in focusing attention and in react- whether "response and cure are also func- Although scientists have yet to under- ing quickly to a dangerous situation. The in- tions of when you get treated." The findings stand all of the intricacies of circadian vestigation of the accident bears this out. have been encouraging. rhythms, they do know-that each one of the Throughout that night, up to 4 a.m. (when the "We've had ten of the first twelve ovarian- body's hundreds of systems has its own tim- accident started), there is evidence in the cancer patients go into remission," he says. ing. Body temperature and blood pressure logbook of small errors in reading meters and The results could be attributed "partly to the rise and fall in the course of a day. Levels of interpreting data. "When shift workers have circadian time of treatment. It's likely to be hormones vary by as much as 80 percent. other than a normal daytime schedule or an important part of why they're doing so Heart rate is cyclical, as is iron concentra- when they periodically from ' change one shift well." Whether similar findings would be ob- tion in the bloodstream, The- white-blood-cell to another, their circadian rhythms become tained on a large scale is yet to be learned. count may fluctuate by 50 percent during a upset," explains Charles Ehret, a pioneer in Hrushesky is currently seeking volunteers for day. And there is the sleep-wake cycle. Even the field of chronobiology and senior biolo- his study specifically, persons with ovar- your — moods, activity level, memory, mathe- gist at Argonne National Laboratory, in Ar- ian or bladder cancer who've not matical acuity, been coordination, and sexual ap- gonne, Illinois. "This dyschronism is what the treated with chemotherapy. petite have their own circadian patterns. workers call shift-work fatigue. It isn't the 52 OMNI . —

. . ! ; . ,i .. ' .. ., , : kin : Minerals ana Chemicals Corporation, in Og- val, you often teel terrible and function poorly. tennis, or other physical activity. It is a con- den, Utah. Prior to the study, workers had How many critical treaties or business dition of mental and physiological dysfunc- rotated shifts weekly, always to earlier hours contracts have been negotiated after one of tion, and it can impair job performance." (from night to evening to day shifts). The re- the negotiators has just stepped off an inter- Impair it in what way? Ehret says a worker sult had been widespread insomnia and an continental jet? And how often has the ne- might find a valve that is supposed to be increased potential for mishaps. gotiator failed to get the best terms simply

closed—and open it. Workers suffering from Moore-Ede recommended a schedule because his clocks weren't working right? In dyschronism often do the opposite of what change to a phase-delay direction (to later 1956, John Foster Dulles, then secretary of they intend to do. hours, from day to evening to night). After slate under President Eisenhower, flew to Testifying in 1983 before the Committee this switch was made, company officials Egypt to conduct meetings on the Aswan on Science and Technology of the House of found that employees were more alert and Dam. Dulles withdrew an American offer to Representatives, Ehret noted that shift work- more productive. "Shifts should rotate to later help Egypt build fhe dam, and later on, he ers make up from 15 to 25 percent of our times with each rotation, and as much time attributed his poor judgment during the ne- workforce in industrial cites. Those on such as possible should be allowed between ro- gotiations to jet lag. He had entered the schedules include residents, nurses, and tations," Moore-Ede told the same congres- meetings immediately after deplaning. other hospital help; workers in many types sional science and technology committee. Aware of these dangers, military and gov- of industry; firemen; policemen; air-traffic "If this pattern were followed, [here would be ernment travelers, executives with compa- controllers; and pilots. less chance that a worker would have to nies like Control Data and Bechtel, and many Restructuring work shifts to take timing into perform a critical function when his alert- other businessmen now adjust their travel account would benefit both employer and ness, reaction time, and body functions were schedules and diets before starting jour- employee, Ehret says. "These changes at the low point of their daily cycle." neys that involve sensitive missions. should result in improved production, pre- Other companies, such as Chicago's The effects of jet lag could also have an vention of catastrophes, prevention of minor Commonwealth Edison, Houston's Exxon, impact on sports teams that must travel ap- injuries, and a reduction in absenteeism," he and Canada's Ontario Hydro, are beginning preciable distances to competitions, The U.S. says. "On another level, they should reduce to investigate their shift-work problems, and Olympic Committee has underwritten a divorce, family conflict, and child abuse. We attendance is high at seminars given on the medical research project at the Harvard see loving and kind people made dys- subject for business executives. Medical School, to be completed this year, chronic; they develop gastritis and what ap- The same dyschronism that affects shift in the hope of documenting how circadian

pears to be a mean temper, and they do un- workers can aiso : nf nonce me performance rhythms affect athletes' performance. acceptable things in the family circle. All of jet-setting businessmen. Again, winging "We are trying to understand such issues these effects can be reduced." your way across time zones can cause the as fhe adaptation of athletes following the Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, associate profes- various body rhythms to become displaced transiiion across time zones," says Dr, sor of physiology at the Harvard Medical from one another, and several days to three Charles Czeisler, who is the director of the School, helped to spearhead a work-shift weeks may pass before systems synchro- project. "First, do these things matter to ath- study of employees at the Salt Great Lake nize once more. During the transition inter- letic performance? And if they do, what strategies can be developed to facilitate the adaptation of athletes who must travel long distances to events?" An Olympic aihlete, tor example, may be in peak physical condition after months of

training, but if his clocks aren't synchronized on the day of his event, he may not give a top performance. There is an even more dis-

tressing possibility: If his optimal perfor- mance hour is four in the afternoon and his event is scheduled for nine in the morning,

he may lose a fraction of a second in time just enough, in a world-class event, to pre- vent him from winning or setting a record. Chronobiology research may provide part of the answer to another venerable sports question: What about the home-team ad-

vantage? Is it only a matter of having the crowd on your side and playing on familiar turf? "Or do you also have an edge when competing against a team whose clocks are off a bit because the players traveled? Does this slightly affect their coordination —per- haps enough to cause a couple of dropped passes or a few mixed-up signal calls? Cir- cadian scientists suspect the latter to be true. Is there a way to adjust the body's clocks

- so the effects of travel are diminished ' Ehret tackled this problem and devised a diet reg-

imen to minimize, if not prevent, the effects of jet lag. The diet employs certain cues such Zeitgebers as rest, timed meals of high- protein or high-carbohydrate content, and coffee taken at specific times —that gradu- ally reset the clocks, thus minimizing the "So tell me, how are the experiments with static electricity going?" malaise that many travelers experience after taking a lengthy jet flight. Caffeine manipu-- 54 OMNI lates the pacosoUers rescheduling certain natural cycles. Following Ehret's prescrip- tion, you can use this to your advantage when traveling. At other times, obviously, this re- setting can cause problems. Some people never feel jet lag. Ehret ex- plains that they "just do the right thing": They automatically—and unintentionally—set their clocks before and during a flight. They do this through their diet, sleep, work patterns, and coffee intake.

Not all scientists accept Ehret's findings. Timothy Monk, assistant professor of psy- chology in psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College, who is also engaged in jet- lag work, is currently testing some of the same components upon which the Ehret regimen is based, "Certain aspects of the diet plan are, I'm sure, very useful to travel- ers," he remarks. "I don't believe, however, 'hat the fasting and feasting alternation is of proved benefit at this time. The problem is that no control studies validate the Ehret study. The jury is still out." Even so, many thousands of people have used the diet when traveling, and most have found it effective. (Ehret's book, Overcoming Jet Lag, is pub- lished by Berkeley.) Ehret believes that as more is learned about the way food and drink affect our body rhythms, dietary concepts will be reexam- ined and will, in time, change. Oddly enough, it could be that in regard to timing and con- tent, the farmer of 50 years ago knew more about eating than we do loday. He woke up, put away a protein-rich breakfast of steak and eggs, and then did a morning's work. At noon he ate dinner, his big meal of the day, which was also high in protein. He loafed a little after dinner betore going back to work. At night, he ate a light meal, often high in carbohydrates. Why It's Such This diet was absolutely right for his body clocks. When he got up in the morning, fhe systems had been set for go, the adrenaline A Rare Bird was pumping, and he needed lots of fuel. The high-protein breakfast provided it. At Wild Turkeys are masters noon, he had to replenish the fuel supply. Right after dinner, he rested. He recognized of camouflage and evasion. something scientists have since identified: the postprandial, or after-meal, dip. The A large flock of birds will lie body's systems take a break after lunch. Mos! people blame this decline on having quietly within yards of a eaten lunch. Not so, unless you've really man passing through the gorged yourself. It is simply a natural part of the body's cycling. forest, and never be seen. The farmer's light but carbohydrate-rich supper helped fhe body set itself on a glide The Wild Turkey is path toward sleep. The carbohydrate meal stimulated the buildup of serotonin, which is truly a native bird, unique the body's own sleep drug. Throughout the evening, then, the iarmer continued on the to America. And it is the glide path. Compare the farmer's diet with .one you unique symbol of the may follow today. For breakfast, you eat ce- greatest native whiskey in real and sugar or perhaps toast and jelly, a carbohydrate meal that stimulates the sero- America-Wild Turkey. tonin and. practically tells your body to go back to bed. And you pour in coffee, which further confuses your clocks by reschedul- 101 / 8 ing the adrenaline cycle. WILD TURKEY'/ PROOF YEARS OLD Lunch? Perhaps you eat a good one.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 100 At Three Mile Island a small army of technicians is getting ready for the ultimate cleanup AFTER THE CHINA SVNDROIYIE

BY PAUL BAGNE

Sunshine promises to burn off the four enormous cooling towers rise 372 morning overcast on this first feet above Three Mile Island, day of spring. Patches of snow lie Each weekday morning, 1,200 about, a reminder that winter along people drive to work at the Three Mile the Susquehanna River has been long Island (TMI) complex. The place is and cold. On the south shore of the bustling. Multicolored lights are aglare island, blackbirds and grackles chatter in the two control rooms. Nonnuclear and squeak from high in the bare equipment, bright and freshly painted, oaks and maple trees. whirs and hums. Ready to start work, Near the low York Haven dam. which people crowd into elevators. Half the stretches to the river's west bank, personnel are busy with the planned the only sound is that of rushing water. restart of Unit 1, the undamaged reactor; the other half are here to I walk down a nature trail built by the Londonderry Lions Club and the clean up the damaged one, TMI-2. Boy Scouts of troop 241. in Middletown. The jollies! person around is Ron Yellow guide ropes follow the footpath, Fillnow, who directs relations with linking green, wooden pedestals industry and government for TMI. He on which signs in Braille are fastened works for Bechtel, the international One says to reach forward and leel construction firm chosen as lead how smooth the bark ot a birch tree is; contractor for the cleanup by General another asks you to lift the lid of a Public Utilities (GPU), owner of the box and smell the sassafras inside. plant. He has 36 years in the "nuclear In a nearby clearing, two silver game" and came lo the island to see pipes reach up like arms, five feet into this job through, then retire. the air, their elbows threaded to a T- , "I like being on the forefront of shaped pipe stuck upright in the technology," Fillnow says, "where ground. At eye level is attached a there's no textbook and you have to sealed instrument; under its glass find your own way: we have thai here cover, a mechanical pen graphs the in spades. TMI is one heck of a background radiation. Atop each arm challenge." A broad smile comes to is a sensor shaped like a gloved his face. "More of a challenge than I hand, palms facing toward the power thought il would be." plant one mile to the north, where Across a parking lot from his office PHOTOGRAPH BY GREGORY HEISLER — — —

(•There it stood, to be the first of many robots to "take the fry" of radiation for ma/1.9

is the structure domed of Unit 2 contain- sticks to anything and is everywhere. During ment—one of several buildings clustered the accident, it escaped from the split fuel near the cooling towers. Inside, the reactor rods and then leaked from the vessel with vessel protrudes from the door of the build- the gallons of water that poured from the in- ing. Technicians dressed like astronauts step famous pilot-operated relief valve (PORV), gingerly onto a platform atop the vessel. For the one that stuck open. protection from airborne and surface con- A series of cascading malfunctions and taminants and as shielding against alpha and mistakes all led to an "LOCA [loss-of-cool- beta radiation, they wear rubber suits, air ant-accident] transient"— the uncovering of hoods, and respirators. Thermoluminescent the fuel core— in 1979, The PORV stuck; dosimeters (TLDs), which register gamma- manually controlled valves that should have ray dosage, are pinned to their chests. been opened were closed; then one of the The workers are dwarfed by the cylindri- operators shut off crucial water pumps. cal concrete structure that rises overhead, Temperatures climbed toward 4,000° F The 157 ieet to the dome above. Sealed in the stainless-steel fitting, which held 208 slen- cylindrical vessel below are 100 ions of ra- der rods in each of the 177 fuel assemblies, dioactive debris—the remains of 37,000 started to melt. Zircalloy cladding—the pencil-thin fuel rods that split open in the ac- sheathing that held 237 uranium pellets cident five years before. Once cooling water stacked in each 12-foot fuel rod—cracked was lost, the core was reduced to rubble. open. The rods fell; pellets popped out and Removing it and cleaning out the reactor crumbled. The accident happened in sec- building is expected to take years. onds, rendering the heart of TMI-2—the re- The task on this is day to poke a long- actor core— useless rubble. handled grappler through a hole in the top While members of team 4 wait patiently of the vessel and down into the damaged for the return of Kobi and the wrench, entry fuel and to snatch few a samples for analy- team 5 is preparing to enter the containment sis. It's just one step in this $1 billion mission building, task coordinator Dean Hollman hatch. The workers inspect one another's on the cutting edge of decontamination leans up close to a television monitor. He protective garb one last time. technology, in which engineers and crafts- watches intently as two members of entry "You have permission to enter the air lock," men prepare to salvage the damaged core. team 4 search for a crescent wrench. announces Hollman. He asks the new ar- The long-term job is to recapture a huge "Did y'all look in the small toolbox?" he rivals— before they start their task on the amount of barely controlled radioactivity asks over the intercom. ground level—to bring a wrench and to carry more than 1 million curies that is — trapped "It's not there," responds Mark Kobi, from the found shield plates up to team 4. in the TMI-2 reactor building. platform. the Finally underway, team 4 works in silence. The nuclear industry is watching closely, "We'll send a wrench," offers Hollman, They screw together a 40-foot pole from and the Department of Energy is funding part "Now we can't find the shield plates: re- threaded sections as they lower the sam- of the project. Techniques learned and stan- quest permission to check around on level pling tool—a bullet-shaped canister with a dards of worker safety followed here will set three-oh-five." The level numbers refer to revolving door to scoop up a sample precedents for decontaminating other nu- height above sea level, providing a stan- through a hollow tube and down into the core. clear plants around the country. dard to locate positions within the building. "We have contact al level three-oh-seven," 'The reactor vessel itself is only a pot thirty Hollman confers with a radiation-control reports Michael Estabrook. He has attached feet deep and maybe fifteen feet across," supervisor, who seems annoyed at the de- a wheel to the protruding section and twists says Jack DeVine, director of technical lay. In one hour atop the reactor, each team it back and forth. "We broke through." He planning. "It's the presence of very ra- high member has absorbed about 60 millirems pushes his weight down against the tool, "We diation that makes this such an awesome a minor but wasted exposure, since the job have a hard stop at three-oh-three; five and job." Using computers, pictures from min- is yet a not underway. one-quarter inches, it won't go any farther." iature camera, and data from a sonar device "Okay, let him go down there," decides "Take the sample there," direcfs Hollman. lowered into the vessel through existing the an supervisor, "but keep him on camera." Slowly they draw it out. They clean the ra- hole in the top, the TMI-2 recovery team has Kobi descends six flights of stairs to the dioactive contaminants from the boom with been able to get a picture of conditions in- ground floor. dozens of Kim Wipes—tissues normally side. And they've been able to gain experi- "Mike, move away from the air coolers," used for babies' bottoms—and carefully ence in working with the damaged reactor, Hollman warns. It's a hot Spot, one of many discard them in plastic garbage bags. according to DeVine. circled in red on floor plans tacked to a wall "It's two hundred eighty m-rads at the pole "But no one has ever monkeyed around near the command post. The coolers emit down here," reports Terry King, who is with a core like this before," he adds. "There gamma rays at two rems per hour. A rem checking radiation readings. are so many uncertainties." or rad— is a unit of ionizing radiation equiv- "Getting a little warm," remarks an engi- From a darkened command post away alent to about 40 chest X rays. The median neer in the booth. "Cesium activity is going from the reactor, -in the abutting turbine annual exposure of workers at U.S. reactors up." is just half over a rem. The primary radiation "We've got it," says King. "Reading three RED, or Rover, the robot (above), was built to culprit is a soluble contaminant called ce- rads at the surface of the cask." explore the deadly radioactive basement TMI. o! sium-137, which, as one engineer told me, This is the second set of debris samples 56 OMNI ' "

grabbed from the core, and will be used to were no boron-laced water, explains Skill- worried that the uranium would melt, but determine the nature of the rubble through man, disturbing that degraded fuel could set "mighty concerned" about a hydrogen ex- chemical and microstructural analyses, so off high-heat reaction. a plosion, he came to the island as part of the plans and tools can made to be remove it. But such talk is unnecessary to Skillman emergency-response team. One who eagerly awaits the results is Gor- because is he "going to make sure that He himself has suited up to climb into the Skillman, don manager of defueling. I find doesn't happen, by inserting poison." containment building five times and wants my way to his office, in the administration "Could the water and boron somehow leak to go "hands on" again to help remove the building, after walking through a maze of or- I out?" ask. fuel. "I it want out of there, and I want to min- ange and beige cubicles, past engineers "The question now " tends toward what it. imize the radiation exposure to do it." studying computer printouts, perusing "What isthe condition of the bottom of the Choosing his words with care, Skillman memos, and talking on the phone aJI of reactor vessel?" — concludes, "This is all new to us. So we say them planning the recovery of TMI-2, Skill- "That is a major concern to many people, let's be certain, and let's be sure. We cannot man is a likable person who looks in you the he admits. "There are fifty-two pipes that have a mistake here," he adds. "We cannot

eye and says what's on his I mind. ask if he connect to it." These carried instruments that have a man-killing mistake." was surprised by what he saw when a re- monitored the reactor before the accident. mote camera was first lowered into the re- The concern now is that water might leak I find the robot—a rugged six-wheel ve- actor core in the summer of 1982. through them and out of the reactor. After hicle—among rusty pipes and old valves in "I would be dishonest if I said, 'Nah, we the accident they were submerged in water a warehouse just up the road from Skillman s took it in stride,' " he says. "We were stunned. for two years. "There could be some corro- office. Fluorescent lights glance off its three We knew from calculations how much dam- sion degrading one or all of those pipes." stainless-steel cameras, which are mounted age we could expect, but the reality took our "Can you inspect them?" at eye level on a pedestal fixed to its low breath away." He laughs, remembering the "No, cannot. we They are not accessible chassis, a platform for remote tools, manip- scene. "The guy running the camera said it from above or from below. But what we are ulators, and sensors. Its ribbonlike elec- all. 'We're down here at the top of the core going to do it. is keep the core covered." tronic tether is partly unrolled from its big and ought to see it any second. We're down horizontal reel and laid in a jumble on the an inch, two inches.' " He drops his voice to floor. It stands there waiting, it seems, to show a whisper. " 'We're down a foot, now two feet, the doubters it can do the job: to be the first five feet.' You could feel the tension building of many robots to "take the fry" of radiation because we believed right away we would for man—first at TMI then at other contami- see the bulk of the core standing '•TMI may at atten- nated nuclear sites across the land. tion, but it wasn't there." be to the nuclear-power "Professor Whitaker drove it down here Later I watch the videotape of inspection industry what himself in a rental truck," says materials co- by miniature camera. Flakes of debris float ordinator John Osmolinski, who had un- by; a shiny spring comes into focus, then a the Apollo fire was to locked the warehouse door. "He set it up right dark pellet; fuel rods lie like tossed pick-up the space here and put on a demonstration. Everyone sticks. To me it is like peering into a murky was really impressed." They dubbed it RED, pond. But to nuclear engineers program. It has been the image is tor remote excursion device (see photo on all too clear. The core of an 800-megawatt a time of page 58). It has been renamed Rover. reactor is in shambles—a problem never The machine's reflection, creator, Red Whitaker, is before encountered. a time of learning.^ codirecior of the civil-engineering and con- "I guess we were surprised," continues struction-robotics lab at Carnegie-Mellon Skillman, "because in our optimism we had University, in Pittsburgh. He is a tall, red- been confident that things couldn't be that headed, muscular inventor whose green bad. Many of us who have been here since eyes brighten when an idea intrigues him. the accident believed this plant would be "Can you get more fluid in there in case of When I see him on campus, he plays a back online by 1981. That was not a mis- a leak?" I wonder. videotape tor me. "This is a mock-up mis- judgment by a few zealous, ignorant people "Yes," he replies confidently. sion done from this room," he explains. The but a view held by management of utilities." Skillman hopes the debris sampling will machine rolls down the hall and then is low- Discovering a collapsed core when they show that metals were not fused into a mass ered into a basement room below us. "You were expecting moderate damage has by the intense. heat of the accident. If that see its lights come on there. This is just the caused the engineers to "go back and take happened, the engineers would face an- kind of activity we could be doing in the one more look," particularly at the steps taken other unknown. "If the mass is brittle, it will basement of the reactor building." during the catastrophe to prevent criticality, crumble like a sheet of ice when you hit it, In the basement of the containment build- an instantaneous chain reaction. Says Skill- and that won't be troubling. But if it's hard, ing, the reactor vessel rests on a concrete man, "We don't want to be surprised again." like high-grade steel, we've got a brand-new support. From there the cylindrical vessel The challenge and hazards of defueling job our on hands.. rises up through the ground floor, toward the this reactor can be traced to the incredible "It's not as if-there's a dinosaur in there domed roof. For three years after the acci- energy potential inside the vessel: One pel- waiting to get out and eat the workers or the dent, the basement— thick with cables, let of enriched uranium is roughly equal in public, but tuel in this condition is so improp- pipes, and equipment—was filled with eight energy content to half a ton of coal. erly configured that it provides a level of feet of water that leaked out from the reactor. The damaged fuel is now immersed in anxiety." continues in he his low-key manner. The water was pumped out through a filtra- water heavily laced with boron, a substance "When we get it back into containers, we'll tion system, which absorbed much of the used at many reactors to stop, that is, to rest more easily." radiation. But some cesium remained, stick- "poison," fission the splitting of uranium (U-. Skillman — is on loan from the firm that built ing to surfaces and soaking into the porous 235) atoms concentrated in fuel pellets. the TMI reactors, Babcock and Wilcox, concrete. Dose rates in some spots may ap- When U-235 is struck by, and then absorbs; where he supervised the engineering of proach 1,000 rems per hour. Standing near a neutron, it shoots out two or three more core-cooling systems. He was in his Lynch- a source this "hot," a human—even one in neutrons, which hit other U-235 atoms in a burg. Virginia, office thinking about income a protective rubber suit—would be sick from self-sustained, heat-charged reaction called - taxes when he first learned of the accident. radiation in 15 minutes and dead from radia- criticality. During the cleanup, the risk of this recalls, He "The first words were, 'They have tion exposure in two weeks to a month. happening inadvertently will greatest be stopped the high-pressure-injection pumps.' As yet, no one has entered the basement, when workers start removing the tuel. If there That's 'the lifeline for cooling water." Never though in the spring of 1982 an engineer 60 OMNI —"

stepped a flight of down steps to the first (ailed because they build up tons of resist- ties" whose facilities may require cleanup. landing and shined a flashlight on the floor ance dragging a tail. So this machine car- "One wants the human safely away from below. He saw layer of siltlike a material, ries its tether spooled onto a reel." hazard," says Whitaker; "that's the motiva-

scraped up sample of it with long-han- a a From a remote console, a pilot uses the tion for robotics. There's a history of remote dled scooper, and hurried back out. two forward cameras to see, and maneu- work in the nuclear setting; so it's not wildly 'This is a situation where is there no choice vers the craft with a joystick. A copilot, new or different. Now that we have better but'to use remote devices," says Whitaker. watching through the rear camera, plays out capabilities, it makes even more sense." "It's just unthinkable to go down there." the tether. Until RED arrived, the only robots tried out Except for that visit the one by engineer, "I think we will see a progression from this at TMI during the past five years of cleanup the basement remains, unknown territory teleoperated system toward a new genera- purchased to give engineers an "under- Before any human enter, can engineers need tion of machines— in the near future—that standing of the capabilities and limitations to have surveillance done of the room will —lo- be more or less autonomous, " says Whit- of such devices," as GPU announced—were cating any debris on the floor, checking lo aker. "One scenario is to use a vehicle of this an unstable spraying vehicle named Fred, see what doors are accessible, and taking kind as a superintendent to direct other and a little radio-controlled tank that would accurate radiation readings of the whole drones— marvelous little machines, both stop dead after turning a corner. room to pinpoint hot spots, as well as some walking on legs and rolling on wheels. These The Muclear Regulatory Commission, after cool spots where humans might be able to things are not distant; it's just a matter of de- presenting the robotics alternative, con- work. And that will be RED's job. ciding to do them." Three Mile Island, Ship- cluded that "the present generation of ro- RED, or Rover, is scheduled to into this pingport, go and West Valley are the proving bots is severely limited in mobility, dexterity, dark, wet, and radioactive place this fall to grounds, he says, "and decontamination will strength, and logic." In spite of the trips that have a look around. "They may lind some have to be done everywhere eventually." RED will take inside TMI-2, Ihe commission very bad troubles," Whitaker. says "Then Shippingport, near Pittsburgh, has only a guessed that robots capable of doing the they'll have to plan what next. comes My ap- 60-megawatt capacity and was the nation's full job are 10 to 20 years away. proach is to develop the robot's capabilities first commercial reactor. Over the next five, But some robotics experts disagree with as demands require. What you see here is a years General Electric will lake it apart for the NRG. "I don't know how they figured that," stripped-down version. Later there will be $65 million in another test of decontamina- says Leo Duffy, manager of waste technol- radiation detectors put on board and an arm tion technology. West Valley, south of Buf- ogy for Westinghouse. "We have the con- will be attached for gathering samples. One falo, New York, a mothballed nuclear-fuel re- tract to make the tools to remove the fuel at it will be knocking day down walls and car- processing plant, will be decontaminated by TMI, and we have proposed a remote op- rying out concrete blocks. Westinghouse for $500 million. eration that will certainly reduce dose rates. "In areas with thick concrete walls," he Bechtel has, in addition to the TMI job, a The fuel-removing robots look quile dif- continues, "radio is unreliable and micro- $320 million Department of Energy con- ferent from RED. Two robotic arms on a pole wave is questionable. Some tasks, like claw- tract to restore 32 contaminated sites. The lowered into the vessel from above will pick ing loose concrete, require voltage; high so Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identi- up the fuel as part of Westinghouse's re- a battery is no good. Tethered vehicles have fied some 20,000 "nuclear material activi- mote-operated service arm (ROSA). ROSA, which has an electronic vision system, was built to locate and plug leaky tubes in nu-

clear steam generators. It and a similar de- vice, called Finger Walker, designed by Combustion Engineering, will reduce by thousands the number of workers exposed on such jobs. Robotics is also efficient; ROSA sped up repairs at Wisconsin's Point Beach reactor, saving the local power utility an es- timated $32 million in downtime. Westinghouse, a major player in the so- called nuclear aftermarket, last year ac- quired Unimation, a robot-manufacturing firm. "So we are well positioned," stresses Duffy, "to incorporate robotics into our nu- clear operations." At West Valley, Westinghouse's cleanup job in New York, project manager Hugh Daugh- erty intends to "beat the hell" out of the pro- jected collective dose, also by using robot-

ics. Duffy says, "You put the robots in and supervise and reprogram them for specific tasks. You use robots to clean and maintain other robots, and exposure is minimized. You can mount ROSA on a mobile unit. That's not future technology; it's here now." But TMI engineers "stay away from high tech," except where there is no choice— as in the basement, says GPU's DeVine. He ex- plains that waiting for long-term robotics de- velopment would delay the cleanup and that robots and other complex devices "can bite you, from a radiological standpoint. When a machine breaks down, you have to go in

there and fix it." "'Unfortunately, technology has a big price : tag," Whitaker points out. "So they have re- ADAGIO

BY BARRY B. LONGYEAR

Tobias salon the red-stone grave Tobias raised a gnmy hand and marker on the side of Graveyard rubbed h- _ iame.was Hill and watched as Forrest wic-picker bait nerser' "hat's why sne

tortured the rocks with the portable was cs:'qo Lady Name, t was a tempo- generator he had taken from the rary label tor the woman unhi s'le could cargo bay. Torture is what Lady Name figure out just wnd the heii she was. called Forrest's game. Lady Name was Or at ieast until she would say who sne 'ha; Forres; convinced was insane. . *. was. Cage and Fone ihoug! . PAINTING BY DE ES SCHWERTBERGER had amnesia. Tobias didn't buy that, but he The gray stone Tobias had originally brief used A pause. "Tobias. I need to know the didn't care. to mark Osborn's grave was now several power situation." He lowered his hand and. let his gaze meters downslope, running like hell, Forrest Through his suit's faceplate", he glanced

wander past the main shelter dome until it claimed. It had taken, the gray stone five of at the remains of .the engineering board. "I came to rest upon the remains. of the ship. the planet's month-long days to race the short can't help bul believe, Mikizu. that you know Three kilometers behind the cargo vessel distance. Gray stones, white stones, green just about as much as I do about that," was the jagged ledge that had ventilated the stones, black stones. They littered the red "The bridge panel is dead," command module as the ship ground to a landscape. They were alive. The red ones "No shit." He leaned back against the stop. Through the rents in the command didn't move. They were dead. bulkhead, glanced at Osborn, and closed module, he could see Lady Name. She was Osborn was dead. And Mikizu. He let his his eyes. "We're all dead back here, too." silently watching Forrest. Motionless. gaze wander "1 two meters to the left to an- need power if we're going to go down." It entirely was possible that Lady Name other red stone. When Mikizu had piloted the "Is there any point?" would kill Forrest. A matter of indifference to ship, shearing it off that ledge, he had lost "Forrest thinks so." Tobias. Somewhere below her in the twisted his head. Tobias knew because he had car- Forrest. Second pilot. A little bastard but metal. Cage would be nervously working on ried that head to the grave while Forrest and smart. Tobias shook'his head to clear it. Time the computer. still Death seemed to matter Cage carried the pilot's remainder. to knock off the smartmouth. to Cage. His nerves were the direct result of Too quick, Tobias thought. Too quick and "Main and auxiliary plants are down. Lady Name frequently sitting just out of his clean a death for you, Mikizu. Tobias un- Whatever it was :hat came I lying through the field of vision, staring at him, sharpening her sealed his suit and pissed on the pilot's hull took out the engines. I couldn't sell what's knife upon one of the dead red stones. grave. When he was finished he stumbled left of them for scrap." The dried and cracked crust that had down the hill, entered his individual shelter, Another pause, this one longer. "What formed over the surface of the red dust when and flopped down on his cot. He closed his about the fuel cells?" it last rained was almost all little gone. The eyes thinking of dead red grave markers. "They're okay. Osborn got the lines shut bit of wind, the motion of the rocks, the feet Osborn was dead. Mikizu was dead. Miki- down before too much.iuel escaped, What's of the humans had eroded the crust. And it Forrest got in mind?"

had been such a long time since it had Forrest's voice entered his helmet, "We can rained. When they had constructed the main try for a dead-stick landing. If you can rig shelter dome from the cargo-bay supplies, the steering jets, Tobias, the computer says

it had been gleaming white. .Now it was cov- we have a chance of making it through the ered with dull-red dust. iDeath still atmosphere."

It seemed like years had passed since seemed to matter to Cage. "How much of a chance?" they had put up the dome and installed the His nerves Forrest laughed. "Don't ask." He became nutrition system. Twenty meters in diameter, quiet. "We have a better chance at making it was large enough to shelter all five of them. were the direct result of Lady a landing than we have trying to stay alive Lady Name was the first one to move out Name frequently up here. Can you rig something?" and erect an individual shelter. There had Tobias looked around the engineering been fifty of the plastic-plank shelter sitting just out of his field kits in deck, the challenges of practical necessity the cargo bay. Now they each had one. only of vision, temporarily crowding out projections of dis- meeting in the dome to eat. The fact was that * aster and demise. With the board sharpening her knife. shot there they could no longer stand other. each would be some wiring to do. He'd have to The whisper of feet dragging in the dust work off the batteries. And some plumbing, interrupted Tobias's thoughts. Tillson. The not to mention readjusting the steering jets footsteps stopped. to use main-plant fuel. He didn't really know "Is it possible, Tobias, that God has done if that could be done. But there was some-

this to us to provide us with a challenge If zu.was no loss. it hadn't been for him they thing else. The entry heat would turn aft en- against which to test our virtue?" wouldn't be stranded. But Osborn. Tobias gineering into a furnace. Tobias turned to his left and glared up at wished Osborn were still alive. He'd know "Forrest, I can make a try at the steering the chaplain. Tillson was naked again. "Stick what to do. But Osborn had to be a hero. . . jets, bul something has to be done about it up your ass. Howard." those holes in the hull." Chaplain Howard Tillson nodded gravely. He had sat in the sputtering flashes of the "Get to work on the jets. When you're ready. "You are right, of course. You are very wise, emergency lights, watcning Osborn's eye- I'll help you with the holes. We can snatch Tobias. Very wise." baits leak. The chief engineer was in the some plate trom somewhere." The chaplain turned and stumbled his way wreckage of the engineering deck, inhaling Tobias pushed up and began working his down the back of Graveyard Hill, his droopy vacuum, the seat' of his trousers puddling way toward aft engineering. He loved doing buns jiggling with each step. with piss and blood, fluid the from his eye- wiring in atmospheric longjohns. It was like Tobias again pondered the fact that Till- dribbling balls down his cheeks. doing watch repair wh :e wearing a pair of son had a woman's ass. Another fact to pon- There had been plenty of time for Osborn boxing gloves. The failing gravity would just der was that rescue had best happen before to get on his suit. The hull damage in aft en- make it interesting. Tillson's ass got to look much better. He hol- gineering had dumped only the pressure He punched the switch, and the hatch lered down the hill at the jiggling ass, "Till- from that compartment. The rest of the ship swung slightly open and jammed. With his son. put some clothes on!" lost pressure only because of the warped foot he kicked it the rest of the way open. He The chaplain stopped, turned, looked up bulkhead seals. It took minutes for the ship stood in the hatch and looked into the dark- at Tobias, and nodded. "You are right, of to lose cabin pressure. But Osborn wanted ness of the engine room. " course. You are always right, Tobias to flick switches, : punch buttons, and twirl' The only light came from the holes in the Placing his hands upon his knees, Tobias knobs. The rest of them probably owed him hull. Tobias knew that some of those flickers pushed himself his feet to and dusted off the their lives. The asshole. were stars, but most of them were too bright

seat of his flight suit. He turned and looked - "Tobias?" The headset-in his suit spoke. It for that. The bright ones were the remain's of down at the grave marker he had been sit- was the .pilot, Mikizu. "Engineering? Os- the crumbled planets that formed the Oids ting on. Osborn's marker. It was a smooth, born? Tobias?" Belt in orbit around a sun called Mantchee. red stone just like Mikizu's. Tobias answered. "What?" Merchant crews don't like the Oids Belt They had to use only the red stones for "Osborn?" and never go there. The union even got it in grave markers. They didn't off. - walk "Osborhsdead," the contract, Asteroids, planetoids, and 66 OMNI —

paranoids. Tobias still had one of the still but- "Forrest is torturing the rocks." It was mind. He felt he should be rooting for the

tons that says i avoids the oids Lady ; Name's voice. beacon signal's success. A moral thing. What But Ihere were passengers and parts to Tobias buried his head more deeply into generations of humans would say was the pick up and deliver to strange and wonder- his pilldw, "If you don't get out of here, I'll rip thing he should be doing right then. The cu- ful places, and a pilot who believed in short- out your spine and strangle you with it." rious thought was thai he didn't really care cuts more than he did in minimum safely or No footsteps moving away. He could feel whether the signal got through or not. union contracts. Tobias swore that' if he and the woman's hurt gaze on his back. The the pilot managed to live through the land- flimsy shelter almost radiated with terminal "soon the dark" ing. Tobias's first planet-side act would be to sulk. Tobias chased away his nightmares and "soon we kill" murder Mikizu. rolled over on his cot. "Go away, Lady,, Take "it is the wish of this thing" Firsl things first. up a hobby, go play with yourself, anything. He returned, grabbed Osborn, dis- Anything and but tattling on Forrest. I don't find Manichee rode half-hidden by the hori- lodged the engineering chief's from body the forty-year-old children amusing." zon. Tobias entered the main shelter, the red rapidly freezing fluids ihat were pinning his "I not am tattling, Tobias. I am reporting. glare of the week- cng sunsei casting the in- ass to the deck. One of your men is torturing the rocks. Those terior of the dome in blood. Pulling the body to the hatch. Tobias rocks are alive." They were all seated around the low table. pushed it toward the large hole at his feet. "Lady, first, they are not my men. If anyone Lady Name, as usual, was watching Forrest. The still form somersaulted slowly toward is in charge, it's Forrest. Second, I don't care Forrest was entertaining himself with his own the hole and jerked to a halt. Tobias pulled about the rocks. I really don't. My only prob- thoughts while Tillson struggled, probably the tight from his belt and aimed the beam lem is keeping sane until someone picks up uncomfortable with the unfamiliar feeling of at the opening. our signal. Rescue, Lady. Think rescue." wearing clothes. Nelson Cage was heavily The back of Osborn's head had been "Mo one will pick up the signal. Forrest told into a wiring diagram, the symbols and the

speared and snagged by the hole's it ragged you can't get ihrough the radiation." problems .their relationships represented edge. One of the thick splinters of mefal pro- "You don't know that. Forrest doesn'l know providing as much entertainment for him as truded from Osborn's left eye. that for certain. There's a chance." the rocks did for Forrest. Someday the geniuses will figure out how She stared at him for a moment, almqst As he. pulled a ration pack from the dis- to puke in a space suit. He turned away. looking sane, then nodded toward the penser, Tobias heard Cage announce, "I shack's doorway. "What are you going to do have the computer working." "this thing will serve us if we obey it" about Forrest?" Tillson: "God doesn't like computers." "how will it serve" lurned He his back and burrowed into his Lady Name: "What are you going to kill

1 "it wilt stop pain and death" pillow. "Nothing." time with now, Cage?" "this thing brought us pain and death" Footsteps, finally Forrest: "Break it, Cage. Break the com- "we must obey" The beacon signal would gel through. It puter and fix it.again." "this thing now wants us to kill" had to. Then a curious thought entered his Cage's face flushed red. "I don't know

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68 OMNI " —

what's wrong wiih you people, Alter five over at Lady Name. "At least I know who you Forrest chuckled and shook his head. months of hard work I've managed to—" are now." "Calm down. Let her play with the machine. Forrest leaned forward holding a linger She looked away from Forrest for a split It's got to be better than having her perched before his lips. "Shhh." He brought his finger second. As she resumed her watch on the like a vulture on my shoulder all the time." down and smiled. "Mo one cares, Cage." pebble persecutor she replied, "Cage, you "What if she breaks it?" Tobias lowered himself into the chair to haven't a clue who I am." "Then you can fix it again, It really isn't Forrest's right, sipped at the acid-tasting hot Cage smirked. "Barbara Striker. Doctor very important." beverage, and gnawed on a nutribar as Striker. Barbara I managed to retrieve the Cage stood abruptly and walked rapidly Cage leaned back, his voice becoming brit- passenger It — manifest. says you are Doctor frdm the dome. Again Forrest chuckled. tle. "We can use. the computer Barbara Striker, a biologist 'ormorly with tic "Cage is on his way to the ship to lay down "For what?" Tobias shook his head as he Dison System colonization effort, currently the law to Lady Name." bit again at the nutribar. "Except for getting relieved of your post because you are a "Yeah, and when she flashes that blade of rescued, all our solvable problems are fucking crazy." hers he'll be back with awet crotch." Tobias solved. We have oxygen, water, rations, and "Words." slowly She turned her head to- pointed with his thumb toward the door. "How livable temperature a spread. The only things ward Cage. "I'll be using the computer." come you aren't outplaying with your rocks?" in short supply are patience sanity. and Do will not! I "You just finished repairing it." "Things are arranged." you have any games you can play on that Lady Name grinned as she stood and "What's that mean?" thing? We could use some entertainment." walked from the dome, obviously heacod for "I have initiated certain things out there. Cage snorted and sat back in his chair. the wreck and the computer. Cage leaned I'm teaching them to serve. When it be- "Games," he repeated in disgust. He looked toward Tobias. "You must do something!" comes light again you should be able to see how my subjects have responded." Tobias finished off the remaining portion of his nutribar and tossed the wrapper on the plastic floor. If Forrest wants to play god, .at teas! he doesn't make a lot of noise. But INTRODUCING BEROL CASSETTE. they're all crazy, he thought. Every single last one of them. Am I? There was a scream from the wreckage. and a moment later Cage could be seen, holding his arm, running toward his individ-

ual shelter. Forrest nodded, his eyes still closed. "It looks as though they've decided that Lady Name gets to use the computer."

He opened one eye and aimed it at Tobias.

"Is it true that you piss on Mikizu's grave?" An exciting breakthrough in Tobias finished his beverage and placed the cup on the table. mechanical pencil He sat back, clasped technology. his hands over his belly, and watched Mantchee slip a little lower behind the hori- The Berol Cassette Pencil is a breakthrough zon. "Every chance I get." in mechanical pencil technology with its

innovative, easy-loading cartridge design. Just "now we kill" take a long-lasting cartridge of 15 leads "the not green should know why we kill"

and slide it in like a ballpoint refill! It's clean "tell them to ask this thing" and simple, and you never have to fool The dark came. Tobias tossed with one-at-a-time leads. With a click of the beneath his thermal blanket, trying to sleep, flying automatic push-button lead advance, in the face of the fact that he was all slept out. Had you get a ready supply of lead to keep you been slept out for hours. Probably days— writing. And to help reduce lead those twenty-four-hour spans of time they call breakage, each Berol Cassette Pencil has a days on a planet whose memory had grown special shock-absorber cushioned point. The dim. Back on a planet in a time when there Berol Cassette ... the most innovative was youth, ideals, dreams, plans. The ex- mechanical pencil since mechanical citement of school and training.

pencils were invented! The' monotony of space. All of it reduced to keeping the power plants in second-rate Shxk-t iLsorber cushioned ships coughing along in exchange for a point paycheck and a pension that he didn't think he'd live long enough to collect "To hell with this." Long ago Tobias had lost the ability to entertain himself with his own company.

He sat up, still wearing his filthy flight suit, CosseUe '-ariridgij uMs and slipped his feet into his icy boots. The smell of his own body hung around him like a curse. There would be enough light from

Berol. the Oids to make it to the place where the

stream was aboveg round if he wanted to take a bath. He shivered at the thought. What the hell. Everyone was being tracked by his own shadow of funk. Keeping the thermal blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Tobias stepped out- side. The Oids were bright in the night sky. Maybe they should use the computer to plot the Oids. There was a lot ot crap out there, all in the same orbit. Some fine day maybe A Dutch of Class. one of Ihose three-hundred-kilometer-long chunks of rock might slam into the middle ot their camp. He spat on the ground. "And if we knew, what could we do about it?" There was a light on in the wreckage of the ship. Tobias began moving his feet in that direction. The other individual shelters were dark. The main shelter had a light on, but no one was inside the dome. The open cargo hatch in the belly of the ship glowed with a dim red. Whoever was in the ship, it wouldn't be Cage. The computer man had a thing about conserving the ship's batter- ies. He would never leave on a light that wasn't needed. As though it made any dif- ference. The batteries would outlive them all. Tobias entered the cargo bay and began working his way around and through the jumble of opened containers and their scat- tered contents. 1 Most of It had been destined for a low- oA budget evaluation mission on some Steamy planet out there somewhere. Everything anyone would need !o learn the learnable about a planet and then screw it up. They had found the shelters and rations there. Forward of the cargo hatch another light burned above a stack of strange equipment that Tobias had never seen before. Must have come from the cargo. Cables ran from the- siack through the crew's quarters toward the cockpit. He entered the corridor to the crewis quarters, his mind thumbing through the ob- vious as he trudged up the slight incline to the cockpit. If a full crew had been on board, maybe. If Mikizu hadn't overestimated his and his ship's abilities, maybe. If they'd followed company policy and stayed the hell out of the Oids, maybe. If they hadn't been or- dered out of their way to pick up the passen- gers, maybe. Maybe. If. If ending it on this dreary rock wasn't such a fitting end to a dreary life. If He could hear no sound forward except for the almost inaudible whine of the power converter, He stopped at the hatch to the cockpit and peered in. Lady Name's back was toward him. She was sitting back, watching, almost hypno- tized by the patterns appearing upon the display. Every few moments the image would switch to columns of figures and then back to the patterns. He stepped into the cockpit. "Hey, Lady, What'reyou up to?" She whirled about, the needle-pointed blade in her right hand. As he froze, a slow grin appeared on her face. "You shouldn't sneak up on me that way. Tobias. You almost got to do your pension as a eunuch." She lowered the blade. "Why are you here?".

His gaze still fixed on the knife, Tobias worked his way to the commo station couch and sat" down. "I couldn't sleep anymore. Thought Cage's machine might have some- thing to read." ^fto&cA She turned back to the display over the . HOLLAND BEER CONTINUED on page us UtaggiUjBnlMiiiiUUgKe • JJ t .

BY PHOEBE HOBAN i.

tae^s*m* artistry Each chemigram is a study ot its own

" ' parallels im- ^ut the cool, blue bubbles (left) and the serene, green cur-

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' , the chemiqi This young physicist may have trapped a relic from the dawn of creation. The magnetic monopole could be the particle that unites the forces of nature into a single, great theory. But did he really catch one? IRJTERV/IEIJU

^^t precisely 1:53 rm on Saint Valentine's Day, 1982. something very Mi strange took place in the laboratory of Stanford University physicist still aren't it left m \ Bias Cabrera. Whatever it was (and physicists sure) an electronic footprint that makes it the best candidate yet for being the great white whale of quantum physics: the elusive magnetic monopole, the bizarre theoretical particle with only one magnetic pole, north or south. Discovery of the monopole would be a scientific event indeed. It would have vast implications for current theories of the origins of the universe and would provide a unified description of the fundamental forces of nature—the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism, and gravitation. There is even an outside chance that the verification of the monopole would revolutionize the way physicists study the outside world. Collisions between pairs ot oppositely scientists charged monopoles, if they could be arranged, would allow to probe subatomic behavior at energies a trillion times higher and at distances a trillion times smaller than those attainable in the biggest accelerator. "For me." says Cabrera, "the monopole is one of the most intuitively attractive beasts around." Until Cabrera's ambiguous monopole signal, the absence of the particle was PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN SEEF an empirical lad. That did not rule them out time or forgotten space. Using a SQUID (su- ing," he said; "on the other, it was depress- theoretically, however. In 1931 the great Brit- perconducting quantum interference de- ing because it meant that nothing had been ish physicist RA.M. Dirac explored the logic vice), the original detector was essentially a done since he left." of monopoles in depth. Dirac was searching five-centimeter-wide coil of niobium wire Cabrera became interested in monopoles for a way to quantify electric charge. And to bathed in liquid helium at temperatures ap- m the late Sixties, while a graduate student find it, he needed to assume the existence proaching absolute zero. Supercooled, the in the laboratory of Stanford physicist Wil- ot this weird entity. niobium loop becomes a superconductor: liam Fairbank, who was hunting quarks. For 50 years physicists peered into iron The metal puts up virtually no resistance to (Quarks are believed to be the basic build- ore and the mighty accelerators looking for current flowing through it. If a monopole ing blocks of such subatomic particles as signs of monopoles. In Ihe Seventies, Nobel would pass through the loop, the supercur- the proton and neutron.) Cabrera decided Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his rent flowing through the SQUID element to test Nobel laureate Julian S. Schwinger's group looked at moon rocks and sea-bot- would register a sudden jump, or DC shift. proposal that quarks might be monopoles. tom beds, where monopoles might have And that's what happened on Valentine's Day. Cabrera didn't find any monopoles, but us- congregated over the aeons. Nothing. Until, To eliminate all false alarms and mechan- ing specimens from a quark search, he did that is, the event on Valentine's Day. ical disturbances ("somebody dropping a devise a method for measuring extremely Dirac also suspected that the monopole cosmic wrench"). Cabrera began using a weak magnetic fields, the method he would now be quite heavy by subatomic stan- new, improved monopole in trap 1983. The uses in his search for the elusive particle. dards—somewhere between 10 and 100 new detector has three niobium loops to give After doing his undergraduate work in times the mass of a proton. But a rush of it a three-dimensional quality. It is an evac- physics at the University of Virginia, Cabrera theoretical breakthroughs in the Seventies uated glass globe on the end of a glass tube. received his Ph.D. from Stanford. In 1978 he inflated the expected mass to Brobdingna- Around the inside of Ihe globe are the three and C.W.F Everitt were awarded a presti- gian proportions. A single monopole may loops at right angles to one another; they gious precision-measurement grant from the weigh as much as an amoeba, 100 trillion create approximately 30 times as large a National Bureau of Standards. times more than the value suggested by collecting area as the old detector did. If a Psychologist and science writer John Dirac's work. Such superheavy monopoles Gliedman talked with Cabrera in the physi- could travel faster than 200 or 300 kilome- cist's modest ground-floor office in Stan- ters per second. ford's Varian building, just down the corridor Today many physicists believe that at the from the lab housing the primitive monopole dawn of the universe, the four basic forces detector that created all the fuss. While the were unified. Gravitation is thought to have ^Monopoles were conversation veered back and forth be- separated from the other forces first 10 * 3 — created during the almost tween the personal and the cosmic, Cabre- second after the Big Bang. As the universe inconceivably ra's newest monopole detector hummed continued to inflate, the other three basic away quietly in a basement room of its own, forces separated. New, so-called inflation- short period following the practically under their feei. Later they went ary theories hold that there were as many as ' downstairs Big Bang. Only to inspect it. three big bangs in quick succession. Today's theories suggest that the only re- then was the universe hot Omni: What is a monopole? action huge enough to form the superheavy enough to Cabrera: According to present theories, the monopoles would be the Big Bang or bangs. monopole is an elementary particle like the _:iS produce particles that It would have happened within the first 10 heavy3 electron or proton. Just as the electron car- second, when particles rammed into one ries electric charge, the monopole carries another at close range and the tempera- magnetic charge. In addition its 27 to magnetic tures exceeded 10 degrees Kelvin, an al- charge, however, there is another enormous most inconceivable heat. As the universe difference between the monopole and the cooled, most of the monopoles would have monopole enter c-a Ine it device, would prob- usual run of subatomic particles. The mono- annihilated one another, or "inflated away." ably trigger at least two—and most likely pole is expected to have stupendous mass. But some would have escaped and may ex- three of the loops. — The proton, for example, is about eighteen ist today, dinosaurs of the particle world, rel- If physics is not in Cabrera's genes, it cer- hundred thirty-seven times heavier than an ics from the beginning of time. tainly has been in his environment, The thirty- electron. The heaviest particles detected so In 1982 Steven Weinberg, one of the most seven-year-old scientist comes from an old far—the recently discovered W and Z par- prominent particle physicists, bemoaned the Spanish family that has produced three ticles— are only about thirty to one hundred state of his science. Progress was slowing generations of distinguished physicists. times more massive than the proton. Com- down, and there were too many unan- Bias's father. Nicolas Cabrera, is best known pare that to the monopole. Theory suggests swered questions. "The salvation of elemen- far his research in solid-state physics. Like that the monopole is about ten trillion times tary-particle physics," he said, "is in the his father before him, he played an impor- smaller than the proton and about ten thou- hands of the experimentalists." Cabrera is tant role in shaping the scientific institutions sand trillion times heavier. such an experimentalist. He is fascinated by of Spain. In the ca: ly Seven! es, after teach- The key thing is this huge mass! The the equipment, captivated by the unfolding ing at the University of Virginia tor 15 years, heavier the particle, the more energy needed process of the experiment, undeleted by Nicolas returned to his birthplace, where he to produce it. Because monopoles are so the risk of putting himself on the line. "The founded and headed the physics depart- heavy, we can never hope to make them in way I think is based more on physical logic ment in the newly established Autonomous atomic accelerators. The creation of a single than on mathematical abstractions," he says. University of Madrid. monopole would necessitate about ten tril- "I prefer the hands-on aspect. The experi- Nicolas's father, the first Bias Cabrera, lion times the energy released in the most

ments I tend to do require little mathematical made his mark studying the magnetic sus- powerful laboratory collisions. In fact, no abstraction io understand. The theory makes ceptibilities- of various metals. Forced into natural process currently taking place in the sense from simple points of view. In addi- exile by Franco (he had been rector of the known universe, not even the thermonuclear tion, monopoles appear in the most sophis- University of Madrid), fled he to Paris and reactions at the center of stars like our sun, ticated modern theory." eventually died in 1945, in Mexico City. When releases anywhere near enough energy to Cabrera's first monopole trap was decep- the second Bias Cabrera was a teenager, he create a monopole. tively simple. Its metal shield housed a blown- visited his grandfather's old laboratory in Omni: So where do monopoles come from? glass apparatus that resembled an old SF- Madrid: "There were still rooms that held his Cabrera: Our theories suggest only one movie contraption used for capturing lost equipment. On the one hand,' this was excit- possibility: Monopoles were created during —

an almost inconceivably short period of time magnetism. The basic concept of these the- knowledge of what happens at the temper- immediately following the Big Bang, ten bil- ories builds on Sheldon Glashow. Steven atures and energies produced in present- lion to twenty billion years ago. Then and Weinberg, and Abdus Salam's successful day particle accelerators to the thllionfold only then was the universe hot enough unification of the weak force and electro- higher energies of creation-day physics. about a million trillion trillion degrees—to magnetism— an incredible accomplish- Conclusive proof that superheavy mono- produce particles as heavy as monopoles. ment for which they shared the 1979 Nobel poles exist would provide striking confirma- A mere twinkling after the creation instant, Prize in physics. Our great hope is that grand tion [that the universe was more than hot even the cosmic fireball was no longer hot unification will pave the way for achieving a enough at creation to produce grand unifi- enough to produce anything as massive as theory that takes the final step and em- cation]. GUTs predict that superheavy a magnetic monopole. braces gravitation, the fourth fundamental monopoles are produced at temperatures Omni: Was the monopole the. only super- force of nature. ten to one hundred times higher than the heavy particle produced on creation day? Omni: In your opinion, how do GUTs hope grand-unification temperature.

Cabrera: No, but we think that the others were to achieve this goal? Omni: That is, while the universe is still so unstable. As the temperature of the universe Cabrera: At present the strong force, the hot that grand unification prevails — before plummeted, the other superheavy particles weak force, and electromagneiism have very falling temperatures destroy the paradise- of spontaneously disintegrated into lighter different strengths. If you could go back- symmetry and send the strengths of the particles. Since magnetic charge can be ward in time to the early universe, however, electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces off neither created nor destroyed, the mono- you would find that the relative strengths of in different directions. pole cannot decay, despite its enormous the three forces converged as temperatures Cabrera: Precisely. mass. This means that the monopole is a and pressures began to approach the fan- Omni: GUTs already seem to be achieving kind of remnant particle, a relic from the dawn tastic energies prevailing immediately after a kind of grand unification among physi- of creation. The discovery of one of these the Big Bang. When you get to within about cists. The quest appears to be linking cos- living fossils has enormous scientific import- one hundred billion trillion trillionths of a sec- mology, astrophysics, subatomic quantum " 35 ance. For one, the superheavy monopole's ond [10 second] ot the Big Bang, all three physics, and a number of other fields that existence is inextricably linked with grand forces melt together, becoming a single force traditionally have seemed quite remote from unification theories [GUTs]—one of the most in the intense heat, one another. exciting advances in recent particle phys- Omni: So GUTs present us with a new Eden Cabrera: Yes, and this process is extremely ics. Any true GUT necessarily implies mag- myth; Three ol the great forces of nature were healthy for physics. Over the past few gen- netic monopoles that formed very early in expelled from the paradise ot perfect sym- erations, our field has become more and the universe's history. metry as the universe expanded and cooled. more compartmentalized; different special- GUTs aim at a unified description of three Why is the existence of the superheavy ists barely talk to one another. GUTs are re- of the four fundamental forces of nature monopole so crucial to the grand unification versing this process. We're beginning to re- the strong force that binds atomic nuclei, the theories' scenarios? turn to the kind of communication between weak lorce that plays a crucial role in many Cabrera: Theorizing about grand unification different specialties that occurred during the forms of radioactive decay, and electro- involves an enormous extrapolation from our great, heroic period of physics before and

shortly after World War I , when relativity and quantum mechanics were developed. Even

if the grand-unification project is ultimately

unsuccessful, its cross-fertilization of differ- ent areas of physics will undoubtedly lead to great advances,

Omni: Why else, in your opinion, is the hunt for monopoles so vital? Cabrera:. Confirming the existence of mag-

netic charge would be a major discovery. It would open up a new dimension in elec- tromagnetism and raise the possibility that there exists an entirely new family of parti- cles. But there's more. For example, knowl- edge of the monopole's true abundance and exact physical characteristics would have

enormous implications for astrophysics. If superheavy monopoles exist in any number, they must play a significant part in every- thing from astrophysical models of our gal- axy's magnetic field to models of the inte- riors of neutron stars. Third, there are reasons for expecting monopoles to destroy protons on contact, like little Pac-Man monsters. The total en- ergy released in these encounters may be high enough to play a pivotal role in deter- mining the temperatures of stellar and plan- etary cores. Jupiter, for example, would be

a star it [here were monopoles eating up enough protons in its core. The energy re- leased would be great enough to trigger the enormous thermonuclear reactions that make the stars shine. Omni: Do you think that the monopole's dis- covery would reshape present theories of the origin of the universe? '

Cabrera: Absolutely. The monopole's vali- and reached a critical value where a second change from liquid to ice, in that much less dation would have enormous cosmologies! explosion occurred as the result of a phase energy was liberated than before. This is be- consequences. GUTs have already inspired change. This transformation is roughly anal- cause each gram of water releases about

the inflationary model and its descend- ogous lo ordinary matter's change from a eighty calories into the environment when it ants— major modifications of the traditional vapor to a liquid phase or from a liquid to a freezes into ice, about a seventh of the en- Big Bang theory of the universe's origin. The solid phase, where- the passage from a more ergy liberated when a gram of steam con- Big Bang theory suffers from what is called energy-rich to a less energy-rich physical denses into water. 'Ismporaajres during this

the feast problem, it predicts the creation of structure is accompanied by the release of explosive reheating" were ten to one hun- so many superheavy monopoles that the energy into the environment. dred times lower than those needed to pro- universe's initial noar light speed expansion Consider an ordinary cloud of -steam. duce monopoles but were more than high would have slowed to" our present one-hun- Every gram of water molecules frenetically enough to produce the range of particles we dred-kilometer-per-second pace in ten dashing about in this cloud contains about find in the present-day universe. thousand to thirty thousand years rather than five hundred sixty calories of kinetic energy Omni: So how does the inflationary model the actual ten billion to twenty billion years. that is released into the su"ounding environ- keep the population of monopoles within a Inflationary models were specifically de- ment when the molecules settle down by manageably small limit?

signed to reduce the number of monopoles condensing into liquid water. If you pump Cabrera: The inflationary model postulates in our universe to an acceptable level. In tact, this energy back into the newly condensed that the entire visible universe was pro-

. these models suggest that there may be no liquid before it has a chance to cool below duced by the stupendous expansion of one monopoles within the visible universe. The the boiling point, you'll turn the water back of the innumerable empty spaces between inflationary scenario, however, doesn't pro- into steam. monopoles in the early universe. Think of a vide a reliable estimate of the number of pri- Omni: Exactly what passed through a phase speckled balloon: As the balloon inflates, the mordial magnetic monopoles in the observ- change in the early universe? distance between specks increases. The able universe. Cabrera: The very fabric of space-time. In observable universe may have originated Omni: How do the inflationary and Big Bang eftect, space-time was created in its steam from the expansion of a patch on the balloon theories differ? state; When the universe cooled enough for hat contained no specks. Cabrera: The latest inflationary model pos- this cosmic steam to "liquefy," the energy Omni: What are some other advantages of tulates that there were, in effect, three big released by the phase change inflated the the inflationary theory? bangs on creation day—each occurring at universe by a hundred trillion trillion trillion Cabrera: The model handles galaxy forma- ultra-split-second intervals in the universe's trillion times [10™]. tion more successfully than the Big Bang

very early history. The original Big Bang pro- Omni: How does big bang number three fit theory 'does. In essence, the inflationary

duced the universe from nowhere, if you will. into this picture? scenario maintains that the forces that pro-

But this explosion only got the universe up Cabrera: The final creation-day explosion duced monopoles during the first phase to atom size. The superhot minicosmos then .occurred when the universe cooled enough change also gave rise to certain kinds of

cooled. As it did, monopoles formed. The to pass through a second phase change. space-time distortions that eventually pro- universe's temperature continued to decline This change resembled water's phase vided the impetus for galaxy formation. Omni; Do you think that the latest inflationary model is the last word on the creation-of-the- universe problem?

Cabrera: I don't think that anyone, including Alan Guth, at MIT [the theory's leading pro-

ponent], believes that the current model is

the final answer. But it does answer more

questions than it raises, and in cosmology, that's a successiul theory.

Omni: To come back to Earth, if only briefly: what do you think really happened on Saint Valentine's Day, 1982? Cabrera: Using a prototype detector that we had developed with initial funding from the National Science Foundation, we detected a monopolelike event. We intended to use this prototype to study the feasibility of building larger monopole detectors. The de- vice, lunctioned much better than we had expected, forcing us to take the candidate even! seriously. The possibility that we de- tected- a monopole remains. But that read- ing was not duplicated in the original device

after running it three times longer. Nor was

it duplicated in a new, more sensitive device that has run the equivalent of over one hun- dred times longer. Omni: How did your prototype work? Cabrera: The original detector was a two-

inch-diameter, four-turn niobium loop. It's sitting in a lab not far from here. Omni: And the only way that you could de-

tect a monopole with this device would be if the particle passed through the niobium loop, like a croquet ball rolling through- a wicket. Cabrera: Yes, the niobium loop was cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero, where it becomes a superconductor—that is, the niobium essentially loses all electrical resistance. So if you inject an electric cur- rent into the ring, the current circles forever instead of gradually fading away, as a cur- The best way rent pumped into a wire at room tempera- ture would. When the [magnetic] monopole barrels through the loop, its field interacts to put together a with the current in the loop, and it creates a kind of turbulence.' The current in the super- conductor responds to this turbulence. Fan- professional tastic sensitivities a'e possible Our detector device is known as a SQUID, a supercon- ducting quantum interference device. SQUIDs are thousands of times more sen- sound system sitive to magnetic fields than conventional magnetometers are. Omni: Shall we look at your SQUID? is to let Cabrera: Okay, it's down in the basement [Cabrera and Gliedman go downstairs to a lab room housing the three-loop detector]. professionals do it. If you come over here, you can see a sche- matic of what's in the apparatus. Here are The professionals at Toshiba. With their incredible the three loops wound around a four-inch System 55. Pyrex sphere. The superconducting inner And what a system. It includes an integrated amplifier shield around the loops provides the low With 85 watts per channel*, a direct drive turntable, a digital magnetic environment. synthesized tuner, a full auto-reverse cassette deck, a set of Omni: What is the function of the gray metal 3-way speakers, plus the options of a compact disc player and on the outer shell? graphic equalizer. All enclosed in an elegant Cabrera; The high-permeability material that a 20-band cabinet with glass door and top. m Touch with re™..™ is essentially a ferromagnet. It sucks in mag- Toshiba's System 55. It's netic field lines, thus producing a lower TOSHIRA magnetic field inside and lowering the mag- one of the soundest investments ** •" f^470 netic noise. In such a stable environment, you'll ever make. we can detect the change in field caused by a monopple passing through the loop.

And even if the monopole doesn't go through the loop, but intersects the shield, it will pro- duce a small signal— a near miss. Omni: This machine detects near misses? ' Cabrera; Yes. We look at the current change - in loop one, Ipop two, and loop three during \\ a candidate event. We require that we see a signal greater than a certain threshold il least two of the three loops. None of the events we've seen to date were more than one-channel events, and therefore all of them were discarded as candidate events. By way of comparison, the event that we saw in the original detector sits way off the scale, a f tor of ten larger than the biggest thing we've seen with the new machine. Omni: How much is the new machine? Cabrera; The equipment is not particularly expensive. You're probably Ipoking at ap- proximately fifty thousand dollars. Operat- ing it is the primary expense. This new de- tector was built and is operated with funds from the U.S. Department of Energy, Omni: What is this purple line recording?

Cabrera; It's a standard external magne- tometer—a little fiux gauge and a probe. When a truck pulls up to pur loading dock out there, it registers a little signal. This other line on the recording chart is the a'ccelero- meter. When we walk in and open the door, we see the spikes on the record. This third

line is for the ultrasonic burglar alarm. Omni: So that nc pne can steal the data as well as the equipment? Cabrera: Weil, they might, but then we would

certainly know about it.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 133 Theorists at this institute juggle the phenomena

in search of the eerie, mystical unification of the world

EINSTEIN'S SANCTUM BY EDWARD REGIS, JR.

almost spy *hat -amil- "Is it true that his of- fice hasn't even been iar tobacco thermidor, touched since theday a pipe, a near-emp- ty bottle of ink. The he died?" I stop to ask the secretary. chamber may be a bit " "Oh, no. That is just different now, but it's J; a myth," she replies. still recognizable from "This is a workplace, pictures in biogra- not a museum. Here, phies of the great let me show you." man. The famous We walk a few sleps blackboard is cov- ^4x^f„ down the hall, to room ered with neatly writ- 115, "It's Arne Beur- ten equations, and on "*&&& ling's office now," she the wall off to the left explains. "He isn't in at hangs a small, framed the moment; so you portrait of the master. can take a look and see for yourself." His eyes stare past you, gazing idly off into ^g&W%>, On the door a card reads professor the distance as if even now he's pondering beurling. The secretary knocks once, jan- the subtleties of the natural world. gles some keys, and opens the door to re- Room 115 at the Institute for Advanced veal a small, closet-size foyer and two other Study was Albert Einstein's office, the place doors. She opens one of them, then leaves where he worked from 1933, when he came "*»i -**^ until his death in 1955. But Ein- so I can walk in alone. to America, at The office is dimly lit and obviously al- stein's sanctum is merely the shrine the institute, in Prince- I of the ziggurat. tered, but I can tell that this is the one. top The glimpse what seems to be the same desk ton, New Jersey, has been home to vir- and chair, the shelves with reams of paper tually all the megastars of twentieth-cen- science, including 14 Nobel Prize- and journals still spilling out of them. I can tury PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID MICHAEL KENNEDY < ——

iffre famous blackboard is covered with equations, and on the wall hangs a small, framed portrait of the master.^

winners. The pioneers of quanlum mechan- ics—Wolfgang Pauli, RAM Dirac, and Niels Bohr— all set up shop here. Mathematician Kurt Gbdel and computer theorist John von Neumann were longtime faculty members. J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, was the institute's director for close to two decades. Atom bombs aren't made here, though, for the institute maintains no laboratories, no instruments. Despite some 20 elementary- particle physicists at the institute's School of Natural Science, there's nary a cyclotron to be found. And there aren't any telescopes either radio or optical—though the world's top astronomers and astrophysicists fight for the chance to spend from one to five years on the premises. The reason? Institute director Harry Woolf

sums it up best: "This is a place for theorists,

by intention and design. Science, after all, is the poetizing of phenomena, a way of say- ing more with less." Einstein's relativity the- ory, he points out, came not from a lab or a tree-studded campus. Paths meander university office from but the thinking he did through the surrounding woods. Physicist in a modest apartment in Berne, Switzer- RAM. Dirac used to disappear into those land. A job in the Swiss patent office, Ein- woods late in the afternoon, carrying an axe. stein said, "gave the opportunity to think me "Blazing a trail to Trenton." he liked to say. about physics." And today the tradition of Now, 20 years after Dirac last roamed in- scientist as philosopher holds true as well. stitute lawns, I ride up the horseshoe-shaped The institute continues to draw the world's driveway hoping to see him still. My vision of most prodigious thinkers, from particle the place has been shaped by its near- physicist Tom Banks, who has challenged mythical heroes, and I half expect to find accepted notions of the universe, to physi- them creaking about the hallways on canes, cist Stephen Wolfram, resident boy wonder gold watch chains scalloped across their and, some of his colleagues say, the Einstein waistcoats. Now stooped and wizened old of tomorrow. men, they might still be shouting about the This vision of the scientist/sage can be heyday of relativity or those good-old-bad- traced to 1929. Then, just before the stock- old atom-bomb days. market crash, Louis Bamberger his sis- and best work of their lives. Finally, the founders But my vision is wrong. ter, Caroline Bamberger Fuld, sold their de- decided that intellectual exchange would be In the library of Building E, a two-story, partment-store chain Bamberger's — —to the best fostered by a multidisciplinary ap- red-brick structure set back from the rest, R. H. Macy Company. They to decided de- proach. So in addition to scientific facilities, the astrophysicists' coffee hour is about to vote their fortune to philanthropy, specifi- they established schools of historical stud- commence. First a group of four or five young cally to creating a world center for research ies, mathematics, and social science. (Psy- people just stand around outside, joking. in science and the humanities. chologist Jean Piaget, poet T S. Eliot, and Then one of them counts "One, two. three," The Bambergers, along with institute philosopher Bertrand Russell have all been and they all shout "Coffee!" More laughter, founder Abraham Flexner, vowed to make institute members.) and they file into the room. Others now their establishment a haven for free cre- first, and At Bamberger wanted to locate the straggle in, coffee cups in front of them. One ative thought. While other research centers institute in his house in New Jersey's Or- by one they trek to the urn and pour them- were constantly changing staff, Institute for anges. But others persuaded him that it had selves some brew. Advanced Study founders retained per- a to be near one of the world's great universi- Soon nine men and a woman are sitting manent faculty of 25. These highly ties accom- or it would perish in a vacuum, It was around the library's large wooden confer- plished people would have the rest of their first in housed at Princeton University's Fine ence table. Most seem to be in their late lives to use as they wished, with no de- Hall (the mathematics building). Later it twenties, and the dress is casual: flannel mands to publish or perish, to teach class, moved off campus but stayed close to the shirts, sweaters,- lots of khaki pants and cor- or to fulfill any of the administrative duties Princeton University campus. duroys. They might look like a bunch of grad associated with university professorships. Today the institute sits on a square mile of students, but every one is a Ph.D. These are And more than TOO -temporary members farm and woodland just south of the univer- the institute astrophysicists. mostly younger people would be given sity. Its — half-dozen red-brick, Georgian-style When John Bahcall walks in, the chitchat enough intellectual freedom to produce the buildings are spread out across a grassy, stops, and The New York Times is put away. 90 OMNI "

other celestial Bahcall—in his late forties — is senior mem- temperatures, densities, and Make the day special. ber in astrophysics at the institute and god- arcana, Smak leads us through a one-act binary-star fireworks. The show father to Ihe group. Eyes groggy with sleep, drama ot Give her a bridal set he gets the discussion going between sips ends with a round, of applause. Finally it's of hot coffee. time for the scientists to return to their of- as valuable They talk about white-dwart stars, dou- fices, digest this new information, reduce the

file it in their memory banks. ble-star systems, and neutron stars. Then data, and away as your love. they focus on the problem of "accretion It's time to think, condense, order, and select discs," the doughnut-shaped rings that en- just the right details; to distill the essence for circle some white dwarfs. What are they? those terse equations; to abstract theories How do they get there? How might they alter for the poems. It's time, in other' words, to our notions of stellar evolution? begin the real work. The members spill theories in a babel of High master of the technique is Bahcall. accents. Scott Tremaine is Canadian; Linda The first time I saw him he was having an Sparke. British; Stefano Casertano, Italian; intense discussion — in German—with one

Ysvi Piran, Israeli: Bohdan Paczynski, Polish. Of the institute's younger astrophysicists. 1 They agree to gather more observational think now, as he pours me yet another cup evidence, but no one comes up with the of coffee, that I can detect the slightest trace grand answer. of a German accent in his measured and After half an hour, the discussion peters deliberate speech. As it turns out, he's from just in the habit out, but it's resumed at twelve-thirty, during Shreveport, Louisiana, and yet anofher meeting— the weekly luncheon of speaking precisely. with members of the "messy-hands" crowd, In fact, he has hobnobbed with some of experimental scientists who provide grist for the greats, including mathematician Kurt the theoretical mill. Godel. "In the old days," Bahcall remem- Now we're sitting around a U-shaped ta- bers, "we used to have faculty dinners two ble, and as we begin to eat, Bahcall intro- or three times a term. The first one I ever

I hadn't duces today "s guest speaker. Ed Turner. This went to, sat across from Gddel. We athletic, bearded professor of astrophysical met; so we introduced ourselves, and I said science at Princeton looks as though he's I was a physicist. Gddel looked at me and resting up from his last win in a marathon. said, 'I don't believe in natural science.'

And who can blame him; He opens the 'Ujst like that?" I ask, laughing. meeting with a hot galactic bulletin from 'Just like that," he replies with a smile.

if being sarcastic. Mount Palomar. 'Just before lunch," he says; I ask Gddel was sarcastic," "I got a call confirming my discovery of a "No, he was never Bahcall says. new gravitational lens." ""He was very serious; pleasant but straight- since nat- A gravitational lens is a heavenly body thai forward. What he meant was that true bends light around both sides of itself. If our ural science can't be proved absolutely sun were such a lens, a star in the right po- or false, but only more or less probable, he

I well sition would be visible on both sides of the couldn't set much store by it. cited how to radio tele- sun simultaneously, as if there were two stars Maxwell's equations apply and out there and not just one. vision," Bahcall recalls, "but Godel wasn't Turner and associates from Caltech and impressed. We went on to have an interest- MIT had recently discovered a new galaxy ing conversation, but you can imagine it was with what seemed like a quasar on either a little difficult." side. And what Turner had learned in his Bahcall believes in natural science, prelunch call from Mount Palomar was that though, and for the 16 years he's been at the both quasar images were one and the same institute, he's been wrestling with a problem object. Sure enough, he had found the fourth that you might think has already been solved.

or fifth gravitational lens known to exist. He's trying to figure out why the sun shines. Turner passes around some photo- Solar energy, it's well-known, is generated graphs, pictures brought back from the tele- as protons fuse to form helium atoms. But in scope at Palomar just two days before. Only addition to this primary reaction, theory goes, smudges on paper, they are new worlds, the sun hosts a well-detined series of sec-

seen here for the first time. ondary reactions, releasing alpha particles, Jewelers. Prices vary How do institute astrophysicists react? Do positrons, and neutrinos. The neutrinos, in carat weight. Sets featured range :jWir>to£LS95.Seeour they ooh, aah, stomp, cheer, and whistle? tact, are said to fly out from the sun's interior, 1mm Not quite. They may go so far as to chew penetrating the surface of the earth at a spe- more slowly. One of them even says "Mar- cific, measurable rate. velous!" right out loud. Later, another says, More's the pity, then, that this theory "That was exciting," and a third allows as doesn't stand up to the test. Almost 17 years Bahcall's at the Brookhaven how Turner's discovery is "delightful." I won't ago, colleagues say they're jaded, but institute members are National Laboratory placed a 100,000-gal- accustomed to consuming astronomical lon tank of neutrino-absorbing perchloro- canapes along with lunch. ethylene, or dry-cleaning fluid, at the bottom At two o'clock we reconvene in !he library of the Homestead Gold Mine, 4,500 teet be- to hear more news from the interstellar deep. low the village of Kellog, South Dakota. ("The Visiting astronomer Jozef Smak, of Poland's little hotel there is the only place in the world Astronomical Center, in Warsaw, is telling us where you. can get a neutrino martini," Bah- about double-star systems that undergo call says.) Over and over, the scientists sudden flare-ups of brightness, like flashing counted the number of neutrinos absorbed neon signs. With charts and tables of stellar during a certain time. But the results were

I ON PAGE 142 ,

—.1—

-Aif COSMIC BESTIARY : TEXT BY DAVID MILNE

Life on other worlds, if it exists, be- matter that expanded to fill the far- gan the way it did in our own cosmic thest reaches of the cosmos. When the neighborhood: with fire. matter condensed, it formed the Our universe exploded in a ball of planets— those in our solar system light 15 billion to 20 billion years ago, and in galaxies light-years away, belching flaming tongues of energy and On Earth some of that matter formed

ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAT ORTEGA —

477?e Zu-pee's facial outgrowths might cup the animal's ears to magnify sound3 a caldron of or- tion would proba- ganic soup, giving bly impose greater rise to single- variance still. celled microorga- One stroke of nisms, complex chance determin- animals, and, fi- ing evolutionary nally, man. This ev- destiny may be the olutionary spiral, number of limbs on some contend, is the planet's domi- unique in all the nant creatures. universe. But there Early in the history is another point of of the earth, for in- view— that in the stance, a blast of vastness of the accelerated evo- cosmos, another lution produced ball of matter might simple marine ani- have spewed yet mals equipped another caldron, with anything from once more spawn- zero to a few doz- ing animal life. en appendages.

It's hard to imag- Those with more ine the creatures appendages, in- inhabiting such far- cluding insects, off, exotic orbs, spiders, and cen- The planets of, say, tipedes, were the Alpha Centauri first to be able to might have no live 'on land. But giant tyrannosaurs these creatures stalking Creta- the arthropods ceous plains and had a liability, an no furrowed trilo- external skeleton bites in fauna-rich that prevented Cambrian seas. But given our current understand- them from growing past a certain size. This was ing of evolution, it's possible to draw some logical probably plain bad luck; we know of no reason conclusions about life on distant, alien worlds. why they could not have developed internal bones, The rules of evolution set forth by Darwin, after waterproof skin, and other features thai would have all, apply anywhere in the universe. The process helped to make them dominant. always occurs in two stages. In the first, genetic It was only a matter of time before the arthro- material combines more or less randomly to torm pods were displaced by sturdier, more flexible am- a variety of new individuals. The mechanism: mere phibians, creatures better suited for a life on land. chance. In the second, these individuals compete The amphibians had four legs; large land animals for survival in the natural world. The mechanism on our planet have been four-legged ever since. here: natural selection, nature's ability to se/ecMhe On another world, with another throw' of the dice, most viable organisms. however, continents could well be dominated by ten legs. de- Even if a planet were identical to our own, chance animals with six, eight, or even The would create unearthly creatures. If the planet were scendants of these creatures, in fact, might in- significantly different, the process of natural selec- clude the Ly-dar (page 94, top, and page 95); the iTfte prodigious brain of the Dor-ma allows for tool making and culture.^

Zu-pee (page 98); dropped and fed the Dar-mas (page to a predator about 99); the Ama-dar to attack. (page 96); its pow- But the develop- erful predator, the ment and adapta- Merdocka (page tion of the limbs 96): and the Dor- constitutes just a ma (page 97). And single strain in the because evolution complicated sym- tends to subtract phony of evolution. limbs rather than The Merdocka, tor to add them, we instance, might might see some evolve supersharp antelopelike four- nails and a set of legged creatures elongated teeth to (page 94, bottom), catch and devour as well as two- its prey. The tawny legged birds and coloring of the Ly- crawling, limbless dar would provide snakes. camouflage in for- Once on the ests and fields. The scene these ani- curving tusks of mals would be the Dar-mas could modified by natu- fend off a host of

ral selection, much vicious predators. as the animals of And perhaps Earth were. On most important, the some creatures, prodigious brain of appendages might the Dor-ma (devel- be converted to oped as four of the wings, yielding ter- six limbs evolve restrial birds, bats, into hands) would and flying reptiles. Two of the Ly-dar's eight limbs allow for sophisticated hunting stratagems, tool might become specialized as harpoons. Elonga- making, and a smattering of culture as well. tion of one finger, loss of the others, and sharpen- It's too soon to say, of course, whether animals ing of the claw might provide the beast with a po- like these exist on planets other than our own.

tent stabbing/slashing weapon. If the claw could, Nonetheless, these creatures do represent some by slow degrees, acquire the ability to fold back plausible alternatives to the evolutionary pathways like a jackknife, the Ly-dar would be far more dan- followed by the beasts of the earth. 00 gerous than the saber-toothed animals of Earth. The Dar-mas's extra limbs, equipped with bristles, David Milne teaches biology at the Evergreen State might function as accessory hands for removing College, in Olympia, Washington. He has also con- parasites or for grasping food. The Ama-dar's ducted research for NASA. He conceived of these "arms" might serve as defensive plates, and the creatures over the past lew years, while devoting Zu-pee's facial outgrowths might cup the ears to much of his spare time to the "enjoyable and spec-

magnify sound. Still other creatures might have ulative effort of envisioning extraterrestrial life." An- limbs modified as sacrificial appendages, to be imal names were coined by illustrator Pat Ortega. pseudoscience, like astrology, with no basis numbers were sra".lirg y high. "Diagnosis of in empirical research. my condition, primary aldosteronism," Dr. CLOCKS You can get a fix on your own circadian Levine said, "was delayed a couple of years

rhythms by knowing your blood pressure, because I went to my doctor when my blood Maybe you overdo iho carbohydrates again. pulse rate, arc body -temperature cycles, pressure was at its circadian lowest—and

Then think of what happens when you sit along with a few othe' rest results, such as so it seemed normal." down to a huge steak dinner, accompanied hand strength and eye-hand coordination. The point is to take b ood pressure read- by coffee and stimulating conversation, at To determine your rhythms, take readings ings—and all other readings— every few eight in the evening. The body has already throughout the day and evening —perhaps hours. Log them and chart them for several begun its journey toward sleep. The sero- a dozen in all. There's equipment available weeks. Some of the readings may be incon- tonin level is building. that provides excellent temperature, blood- sistent. For example, if you take a reading But the good conversation at the dinner pressure, and pulse ratings right at your own while angry or upset, blood pressure and table starts- the adrenaline flowing. The pro- desk. Sporting-goods stores sell a handgrip heart rate may be high. Eventually you will tein stokes the system. The coflee and other device with a meter on it. recognize any aberrant blips for what they stimulants reawaken the body and reset the After you have taken readings lor several are, and a true, usable chart will emerge. clocks. By the time dinner is over, the body weeks, you'll detect a pattern. Highs, lows, The body-clock information you gather has been told to go both ways—up and and gradients in tempcaxre, for example, about yourself may help you to spot an ill- down. You can anticipate trouble in getting will cover a 2T span. You'll discover that the ness in the making. An unusual pattern of a restful sleep, and also can expect the body old idea of normal temperature being 98.6° readings from a system (temoerature, for ex- clocks to be out of sync the next day. They is somewhat out of date. ample) could indicate an oncoming illness, may need the better part of the day to right The blood pressure readings may sur- and you may wish to consult your doctor. themselves. prise you, too. Most of us think of blood Given this early warning, he may be able to Further studies are required, of course, to pressure as a constant set of numbers. The diagnose and even treat the problem before support this theory on the importance of diet. fact is, blood pressure varies sharply each it becomes full-blown.

"There is some evidence that food has ef- day. It's usually lowest in the morning, rises Chronobiological research is extending

fects, but thus far I think it's very prelimi- to a peak late in the afternoon, then goes into several other areas besides those nary," says University of California at San down again during the evening. touched on here. In addition to jet-lag and Diego's Kripke, who has been studying cir- The late Howard Levine, former director work-shift studies, investigators at the Insti- cadian rhythms for 20 years. of medical education a: New Britain General tute of Chronobiology— part of the New York Orcadian rhythms are not the same as Hospital, in Connecticut; and a chronobiol- Hospital-Cornell Medical Center—are ana- biorhythms. Devised in 1887 by William ogist. liked to tell how careful he was about lyzing circadian rhythms' relationship to sleep Fleiss, these emotional and physical indi- his blood pressure. For years he stopped at disorders, depression, sexual and neuroen- cators are supposedly useful in predicting a his physician's office in the morning and had docrine problems, and aging. "There's some person's good and bad days. The best that his blood pressure taken. His doctor took a indication that sometime—and fairly rap- can be said about biorhythms is that it is a reading one afternoon, however, and the idly—in the mid-fifties, there is a shift in the length of some of the internal rhythms," ex- plains Daniel Wagner, assistant professor of

neurology in psychiatry at the institute. "This may help us to understand why there's a tendency for people, as they get older, to go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and to nap." This reordering of the sleep cycle and the need to rest during the day may not be just a consequence of more free time, Wagner

points out, "It could show what happens to the rhythms due to aging." The new findings in the field of chrono- biology promise to improve our lives by pro- viding us with some very powerful tools. Doctors will take body rhythms into account when prescribing drugs, timing them to the

patient's circadian rhythms. Psychiatrists will have a new weapon against depression and other mental ilinesse-s. Indus-ral-plant man- agers will plan shift changes so that their employees feel better, work more produc- tively, and are safer. Furlhermore, we may see new world's records being set, as athletes plan travel and competition times to get the maximum effort from their bodies. Joggers will discover that keeping the body clock synchronized is as important as tuning up the muscles and the cardiovascular system. Calorie counters will begin to consider timing ar imoortant factor

in diet regimens. And all of us can look for- ward to enjoying more days when we feel good and perform well because we have finally learned how to keep our body clocks

ticking in synchronization. Undoubtedly, we are on the threshold of the Circadian Age.DO 100 OMNI —

n h

E.T. made it look easy: Just yons. E.T. could have l™— them to carry his SOS- Of

tachyons than v.- -~ and in a few days your friends Theoretically, tachyons do will be along to pick you up. not violate any laws of rela-

for i Easy tivity, general or special. *** In his first papers about his new theory, Albert Einstein to do is bypass one of mod- pointed out that nothing ern physics's basic laws slower than light could ever that nothing can be made to — be made to travel at light ...... J:J ...... i the speed speed or beyond. But he of light. To reach not really say that r nearest star in, say, three

would be like saving that i to rush along at nearly 500 times the speed of light. impossible barriers to faster- tains to get there. In this case, than-light the mountain range is the 1, physicists are grap- speed of light, and there is

tothe thing so it could pass through s. One of the most inter- that barrier. But on the other esting of these id side of this obstacle, parti-

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHEL TCHEREVKOFF '•Using visible light would be a poor way to talk to distant neighbors: There is so much light out in space that the message would be swallowed up.^>

cles may exist, in 1967 have to be easily distin- physicist Gerald Fein- guished from natural berg, of Columbia Uni- static. It should also be versity, gave them the resistant to absorption by namefac/iyon. a planet's atmosphere or Tachyons have fasci- by interstellar dust and nated and puzzled phys- gas, Obviously it must icists for decades. As move quickly; Pioneer 10 early as 1917, Richard C. and 11 and Voyager 1 Tolman, of the California and 2 are headed toward Institute of Technology, the stars, but it will be tens thought he had proved of thousands ot years be- that tachyons would let us fore they reach any The send to the messages signal must also be easy past. Scientists now be- to generate and detect, lieve that he was wrong, and it should use as little but they have not man- power as possible. aged to rule out the exist- It's not easy to meet all ence of tachyons them- these criteria. But light, selves. In fact, many radio waves, and X rays researchers have taken all move at the speed ol an idea from T. H. White's The Future. Once and King: "Everything light, and we have a lot of practice in generating them. Surely aliens not forbidden is compulsory." By this fiat, tachyons must exist. could recognize one of these artificially produced signals amid the If so, they are perfect mirror images of the subatomic particles we clutter of the universe's natural background noise. already know. As the particles on our side of the light barrier move Physicists Philip Morrison and Guiseppe Cocconi, working at closer to the speed of light, it takes more and more energy to ac- Cornell University in 1959, made the first systematic search for the celerate them still closer to it. For it tachyons, would take more and right frequency. They started out with the idea of using gamma rays more energy to slow them down to the of light. speed They could to talk through space, says Morrison, now emeritus professor o! never reach the barrier or cross it, Tachyons and bradyons—slower- physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, though, than-light particles are forever — separated. after checking the entire electromagnetic spectrum, they discov- But that does not mean that there is no way to detect tachyons ered thai microwaves were probably the best candidates for inter- and perhaps use them to communicate. easiest The method would stellar message carriers. We use microwaves in terrestrial radio and use standard particle detectors: If two of them each register an radar, but for some reason nature does not produce many radio event, one so soon after the other that only a particle traveling faster waves. The gamma, X-ray, and light bands are far busier. In fact, than light could trigger them both, a tachyon may have passed by. Earth has become the most powerlul radio source in the solar sys- Then again, it might be just a coincidence. Or both events might tem, brighter even than the sun. be caused by a third, halfway between the two detectors. It will take Within this part of the radio band, one spot is quieter than the rest. a lot of evidence to convince physicists that exist. tachyons Above a wavelength of about 30 centimeters, the galaxy itself ra- Until they find thai evidence, there are some other ways to get a diates noise, below 1.5 centimeters there is a hiss of atomic emis- message to the stars. Unfortunately, none offers faster-than-light sions. But between 3 and 30 centimeters, the only significant noise transmission. It will take approximately four for years a telegram to is the background radiation left over from the Big Bang itself; after reach the nearest star, 30,000 years to send it to the of this billions center of years it is not very loud. By luck, microwaves in this range galaxy. E.T. will just have to be patient. slip easily through the atmosphere, just as a message should. The oldest schemes for sending messages into space relied on There's more. In this quiet region lie the spectral lines of two ma- light. As early as 1820, mathematician Carl Fnedhch Gauss sug- terials vital to all known forms of life. The line for neutral hydrogen gested displaying huge geometric patterns across our planet's sur- appears at 21 centimeters; the hydroxyl radical radiates at 18, Com- face. When aliens saw them through their telescopes, he reasoned. bine the two materials and they form water. Project Cyclops, which they would have proof that Earth, too, held intelligent life. And in in 1972 studied ways to detect extraterrestrial intelligence, con- 1900 the French Academy of Sciences ottered 10,000 francs to the cluded that "Nature has provided us with a rather narrow band in first person managed to who communicate with a planet other than this best pari of the spectrum. This portion seems specially marked Mars. They considered Mars too easy. for interstellar contact. [The two wavelengths] beckon all water-based But it turns out that using visible light would be a poor life way to talk to search lor their own kind at the age-old meeting place of all to distant neighbors. There is so much light out in space that the species: the water hole." message would be swallowed up in the background glare. Some It's easy to produce microwave signals strong enough to be heard other method must found, be and scientists have been struggling at a distant star and just as easy to aim them. The 1,000-foot radio to find an alternative. telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has been used both to listen for A successful communication signal must have several features if cosmic messages and to send one. In 1974, Arecibo's director, Frank anyone is going to read it over interstellar distances. For one, it will Drake, and his staff aimed a three-minute signal at the globular star cluster Messier 13, some 25,000 light-years away. The message Neutrinos cannot be seen, but their effect on other particles can be de- was powerful enough for Arecibo to have detected it if we had been tected. Above: FermiLab researcher tracks neutrinos on a special map. on the receiving end. In only 50,000 years, we could have some 104 OMNI ON PAGE 1 36 "

She was beautiful, smart, and talented—but she did have one little problem TOOTH FAIRY

BY CAROL CARR

guards brought Brougham over while Sally Was she for real or about to Twoher in, one on either tried to find someplace to put hand me some fairy tale? side. She acted con- her hands. Her left wing was "I don't remember anything fused and dishev- dull and listless; the right one at all. Bui it must be the truth;

eled, but I wasn't making any trembled, ready for takeoff that's where they found me. snap judgments. If I'd had a "Do you know why you're Then they woke me up and couple of 40mg zappos be- here?" I asked her. "Do you took me here." fore lights-out in a place like know why I was sent in to talk "What's the last thing you this I wouldn't look like a mag- to you?" remember before they found azine ad either. I'm a psychi- She had a small, husky you in Bach man's?"

atrist. I was called in by the voice. "I'm supposed to be She blinked twice. She was county to make an informed crazy. Crazy and dangerous. about to lie. "I was waiting on

statement concerning the san- They said I broke into Bach- line at the bank to get a few ity of one Sally Brougham, aka man's department store and rolls of half-dollars." M-4362Z. aka The Tooth Fairy. chewed up a floorful of house Her voice was steadily gain- She was about five foot two slippers. They found me in the ing strength, and the wing had inches, slender, somewhere in stockroom." stopped trembling. No lies yet. her mid-twenlies. Thick, dark "Your arms were stuck as far This was her job she was talk- blond hair, a mole under one as they could go into a pair of ing about, her real identity. eye, and a pair of well-devel- Cozy- Muf ties. You were gnaw- "Why half-dollars?" I asked oped wings. ing the laces in your sleep." her. "I would have thought Outside the barred window "God." She stared at the ta- nickels, dimes— the sun was starting to heat up, ble for a few seconds, trying She shrugged. "Inflation. and I loosened the knot in my to keep her face from crum- Before nickels and dimes we tie. I could have been playing bling. A lock of dirty-blond hair left sugar plums, M&M's." tennis right now, the but fell over I game I one eye; checked the liked her. I allowed myself could wait. Unlike my partner impulse to reach over the net to smile. When she didn't smile

Frank, the county always paid and put it back in place. back I took out my notebook. its debts, win or lose. "Do you remember the in- "Go on." She sat the only down at ta- cident?" I asked her. "Do you She took a deep, staccato ble in the room, a pockmarked know why you did it?" breath. I was already making piece of oak with a foot-high She looked at me out of cool- up my mind that she was no wire net across the middle. It blue eyes that glistened with flake. And worse, one more

serve. I looked was my Sally held-back tears. second of eye contact and I'd PAINTING BY PIERRE LACOMBE

./flflL —

be baking her an angel cake with hard- your fault," she said. "You couldn't imagine don't get hold of an implant soon—" The ware in it. But I couldn't da anything to help what it's like, losing your teeth every few threat hung in the air and came down on

her unless I had of facts the kind that looked months. But try to remember. It's been my side of the net. It was up to me to clear

in file folder. I good a came back lo Earth wriggling around in. your mouth for days her. If I declared her sane she would be wilh a vision of beating the hell out of Frank it's all you think about. You can't keep the free to go on about her life and be sane. on Ihe tennis court. tip of your tongue away from it; you can't But could I prove it? I had to know more "I need to know a couple of things from put your mind on anything else. And finally, and not just for the official record. you," I told- her. "Like what year it is and finally it falls out. One day you tap it lightly "Then you've got to tell me everything, the name of our current president." with your tongue, just saying hi, and it falls Sally, all of it." I felt like a fool while she recited the cor- on the floor, just like that." She shot a trium- She took a breath. "It'll take some be- rect answers in a baby-husky voice that phant glance straight between my eyes lieving on your part."

. made me want to . . I drove the ball over when she caught me remembering. I nodded. the net with a solid thwack. I scribbled ori- "Then the aching starts. Between an "It started at the bank, the way I de- ented as to time and place and went on with ache and an itch, and the worst of both. scribed it before. There were about twenty the questions. The crater in your mouth wants to be filled, people ahead of me; the line was of 1 one She gave them her full attention, which and there are thousands of girls and boys those long snakes that curl in and out, with was a point in her favor. Her childhood was out there whose teeth baby are ripe, but ropes to keep you moving in the right di- the usual mix of fears and ecstasies. Mother only a few that will stay put and take root rection. My tooth had fallen out half an hour a tooth fairy in her own right, father one of for a few months." before, and the aching, the itching, was the helpers at the pole. Slight status in- There was something in her voice that unbearable. I couldn't wait until my turn equality there, but according to Sally, they clued me. "I have the feeling you're talking came. I had to find an implant. There was didn't seem to mind. Joint custody of Sally about than more just your first experience, a little girl at the teller's window. She had and her siblings, with minimal trauma to all. Sally. You're trying to tell me what led up one of those kids' savings books with a Wings started to sprout at age thirteen and to your being put away." peppermint-striped cover. She'd just made five months, followed by loosening of the I didn't know I'd been wanting her re- a deposit, and when she tucked the book third incisor, upper left. Everything was on spect, until I got it. Her look of gratitude into her purse, she touched her tongue to target developmental^. turned me into fudge, sent me to be gift- a front tooth that was just coming in. She "Do you remember your first implant?" wrapped, and then spun me out into space. was ripe. I got off the line and followed her Her expression made me flush. It said, She parted her lips and touched a wiggly out the door. She had this cocker spaniel "Do you remember your first taste of lob- incisor. "I have to get out of here." she puppy with her. and she kept saying things ster with butter sauce on the side? Your whispered. Her face was pale and dead to it like, 'We're doing great, Carrotcake, first overnight date?" She noticed my dis- serious. Her delicate, translucent wings we're a swell team,' and 'You got me three comfort (another point scored for the fluttered. "I'm sane now, but I'm clinging dollars last week all by yourself.' Anyway, ' healthy trait of empathy). "I guess it's not to the edge, there and isn't much time. If I I could hardly see through the pain and

PYRAMID : PHARAOH MGPEL

UMT : 1 ASSEMBLY &QWE1> CUl/ES NOT IMCLC1DEP

MS£~~ bMany of the drugs used to treat E.T. were destined

if the cutting-room fio

ministered only car- Back in 1982, a cute diopulmonary resus- little creature named citation, the standard E.T., the extraterres- treatment for heart trial, was acciden- attack. The tech- tally marooned on nique not in- Earth and almost does clude administration died at the hands of of glucose or nalox- a government medi- one. But Spielberg's cal team. But now a chief adviser, Alex- group ot physicians ander R. Lampone, is arguing over just director of Ihe emer- where E.T.'s doctors gency department at (and director Steven Hospital, in Spielbergs offscreen St. John's Monica, Cali- medical consultants) Santa fornia, did muster a went wrong. defense. "E.T. re- For one thing, the ceived every drug doctors neglected to to our spe- learn that "E.T. had known our resusci- polished off a six- cialty in tation attempt." in- pack of beer, which cluding glucose and contains enough al- naloxone, he wrote in cohol to induce se- recent issue of the vere hypoglycemia in a well-respected An- a creature so small. of Emergency Thus, say ohysicians nals UFD UPDATE Medicine. "Unfortu- Jonathan Wasser- correct ad' beraer and Gary Odoq, of the Charles R. Drew School nately, many of the drugs used, the dosages ..? i „;„;.... i 1 h,a -,—^J,,proceduresm n performed"nflr,™ari ahon E.TFT weremart of Medicine, in Los Angeles the medical team never ad- ministered, and the ministered glucose to correct what was most probably a destined for the cutting-room floor." un- waning blood-sugar level Lampone also admits some uncertainty. "Please to how our pharmacologi- Even more serious is a charge from Dr. Richard S. Weis- derstand that we had no idea as photosynthesis man, director of the New York City Poison Control Center cal agents would interact with ET.'s ng "And look at his telescoping neck E.T's constricted pupils and bluish skin were early sigm enzymes," he says. one that inserting an esophageal lube of cyanosis, or oxygen deprivation, Weisman notes, and only confirmed our fears should have alerted the extraterrestrial's physicians to the would be difficult, to say the least." Weisman concludes, extra- likelihood of a narcotic overdose. Despite the complexities, Earthlings can probably be E.T. was no junkie, of course. But all mammals produce terrestrial patients resembling risk If morphinelike chemicals called endorphins, and ET.'s body given many current drugs without too much of a life however, "we would may have overproduced these natural opiates to com- the alien is a truly unfamiliar form, resuscitation guide- pensate for the psychological trauma of being aban- try to follow basic cardiopulmonary But If the creature doned far from his home. The proper ireatment. he adds, lines until new data were collected. it with drugs would be a narcotic antagonist like naloxone to block the were in imminent danger, we'd have to treat Earth beings and action of the Internally generated dmg. and techniques similar to those used on FREITAS, JR. The doctors in Spielberg's film, on the other hand, ad- hope for the best."—ROBERT A. "

The woman looked hu- man, the young abductee added, and he was able to complete the act The aliens released him some- time later, after explaining (telepathically, of course) thai they had come On a mission of peace. What to make of all this? Bob Pratt, editor of the MUFON Journal, looked into the case during a field trip to Brazil. He discovered that in Brazil. UFO abduc- tees do report sexual se- ductions every so often. He also met members of the

t consciousness, and De Mattos family and was when they woke up hours able to speak to the younger - later, the UFO was gone. boy, "Evidently something UFO abduction stories The report eventually did happen, since other are usually pretty standard: came to the attention of family members reported Visiting aliens kidnap Iheir Brazilian ufologisi A. J. Ge- sightings that night," Pratt creatures e* terrified human victims and vaerd, who convinced states. "I have no reason to more certair subject them to a medical Jocelino to undergo hypno- doubt the claims, and I year exam. Trie aliens give a few sis in an attempt to recall don't think the case was a words of kindly advice, the experience On the hoax."— D, Scott Rogo Hubei com- then send them on their way hypnotist's couch, Jocelino Pu Xiaoqiu :-. " But now, out of the Center soon remembered boarding "Homo sapiens, as he has caught a itl for Flying Saucer Research, the UFO. "The aliens asked been pleased to call himself, an animal trap in Brazil, comes an abduc- me to lie down, and as I is, in his present form, nately." wrote tion story with a twist. Not did so, they examined me," played out. The stars in iheir perstitious p only was the victim kid- he said. "Then, after the courses have turned against the beasl .<. napped and examined by examination, they collected him, and he has to give nation of a I aliens, he was seduced sperm [through a tube]. place to some other animal, died two n as well, the center reports Then they made me sit better adapted to the fate so they sei i

The encounter, covered down on a kind of a table. that closes in. This new Li claims thai in a recent issue of the They put instruments in animal may be of an entirely 200 19-inch- (or

MUFON (Mutual UFO Net- my head and spoke among alien strain or may arise have beef I work) Journal, allegedly themselves in a language as a modification of the man Jiongdao Mol occurred on April 13, 1979, that ! did not understand." species . but it will that Wuhan Ms near the city of Maringa, Jocelino stalled before certainly not be human." has recently e - in southern Brazil. It al! continuing his testimony, —H. G Wells "hairs of eighl began when Jocelino de Gevaerd reports. But finally, haired wild Mattos, twenty-one, and his with encouragement from The new pre brother Roberio Carlos, the hypnotist, he continued. Shennongjia M thirteen, glimpsed a strange 'After some minutes a Most environmental agen- is just the I star in the sky above the woman arrived in the room. cies protect endangered cording to Li. The '. city streets. Soon drawn to She touched me. She ca- species In reserves where Research Insti a nearby field, the brothers ressed me, and it excited the animals can roam and plans to extend the fell to the ground before me. Then we started to reproduce, unmolested for ye ren over the £ a hovering UFO. They then make love. by man. But in China this country.— Bu. 112 OMNI could have weakened the elrate the brain like a bullet. Philistine, allowing. David to "All this is medical specu- slay him with a single peb- lation, ot course," Pauline ble hurled, from a slingshot. Rabin emphasizes. "And if Endocrinologist David our theory is correct it Rabin and his wite, psychia- doesn't make David any less

trist Pauline Rabin, lirst oi a hero. He didn't know came up with their theory Goliath had the disease." during a recent trip to Israel. —Sherry Baker "We visited the valley of Elan, where. David is said to 'We are asking exactly the have killed Goliath," Pauline same questions now about Rabin explains. "And we the sources of human began to wonder about what action as we once asked really happened there." about the heavenly bodies: David Rabin, who had There has been no idea long been interested iii progress. We have no gigantism, soon suggested how 10 approach this that a medical disorder question within the known as multiple endocrine framework of science. We neoplasia could account can write novels about for the details of the story. it, but we cannot construct false theories about its master, Currie notes, it The disorder stimulates even

it. have nothing in the form of a the production of extra We simply Bonds between people reappears " hormone, he ex- to say. and their pets are often ghost and haunts the growth for Goli- —Noam Chom strong, Dogs have tracked master's house "Sometimes plains, accounting misplaced masters across the pet sticks around be- ath's height of six cubits or about nine miles of unknown land- cause it's attached to the and 3 span, scape; wealthy widows have master," he says, "and feet. In fact, since the condition is hereditary, say lavished fortunes upon sometimes it is simply un- it could beloved animal companions: aware of the fact that it the scientists, and people have even has died."— Eric Mishara explain the-Old Testament been buried alongside their account o! giants in Goliath's ot cats. Now Ontario sociolo- "The belief that disembodied home Canaan neo- gist Ian Currie. author ot spirits may be permitted Multiple endocrine You Cannot Die, says that to revisit this world has plasia, David Rabin adds, tumors animal devotion reaches its foundation upon that also causes even beyond the grave. sublime hope of immortality, throughout the body. Tumors the pituitary gland might "It there is a strong at- which is at once the chief m tachment between pet and solace and greatest triumph have distorted Goliath's ." master, the two are likely of our- reason vision, making David an in- distinct target for the giant's to be united in death," —Charles Mackay according to Currie, who wrath. Tumors in the pan- says he's documented such creas might have caused sugar, rendering cases "in seances with low blood reputable mediums." The him weak on the morning deceased, he adds, have Goliath ot biblical fame of the fight. rendezvoused with dogs, may have grown into a And most important, tu- parathyroid cats, and, in one instance, a towering giant because of a mors in the horse, and one woman rare endocrine disorder, gland, where bone growth frolicked with her dog, also according to two Vanderbilt is controlled, might have deceased, only minutes University doctors More- softened the giant's skull, after she died, over, that same disease allowing a pebble to pen- "

side of the supernatural. II Reinertsen, who had no United States does not have both sides believe in the previous knowledge of an oflicial agency to investi-

1 In Match 1981. Michael power of a spell. Reinertsen the people Involved in the gate UFOs. "It's shameful,'

Caisoo hit roommate Karyn claimed, then the threat case, offered the following , he says, "that we would Barnes over the head with becomes quite real. "As a assessment. "All three allow the Russians, with a frying pan, then stabbed witch myself, I'm not inter- seemed to be suffering de- their closed society and her in the neck. His ration- ested in coming to the lusions of grandeur. They notoriously closed minds, ." ale? Barnes (who claimed defense of witch killers. probably deserved one to outdo us —Eric Mishara she was San Francisco's What they [the Carsons] did another."—Casey McCabe most powerful witch) had was barbaric and insane.

it 'There are two !o reportedly cast a deadly But I meditated on for ways be arrtigravity spell over his wife, Suzan a long time and decided it fooled- One is to believe A mysterious Michael and Suzan Car- was a valuable chance what isn't so; the other is to substance, namea son subsequently confessed to talk about witchcraft in a refuse 10 believe what Is nium by a California to two other murders, both court of law" so." cist, might one day ; committed, they said, as Par apsycholo gist and —Soren Kierkegaard spacecraft Ihr part of their personal "holy anthropologist Loyd Auer- far reaches of the cos war" against witches. For- bach, of John F Kennedy "The laws of nature mer pacifists who later University, also appeared in gest that gravity, ike converted to the Moslem court. "I wanted to see atomic pai faith, they claimed they how the defense brought in UFO sightings have both negative anc [ were upholding a Koran the concept of psychic always been met with charges," explains Donald commandment condemning attack," he said. "If you disbelief by Ihe Kremlin So Van Z. Wadsw Aircraft witches who cast evil spells. could establish a mutual it was unexpected when Hughes Cc When the Carson case belief system lor the parties the Soviet newspaper Trud in Canoga Park, Cs "If lour,. came to trial this past June, involved, it would no longer {Labor) reported the forma- we the defendants refused to be first-degree murder tion of a UFO commission material that posses properties as reg- plead insanity, claiming [It might be considered jus- headed by former cosmo- the same they had acted in self-de- tifiable homicide or a form naut Pavel Pdpovltch, ular matter excep!

1 fense. So court-appointed of self-defense.] The commission was in- negative gra defense attorney Marvin Though chief trial lawyer spired, according to Trud, we could use it ;c^ " Rous decided to try and Tom Norman gave little after air-traffic controllers at In effect, it would convince the jury of the credence to the testimony, Gorky city airport sighted ships into space a-:

supernatural itself. his attempt to have It dis- a UFO last March 27. For a repelled by H His first witness was missed as speculative full 40 minutes, say wit- other heaveni, Maud Reinertsen, a Berke- failed. Still, the results nesses, a wingless, cigar- Wadsworth prefers ley witch who said she surprised almost no one. shaped object flew over the cate levltoi practiced only white magic, The Carsons were convic- city at an altitude of 3,000 rather thar the healing and creative ted of first-degree murder. feet, reversing direction lacture it ii once and moving at speeds might exist, for insta

up lo 125 miles per hour a nuclear particle : The strange craft did not re- primordial substance spond to radio contact. formed by Ihe Big B the workers said, and radar According to Robert

screens lost track of ft 25 L. Forward, a Hughe miles north of Gorky icist who has writter

American otologist J. antigravity. the resea Allen Hynek, director of the project seems like a Center lor UFO Studies, shot "The trouble s in Evanston, Illinois, charac- theory violates the = terizes the Gorky incident physics. Stilt, antigre as significant. But he ex- is not impossible, ji presses dismay that the difficult."— Robert Brody — —

within GPU who volunteered to come here protection standards nave called lor. While and help clean CHINA SYNDROME up the auxiliary building. The ofher plants in the United States average 700 same concept will probably be followed in man-rems per year, the collective CONTINUED FROM PAGE 62 TMI-2 dose the future. The exposures will be maintained has averaged 300. The high-dose tasks, sorted to nonprofessionals—jumpers, glow- at a very low level." however, are yet to come. boys; they give them lots of names. But truly. The remote reporters that called GPU to , One of them is called head lift— raising machines should doing be much of this." the island just after trio accicert were irair:cd part of- the top of the reactor core. A routine An estimated 5,000 unskilled workers to scrub contaminants from floors, using procedure when refueling a working reactor, jumpers-— are hired each year to repair brushes and water, it soapy and to do other will be tricky and dangerous at TMI . "When steam generators, the huge component that menial though radioactive jobs. the head comes off the vessel," says Hilde- works like a radiator, .turning heat from the How many people will receive measur- brand, "there will be some significant dose core into steam. in They jump .through a able doses of radiation? rates. But obviously oeopie arc; not going to porthole in the equipment complex, plug "My guess is, in the course of the recov- be in the immediate area." A remote opera- leaky tubes, then scurry back out: alter sev- ery, we're talking ten thousand to twelve tor, controlling the polar crane mounted near eral (ive-minute entries, their doses individuals " ap- thousand says Hildebrand. the ceiling of the reactor building, will first lift proach ; NRC radiation limits. Each year the By using so many unskilled nexpe<- the irradiated 160-ton cap, or head. Workers nuclear-power industry hires some 35,000 people, aren't enced you exposing them to will then drape plasiic shieicing over it. short-term laborers and-craftsmen for other more radiation because it takes them longer "Then you're looking down at the plenum," "hot jobs." to do the job? explains Hildebrand. Removing that, he says,

"I know what a jumper is, I really and don't "The NRC will tell you the effort should be risks high-radiation exposure. The plenum is

' see any need for : them here," says James to keep the total exposure low. They rec- a 55-ton cylincer t.nat ts snugly into the re- Hildebrand, who directs radiation TMI-2 ommend you do that by training and using actor vessel. It's used to guide control rods control for General Public Utilities. ex- skilled "Our highly individuals, who can get in, get into the core and to hold fuel rods in place. posures are not at the level thai that of kind the job done, and gel out more quickly than Nuclear-core material hangs from its bottom worker lypically receives." Hildebrand novice workers. was That way, you end up with a- like stalactites. As it is pulled up by the crane, one of many people working late the on sec- lower' collective dose. I basically endorse it will clear the vessel sides by only 50 thou- ot visit ond day my to the island. that. But I think it's also essential to keep in- sandths of an inch. But if it has been warped

I ask about press accounts that re- GPU dividual exposures as low as you can. And by the heat, it will have to be cut apart and cruited linesmen, secretaries, and other we've really done that." removed piecemeal, nonradiation to employees work in contam- Hildebrand pulls a chart from the file: Since "The damaged fuel is under the plenum," inated areas. the cleanup began, only 13 percent of all explains Hildebrand. "Gamma radiation will 'After the accident in 1979, the workers radiation company enlenng areas have re- be coming off it. But it will be flooded with brought in what they called remote report- ceived more than 500 millirems in a year water as shielding, and at that time no one ers," says Hildebrand. "These were people the very limit that some critics ol existing will stand over the vessel. All of iivs has been — L

mocked up, and pecoie a re specially trained to keep individual exposure down." This dose-intensive defueling is to slart in the summer of 1985, and only then will some long-standing questions be answered about the rubble composition and the extent of the damage to.the vessel. Unexpected troubles could add years to the job. After the core is removed, other components—steam gen- erators, pipes, and pressurizes—will have to be decontaminated. After that, cleanup of

the reactor itself will begin in earnest. Then

finally it's down to the basement and some of the highest radiation fields. The year will be 1988 or so.

' Some of the early high-radiation work- inspecting hot areas of the reactor and re- moving fuel-core fragments—will be done by robots like RED and by robotic arms called smart, long-handled tools. But once radiation levels are lowered by this initial

work, a large part of the cleanup will still be done by humans. The collective dose to clean up TMI over ten years will range from 13,000 to 46.000 man-rems, as estimated by the NRC stalf. The peak of the GPU projection is 28,000. As a comparison, the total industry work- force absorbs some 50,000 man-rems each year while operating over 70 reactors. e time to explore a hew A rem is a dose unit that measures injury ^ in^A'place wkereyour.Hfeis not caused either by gamma or X rays, neu- wtf. enjoyable, but fulfilling. Where trons, or alpha or beta particles as they pass * ' jccess and personal happiness through the body, knocking electrons loose, go hand in hand. Where each day is A man-rem is the collective dose received asured not in hours, hut by Why wait?''After just a few personal

by a group or population; so if 100 workers 6 ' i «. ''''! .''.* sessions with an SCW!. program, yoi. each receive two rems, the collective dose you've probably imagined a future thai will begin to see a definite change as is man-rems. 200 you face the -.vorici with a : is much better than the present. But "Spreading the dose" to more workers to why waste precious days, months, calm. Whatever, your dream, it a * keep individual exposures low spreads the ; ars, when SCW! Subliminal happen. No matter what your risk of cancer c r gereiic damage, some feel, Techniques can help you get more from expectations, you can surpass iCiem. It but does not reduce it. That risk depends on • ' !".'' :.' will a new life,. and you'll wonder Hie . be the total amount of radiation energy ab- why you waited so long to discover ii. sorbed by human tissue. Every day can be the greatest day of if job requires 22,000 So the TMI-2 man- your life. What would make your life Free information, f /// out the coupon rems—the midpoint of the GPU estimate better? Losing weight? Becoming a below and we'll send you information then the Nuclear Regulatory Commission more dynamic salesperson? Controlling on the 65 different-tapes we offer, from radiation will projects the cause two or three stress? Whether you want to itop "The Best in You" and "Develop Your workers fatal cancers among the and ge- smoking or discover hidden talents, Creativity", to "Vveighi toss", "Stress netic defects in oi their olfspring. This seven SC.WL® (Subconscious to Conscious Control" and "Succe-^ Motivation". is based on the conservative-dose re- Without Limitation:;) Subliminal Audio- sponse formula in the NRC's Environmental Tapes help you do it. SCWL® Impact Statement (EIS) on the cleanup. reinforces your deepest desires and MIDWEST RESEARCH, INC. In a statement issued to its employees, abilities through continued 100% 6515 Highland Road, Suite 203-76 General Public Utilities acknowledges thai positive messages, thereby reaching Pontiac, Michigan 48054 "radiation exposures at TMI involve some your most "powerful source"... your Please send FREE literature on 5CWL" risk, as do. all occupations and activities of own subconcious mind. life." But to put the risks in some perspec- @ tive, the company points put that working in SCWL 's success is guaranteed.

: (he coal-mining industry, for example, is 16 SC.WL - Subliminal Techniques are easy times more dangerous than working at a nu- to use and have helped people from all clear-power plant. Another GPU report has walks of Hie, ;mm professional sports challenged the NRC's approach to estimat- teams and athletes, like the worlds' ing health effects, saying it results in an ex- greatest bowler Earl Anthony, to major treme "overestimate" of risks. universities and large city police In the shadow of a Unit 2 cooling tower departments. Midwest Research, the are parked a dozen rrailsrs used by contract m originator of SCW , is the world's employees and government overseers at largest producer and researcher of TMI. Willis Bixby directs the Department of Audio Subliminal Tapes. We are Energy site office from one of ihem. continually improving on these He hands me a topographical map drawn advanced behavioral science me\hr,-:h by computer from 500,000 data points ac- — —

quired by a sonar device lowered into the line tied to the dome's center brace. core. It shows every inch of the mountains He entered the shelter and lowered him- and valleys of uranium rubble. ADAGIO The sun self CONTINUED FROM PAGE7I into a chair as a feeling of absolute des- shines brightly through his office window on olation invaded his soul. What's the point? this first day of spring. keyboard. "This terminal is busy." What is the point of any ot it? "We're much more optimistic than we were "Are any ol the other stations hooked up?" "Isn't that |ust a sad ghoulish for entertain- two years ago," he says. "There are good She didn't answer He watched for her a ment. Tobias?" It was Forrest's voice. He was people over at GPU, and they said, let's just moment, then turned his attention to the dis- standing in She doorway. Forrest nodded to- take things one step at a time.' The fear has play. "Does that have anything to do with the ward the body. "Just look at that. The man been of the unknown: what to do about crit- gear you've hooked in up the cargo, bay?" was totally incompetent. Look at the way he icality; what's the condition of the core? In- She nodded toward the display. "Those placed that noose, straight up the back." stead of standing around, we said, 'Let's go are the thought patterns of one ol the green Tobias closed his eyes and leaned his find out.' So we started wifh the auxiliary- rocks. I have one of the small ones in a sen- head against the back of his chair. "It seems building water, then the containment-build- sory chamber. When I can get the main sen- to have done what it was intended to do." ing basement, and then up to the reactor sors hooked up, I'll be able to receive from "True. But old Tillson must have done quite gradually marching into the core region." any rock in sight.". a mambo before he died. His neck isn't bro- A secretary sets a sheaf of papers in Bix- Turning her head away from the screen, ken. Tobias. He danced. He danced for a by's in-basket. "I loosely use the analogy," she fixed Tobias with a hate tilled glare, "You long time." he continues, "that TMI may be to the nu- refused to do anything about Forrest. Now "I guess Tiljson just wasn't much of a clear-power . industry what the Apollo lire was I'm taking matters into my own hands." hangman." to the space program. It has been a time of Tobias shook his head. "You be real care- Forrest snorted out a laugh. "He wasn't reflection, a time of learning." ful, Lady You Name. keep this up and you much ol a chaplain, either. He just wasn't He hands me a shiny piece of brown glass just might buy a real case of the crazies." He much of anything." the size of a small cigar. "That's borosilicate nodded once toward the screen. "Onceyou There were sounds Coming from behind glass." he says; "this is a nonradioactive have all of that data, what are you going to Forrest. He turned and Cage pushed past sample, of course." It's now the medium of be able to do with it?" him and came to a halt as the body came choice for permanently isolating nuclear "Communicate, Tobias. Communicate." into his view. "For God's sake." Cage looked materials from the environment. "The radio- "Talk with the rocks? Hell, if they commu- first at Forrest and then at Tobias seated in activity we got out of the basement water nicate at the same rate that they move, you'll the chair. "For God's sake, cut him down!" was loaded into zeolite, which looks like be an old woman before you can get a hello He moved toward the body. sand," he explains. "Then we took thai and back. And if you can communicate with them, Forrest studied Tillson's still form. "Wouldn't melted it with this glass into three logs, each so what?" it be amusing to leave him ihere for Lady eight feet long. So we've demonstrated at "It looks as though they conceptualize and Name? We'd all be eating our rations as TMI that we know what we're doing in waste communicate faster than they move." She though nothing were out of the ordinary, and management." faced- the display. "Forrest is doing terrible "in she'd come. What would she do?" The logs are stored at Richland, Washing- things to the rocks. I've been wafching him. Cage finished righting the overturned chair ton. Eventually they will be packed in con- a primitive On pain-pleasure level, he has next to the hanging corpse "Give me a hand, crete, iron, and steel and placed one half divided some of the rocks into armies. And someone." mile underground in formations of salt or he is forcing them into situations where they Tobias pushed himself to his feet and granite that have been geologically stable must fight each other." headed toward the door. He paused next to for millions of years. "Fight?" Tobias burst out in laughter. "That Forrest. "Help him. Help him you sonofa- A mile down the asphalt service road that has to be the action event of the century. bitch, or I'll kill you." runs to the south gate is the nature trail built Hell, Lady, I've been here just as long as A breath of amusement passed over For- by the Boy Scouls from Middletown. Near you. and I don't see any war going on." rest's face as he walked over to Cage and the shoreline, the only sound is that of water "It's there. all the same. Once I can com- began helping him lake down the body. rushing over a dam erected after a flood municate with the rocks, I'm going to teach Outside, walking rapidly away from the washed out the leaf tobacco grown here. It them how to fight Forres!." camp, Tobias felt the angry sickness forcing was called Elliot's Island then. Tobias glanced at.the other terminal in the its way through his wall of control. He began York Haven Water and Power put the dam cockpit and decided that trying to read in running into the dark. there, tunneling water to a hydroelectric tur- the same compartment with Lady and her bine it installed on the Susquehanna's west shiv would not exactly be the ultimate in re- "Why must.I die" bank. In 1929 Metropolitan Edison bought it laxation. There was another terminal in en- "ask this thing" and the island. Its holding company, Gen- gineering. The in ghosts engineering, how- "i asked this thing and no answer" eral Public Utilities, broke ground 40 years ever, had been su-ficenl to keep Tobias out "ways of this thing are mysterious— die" later for an advanced atomic facility, and TMI- of there since he and Forrest had dragged 1, the first of the two reactors started oper- Osborn's remains from the compartment. The second Earthday into the new sun- ating in September 1974. Suddenly he felt very tired. Perhaps even rise. Tobias stood on Graveyard Hill next to Incredibly, the power plant, with both its tired enough to sleep. He got to his feet and Tillson's grave marker, staring at the long nuclear units on. was projected to generate slowly made his way out of the ship. shadows cast by the rocks below. One of more the power in one year than the hydro plant As he stood in the dim, red light outside shadows moved. His gaze (raced along the had cranked out in its lifetime. But the two the cargo hatch, he noticed one of the white shadow to its source. It was Forrest moving worked in tandem for only a short time; TMI- rocks. It was rounded and about the size of among the rocks. 2 went down on March 28, 1979, three a pillow. It had been there ever since Tobias squatted, leaned his forearms upon months after start-up. Wo, he thought. It's closer to the hatch now. his knees, and clasped his hands together. That accident has since been analyzed' When we landed it was farther away. "He Curious that no one had questioned whether repeatedly by the whole nuclear industry. shook his head. Another recruit for Lady Tillson's suicide was in fact a suicide. The Lessons learned at Three Mile Island have Mame's liberation army. He muttered as he body had been taken down, planted, and already made for safer reactors elsewhere. walked toward his shelter, "Enlist now. Avoid never mentioned again. Facing the unknown each day, the TMI-2 re- the rush later." Tillson's mind had gone, no question about covery team advances decontamination' As he passed trie .-nain r.he.ter he glanced that. His shelter had been littered with in- technology and enhances our mastery in over and froze as he saw Tillson's naked body coherent scribblings. Mostly theological atomic wastes DO hanging by its neck from a piece of cargo squirrel droppings, a rambling eternal justi- 118 OMNI fication of the author's existence. There were survive morally as long as humans have. small white rock. The terror, the passion that occasional moments of apparent lucidity. "A few moments ago Forrest showed me must exist in those very slow creatures. The Relative lucidity. All things being relative. something. It was a green pebble the size of pain of those who sacrificed one of their own of Most Tillson's lucid moments were a blueberry. It seems'that several of the number to Forrest. It wouldn't be a sacrifice crowded with the pain and anguish of a rocks, man acting in concert, prepared a plat- without the pain of loss. And the pain couldn't who knows he is losing his mind. Fragments form this and placed pebble upon it. Then exist without some form of love. still teased Tobias's mind. they left the platform. It must have taken What about that little green pebble? The

many weeks. But there it is. faithful The tith- article of sacrifice? If the others had lime "Forrest explained that each rock is a small ing to their god. They prepared an altar and enough to move away from the platform, so community of the creatures. A community of placed one of their members it. upon A gift. did the pebble. It had been green. Alive. It individuals bound by their physical nature A virgin thrown into the volcano. A lamb had faced the horror of the unknowable. And and shared nervous systems to act for the pumping its out blood in the temple. The it had stood there, waiting for Forrest. communily's welfare, much like the cells of rocks have learned how to sacrifice, Courage? a human body. Each rock, then, can "I be am an obscenity." He suddenly felt guilty about holding the treated as an individual. The rock color is a white rock and tried to replace it exactly from genetic thing and has no other significance. There was no possible way of knowing where i! had come. But he couldn't remem- The rocks cannot perceive anything that how long after writing those words that the ber which side had been up. He stood, won- doesn't stay still for at least the equivalent of chaplain had hanged himself. Or had been dering how he would feel if the next instant nine Earth days. murdered. he found himself standing on his head, "He dispenses pain and death to the rocks "I am an obscenity." He headed for the ship, being careful according to whether the rocks have Tobias acted looked down at Tillson's grave where he placed his feet. in accordance with the signs he has made. marker. 'This is a hell of a place to try and It must be terrifying to the creatures. Signs judge an entire life, Howard." "the green kills ours—why" suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Signs whoop of A joy came from below. Tobias "She gray must kilt the green—how" that, if they are disobeyed, instantly reap turned his head to see Forrest running "this thing serves the green" horrible consequences, The creatures must among the rocks. the And rocks he was run- "this thing will serve the gray if the gray believe themselves to be in the grip of spir- ning among were of only two colors, green obeys this thing" its terrible. — gods. and red, Everywhere else there was a fairly "Forrest is teaching them good and evil. even mix of white, green, gray, and black, as Tobias sat in the commo couch and Doing what Forrest signs is the good; dis- well as red dead ones. But in Forrest's little watched Lady Name alternately punch but- obeying Forrest is the evil. Before Forrest community the only ones left living were tons and refer to the notes that she kept on these creatures had no conception of good green. in The green rocks, accordance with slips of paper in her right breast pocket. The and evil. The horrors of moral command- their god's wish, had killed those who were sensors he had installed above the cockpit ments whose reasons for existence must be not green. There had indeed been awar. seemed to be working, whatever it was that

taken on blind faith. I if wonder the rocks will Tobias reached down and picked up a they did. "There." She pointed at the incomprehen- sible scramble of numbers on the display. 'That's the key. We'll be able to talk to them in a bit." "Forrest can already do that." "Our way will be much faster. We won't have to fuck them over and wait for them to deduce the message. Direct communica- tion." She faced Tobias. "Did you find the portable units?" He nodded toward the rear of the cockpit, where two heavy-looking, brown metal cases stood. "What do we need those for?" She turned back to the display. "As soon

as Forrest figures out what we're doing in here he'll turn this computer into rubble. Once

I have the data milked and processed

through this thing, we won't need it anymore.

I'll enter the translation codes into the porta- ble units, and we can use them. I hope they're still working." "They don't look damaged." Tobias looked back at the units as he felt himself squirm in his chair. Lady Name's use of the pronoun we made Tobias more than a bit uncomfort- able. After all, she was crazy.

"Why don't we just kill Forrest and be done with it?" "We aren't murderers, Tobias. We are the good guys," Tobias glanced at the knife resting on her lap and raised an eyebrow. She nodded and reached for the keyboard. "Hide the soft suits and portable units while Ma* I try it out and see what happens." "the gray also seeks the signs of this thing" "this thing serves the green—we obeyed" "still the gray seeks the signs" !22 OMNI —

"this thing will not betray the green" per on the floor, and Moppec clown in a chair "there is a sign" "This thing will betray you." facing the doorway. He had taken to sitting "truth do you sign" is "who signs" and sleeping facing doorways. When some- "Truth dead." . "Truth." one's out to get you, paranoia is just practi- "truth cannot die" "we obey this thing" cal thinking. "Call truth and see." "this thing not betray us" He glanced at the position of Mantchee "we call truth—truth see our sign—truth" "This thing will betray you." and frowned. Lady Name was going to meet "Truth does not see your sign. "who signs" him to explain the new sequence they were Truth is dead." 'Truth." going to initiate. She had determined that "who do we serve now" "truth is what" the rocks had the ability to excrete their waste "You know me."

"I am." products in the form of a highly corrosive "this thing"

"does truth serve the green" vapor. It wouldn't kill the rocks. Their ability "must we again kill and die to serve" "Truth serves truth. Will the green to obtain what they needed from the atmos- "You know me." serve truth?" phere wouldn't be affected. Creatures with "we know you" "the green serves this thing" lungs, however would die.

"The gray serves this thing. Truth is The soft suits and respirators would leave By the light of the Oids he had found her stronger. Serve me." only Forrest inhaling acid. The only real among the mountain of red rocks beyond "truth what have we done" problem was trying to convince the rocks to the ship, on the way to Cage's Chasm. That's her half of the "what have we done" do it. Lady Name suspected that for some where she had stashed equip- reason, the rocks might object to wandering ment. Her soft suit had been slashed, her Lady had been right about Forrest going around in a cloud of their own shit. respirator broken. Her portable communi- after the computer. While they had been The doorway darkened. It was Forrest, and cation unit was missing. She was dead. To- pulling down rations in the dome, the circuits he was holding something in his hands. He bias extinguished his light and turned away. had been trashed. Shortly after, Cage wan- squatted in the doorway. Forrest must have taken some time to muti- dered off in the distance beyond the ship. late Lady Name's body. Tobias had followed the man's footsteps in Had Forrest found the other suit and com- the red ash, between and around the end- munication unit? Tobias looked back toward less rocks, until he came to a bottomless the gentle silver gleam of the ship. To Hell

it. Forrest play with- the rocks chasm. It was an opening that looked as with Let damned QHe loved though real gods had scarred the floor of the if that's what he wanted. What did Tobias ? plain with a huge razor. The footsteps went doing wiring in atmospheric care Keep going with the rations, stay out to the edge, and that was that. of Forresl's way. Wait for rescue. Simple. iongjohns. It was So long Cage. He turned back, knelt on both knees nexi From the entrance lo the dome, Tobias like doing watch repair to her body, and clumsily began pushing the watched Forrest study his subjects in the wearing a pair red ash over her. "You dumb bitch. You dumb dying light at the end of another week-long crazy bitch." of boxing gloves. The sunset. He was seated on top of one ol the large red stones. Surrounding him were failing gravity "what must we do to atone" nothing but red rocks. All quite alive. "There is another. Kill it." just made it interesting.^ Lady Name had told them; "You must fight "to kill what we cannot see how" this thing, not each olher." "Find away." "how to fight this thing" "Play dead." The edge of another new sunrise. Tobias looked through the dome window at the pink

Tobias. chuckled as he gnawed at his ra- "You know, Tobias, there were many limes of the slow dawn. How long had it been since -Forrest? the tions. Forrest's new army, as well as his orig- in my life when I thought I had all my ducks he had seen Back when man broken knife. frowned. inal force, were immobilized. They wouldn't in a row. When I thought I was on top of had Lady Name's He fight. Lady Name had given the green the everything. It wasn't always true." Had only one night passed, or was it two? command to tell the gray about truth. The Tobias hooked another chair with the toe Or three? word had even spread to the white and the of his boo! and pulled it closer to him, cross- He sipped at his steaming beverage, low-

at it. black, li you don't fight, you don't have to kill. ing his legs at the ankles upon it. "Welcome ered his cup, and looked Somewhere Earth there with de- If you don't fight, you don't have to die. to the club." back on was a person a Tobias laughed out loud. Play dead; turn Forrest looked down at what was in his gree in nutrition who had never stepped out- environmentally controlled red. It would be a simple task for the rocks, hands. "It might not be true for you." side of his or her requiring only the sacrifice of each rock's 'Dust stop fucking with the rocks, Forrest, city. That person had invented N-669 Bev- surface members. The surface dies, but in- and it'll be all over." erage, Survival, Hot. More than likely that side they live. And growth takes place He glanced up and grinned. "You think person had never tasted N-669 Beverage, against the ground. so?" He placed what was in his hands upon Survival, Hot. At odd moments Tobias had a

He saw Forrest's head turn slowly in his the floor, stepped upon it with one foot, and fantasy about finding that person, cramming direction. The small man studied him, his lifted as the sound of a sharp crack rever- a funnel down his or her throat, and pouring face as expressionless as one of the rocks. berated around the dome. in ten or twelve liters of N-669 Beverage, He called out, "Tobias!" He held up the cur- He stood and tossed the object across Survival^ Hot.

if kill He slowly looked up and turned. rent generator. "Tobias, what I them all? the space that separated them. Tobias A sound.

it with his left Forrest turned The sound had been something between What if I just go from stone to stone and give caught hand as each a little shot?" and left the doorway empty. a groan and a creak. He looked up at the

"Then you'd have nothing left to play with It took a moment, but. Tobias recognized inside of the dome. No problem there that except your radish, Forrest. Your game would the object. It was the hilt of Lady Name's knife. he could see. His' head turned toward the be over." doorway. As he took a step toward it, half of He lowered his "shock stick and grinned-. "there is a new one" the dome came crashing down to the floor

"You joined the wrong side, Tobias." "it is this thing" next to him; it knocked him clear across to Tobias laughed and turned intothe'dome. "it signs- as truth signs" the wall of the undamaged half. He finished off his nutribar, tossed the wrap- "ifis this thing stronger" Another crash. Another. 124 OMNI "

cleared his He head, opened his eyes, and "if you cannot see this thing we have watched ihe open sky in horror as a ten-me- more power than god" ter UNBELIEVABLE column of rocks teetered, then came fall- "Serve God or you will suffer. ing toward him. "this thing already provides us with what He scrambled PRICES!! to his feet and leaped into you offer us god—we serve this thing" the rubble to escape, a deafening roar and "You must serve me." a choking cloud of dust overtaking him. "Communicate, f am stronger than this The sounds stopped, and the dust set- thing. Answer. Answer. Answer." tled. He opened his eyes and chanced a glance at his surroundings. The dome was From the top of Graveyard Hill, Tobias sur- EPSON nothing but rubble crisscrossed by col- veyed the results of his efforts. He was lapsed columns of rocks. He pulled himself standing in the center of a circular enclosure PRINTERS to his feet, climbed up the rocks and rubble of red rocks, triangular a piece of the dome until he stood on top. Except for where he serving as a roof. Inside were some cush- was standing, the landscape was un- ions from the dome and a panel he had changed, the long shadows of the morning grabbed from the ship. The panel controlled pointing away from the bit of Mantchee that the array of debris-impregnated seismic showed over the horizon. charges surrounding his position on the hill. "Forrest!" Forrest was nowhere to be seen. If Forrest or any of his followers wanted to "Forrest I" get at him, they'd need a guide to get through Tobias took several deep breaths and the fireworks. looked down at the destruction of the dome. Next to the cushions was a stack of the Withoutthe dispenser what rations he could seismic charges rigged with adjustable time- rescue from the wreckage would 80 COLUMN PRINTERS last only a delay triggers. They were in case Forrest told few days— Earth days at that. Without the his rocks to do the falling-column bit again. RX-80 100 c.p.s. Tractor only dispenser ... he looked at the empty cup The soft suit and respirator were still in their HX-BOFT. 100 c.p.s. Tractor/Friction still gripped in his hand. So long N-669 Bev- containers, in case Tobias ever got some of FX-BO 160 c.p.s. Tractor/Friction erage, Survival, Hot. There were no more the racks fo see things his way. Next to the 132 COLUMN PRINTERS dispensers or rations in the ship's cargo hold. soft suit were his containers of water lugged The equipment used to tap into HX-100 1D0 c.p.s. Tractor/Friction the ground- from the surface stream and his supply of water FX-100 160 c.p.s. Tractor/Friction supply had been crushed along with ration bars. In addition to the ration bars, he the dispenser. had managed to salvage four containers of NEW Near Letter Quality Tobias began gathering PRINTER up the few nutri- the powder that the dispenser used to make bars.he could find and reach. Already his up good old N-669 Beverage. Survival, Hot. LQ 1500 mi'nd was planning what he would do once Vitamins, minerals, and old underwear. He he broke 200/G7 c.p.s. Tractor/Friction out his own portable communica- wondered what N-669 would taste like cold. tion unit and set up his command post. There Next to the rations, on the other side of the still remained Lady Name's stunt with the cushions, stood the portable communica- Cables for Epson corrosive vapor. Tobias didn't wonder about tion unit. Tobias bit the skin on the inside of ft. 36/36 pin being able to figure out how to get the rocks his lower lip. What did the rocks mean when CB5GQ9 1 to do it. He had to. But first there was food, they said they could see Forrest? water, shelter to arrange. CBSsia Ft.3e/1Spln Time. It would take He leaned his forearms upon the edge of or TI-9S time. But he had nothing but time. He spoke the red wall and scanned the area behind CB5B29 11 in mutters as he worked. Graveyard Hill. Forrest nowhere I was RS-232[t ully w<«q . around.

CU5620 i "I'll get you, Forrest. You miserable little Noi even a footprint. And for the rocks to see for TBS e BS1Y RS- son of a bitch. I'll get you." Forrest, he would have to stay substantially in one place for the better part of nine Earth "we DUST COVERS have found truth" days. Tobias looked farther to the right, mov- AVAILABLE FOR "is truth dead" ing his position until he was overlooking the "truth is dead— it is a creature MOST M00ELS-S5.00 strange camp. The shelters had been in place long truth—soft smaii and made of food" enough io be seen. And the graves. The ship. "what Interfaces of the other this thing wants He studied the wreckage of the ship. To cardcog 65.00 us to kill" the rocks it must have appeared out of apple dumpling cx 65.00 no- grappler plus 105.00 "we do not know—some toward the where. Huge, gleaming. Silver. A color the [1bk) ghappler plus beginning of the new light sign about rocks had never seen before. And then they BIAS Ser. [For SO. DO another there far below the — B1B1 IEEE-48B In GO.OO surface dead began getting signs. Certain actions in re- in the moundare the two who appeared lation to the signs brought death. Other ac- when this thing first appeared—they are tions did not. They learned the penalty of dead" disobedience. Good and evil came to stay. "four of them—still there is this thing" And it all began alter the ship CALL TOLL FREE 800-621-1269 appeared. "there is a sign" Tobias nodded and sat on his cushions,

"Forrest. Answer if you're reading. Forrest." energizing the portable communications unit. "who signs" "Oh, Forrest, old buddy. Do I have a num- "I look for the one called this thing." numforyou." "truth is dead—you are not this thing" "are you the other" "who signs" "I am God. Where is this thing?" "God." "who is god" "we serve this thing"

"I am. God rules all." "I have found ELEK-TEK.inc. this thing, if I kill this thing, "are you like truth or like this thing" will you serve me?" "No. I have more power." "we see this thing—this thing now sees "even we can see this thing" what we think" could it, the flaming death of this thing "I see what you think. Will you. serve me?" see IT MAY BE NEWS TO YOU 'We see this thing" would impress the racks.

"I will kill this thing and appear to you. _ He sat back to wait. It would take anolher Then you will serve me." nine days for the rocks to see that this thing ...but the "we wait" was destroyed. The portable communication unit began Egyptians The directional indicator on the portable making strange buzzing sounds. He looked unit and a quick move enabled him to trian- at the operation panel inside the case. The knew it gulate the positions of two of the racks with only image on the screen above the tiny key- which he had been communicating. After board was an instructional line: switch ages ago!

marking them, it took only minutes to rig Ihe FUNCTION TO NORMAL RECEIVE. did instructed and sat back in ship. Remole-con trolled seismic charges He as Powers to overcome sickness! Tobias quickly shock, withdrawing his hand as though it had next to the half-full fuel cells. Means to escape poverty! searched the crew's quarters and scanned been burned, as an angry, deep snarl came Knowledge to bring happi- . the cargo hold for anything additional that from the unit's speaker. ness and peace of mind! Skill he might be able to use. There was a three- "Tobias! Tobias, I'm coming for you! Do and genius to create a civiliza- wheeled motorized "mule." He energized it you hear me?" tion we still copy! These are and drove it over and around the mess in After his shock passed, Tobias grinned. ihe hold until he was outside, next to the "Is something wrong, Forrest?" only some of ancient Egypt's marked rocks. He worked the forks 01 the "The ship! Why did you blow the ship?" accomplishments.

mute beneath first one rock and then the next. "I think you know, old thing. Shall I put on But, beyond physical achieve- With the rocks secured, he drove them to a nice, hot cup of N-669 when you come ments was the wisdom of the the top of Graveyard Hill and parked them calling? By the way, old thing, what are you Egyptian mystery schools. In where they could see both the ship and the using for food these days?" these centers of learning were inside of his bunker. Moving the rocks would The unit was silent. Tobias laughed as he taught the laws of life. Men add some time to the demonstration, but he switched the function selector back to the and women were able to shape would be too vulnerable in the open. rock channel. It didn't seem so long a time. their destinies! His preparations completed, he sat down The nine days. The voices provided some Successful living is the and waited. If he stayed in the same place, entertainment. Still, they were muddy, too world's oldest art. It consists in the same position, with only brief ab- distant. But at times they even seemed to sences to piss on fvlikizu's grave, the rocks sing. Especially toward the end. Sirange of developing initiative, fore- would see him shortly after they were able songs. Forrest never did show. sight, and the ability to com- lo perceive the ship. The only problem was bine experiences into new and boredom. But there were entertainments. "It is time to decide." — workable ideas. These laws Keeping alert for an attack of some kind by .. '"this thing brings us pain and death operate as unfailingly as what do you bring us" Forrest. That and the voices he was begin- god those which govern the Sun, ning to hear. "The good." Moon, and planets. They were All a part of going crazy, he reminded "god we wili serve you" discovered by certain Egyp- himself. Still he wished the voices were loud "And now will you have taiih in me?" tians and preserved through enough for him to understand. Who knows? "god we wilt have faith in you" the Rosicrucians. His insanity might have something interest- "Tell the others. All must serve God." the ages by ing to say. "god we will tell the others" PRACTICAL He sat back and stared at the two green INSTRUCTION rocks he was trying to convince. A thought Does perception of time adjust to the lo- 7 passed his attention, and he began laugh- cal framework of time Tobias let the thought In your hands, this knowl- ing. "Talk about your hard sells!" sit just behind his eyes as he made his weary edge could alter the entire When he calmed down, he began the wait. way io the stream. There didn't seem to be course of your affairs. The Ro- enough time in the day lo do everything. Lug sicrucians offer you—if you "who- signs" water, eat, talk to the rocks, and try to get have the courage to break them to understand about the acid vapor. "God. 1 have moved you." away from limited thinking He had gone back and dug up Lady Name's "your power is great" —these same simply ex- "Do you see this thing?" body,- hoping there would be some clue in pressed truths of life. Let this "we see this thing" her notes. She must have had some idea be the turning point in your "Do you see me?" about how to get the racks to expel the va- life! Use coupon or write today "we see you god—you are very small— por. But her breast pocket was empty. If to Scribe: this thing is much larger" anyone had those. notes, it was Forrest. kao

Bui it was the feel of the dead breast be- "My power is greater." 9fie ROSICRUCIANS "this has moved us without us hind that pocket that had captured his atten- thing (AMORC) seeing the move—what you have done is tion. Hard. Unyielding. He uncovered it and San Jose. California 95191, U.S.A. no more" found it lo be made of gray stone. Her entire (Not_A Religion) "Will you serve me on faith, or must I kill body had been replaced by the gray. Back this thing?" at Graveyard Hill, he uncovered part ol Os- Scribe" KAO The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) "you must kilt this thing" born's body. He had been replaced by gray San .lone, California 95191, U.S.A. and greea He didn't bother to check out Mantchee was slowly moving toward sun- Mikizu. Whatever the racks were doing, they

set, but enough time remained. Tobias were only doing it to the dead. That was none pressed the remote trigger and watched as Of his concern. Not yet. the ship disappeared in a sheet of light and He came to the bank of the stream and sound. Too bad, he thought as he watched lowered his containers to the ground. The the heat carry the flames and black smoke stream was dry. He climbed down the bank high into the shimmering red of the sky. It's and dug at the cracked surface of the bed

too bad that it happens so quickly. If they .wilh his hands. Dry. — . '

He sat his back on heels, his gaze resting He stood naked, a film of gray over his the distant on hills. That's where the water skin. He sank down next to the green rock. comes from, he thought. that's And where "I can't make it. Too tired. Too old." SODM Forrest CONTINUED FROM fie is. That's where he cut it off. "we will carry you" And that's where I'm going to kill you. Tobias watched the landscape move. actually be detrimental. Two such reports fo- Green, gray, black, and white globes flow- cus on vitamin C's effect on the body's use The light and the dark. It Days. seemed ing around the red. Rapid rivers of shapes. of copper. that so much-time had passed that he ought He felt himself lifted carried. and In the sky Copper, a necessary trace element in the to have forgotten what he was trying to do. Mantchee was an even bar of yellow light body, helps several enzymes function in their At moments he would forget. against the dim pink. role as biochemical catalysts. Too little cop- He finished securing the portable com- As he was moved along, floating upon that per hinders the body's ability to use iron. Too munication unit to the mule next. to the driv- softly undulating river of life, the edge of a much copper can also be dangerous. er's seat. In the vehicle's tiny cargo bay were thought— what would he do when he met Edward Calabrese, Gary Moore, and Mark the remainder of his ralions, the water con- Forrest?— came and left many times. My McCarthy, of the University of Massachu- tainers, his soft suit and respirator, and his mind, he said to himself, rea//y is going. But setts, discovered that large doses of vitamin supply of bombs. He looked back at the two Forrest will be jus! -.m aid. it he's still alive. C intensify the damage that excess copper green rocks that had been keeping him He was at the hills. He could not push him- does to human red blood cells. It should be company for self up to look. The rocks rose'beneath his noted, however, that the levels of both cop- How long? He looked at the head communica- and shoulders. per and vitamin C used were much higher tion unit. There was a date- and time-indi- "Forrest," than ndrmal, even for C fanatics. A second cator function. He didn't know the date. For There was no answer, except for the sting- experiment, done by Elizabeth Finley and some reason it seemed important to know. ing pain all over his body, He watched his Florian Cerklewski at Oregon State Univer- He opened the unit, energized it, and skin peel and blacken, curling away to ex- sity, showed that large doses of vitamin C switched the function selector to date/time. pose the bones beneath. The acid. Forrest can also interfere with the body's ability to The figures were unreadable, a smear of taught them to shit acid. use copper. The researchers found that C flashes, as though the indications had been megadoses decreased (by about 26 per- recorded in time lapse and replayed at nor- "I can't fight him. I am dying." cent) the blood levels of a cop per- contain- mal speed. "god live— you must become as lucifer" ing protein essential to the body's use of The reflection of his image in the screen "I am God. Good cannot become as stored iron. That's bad enough. But Cer- showed the face of an old man. Lucifer. I am good." klewski warnsthat the danger of megados- "god" "lucifer says he is the evil—is good less ing may be even greater. "What?" Tobias looked up and around. He powerful than lucifer" For years the medical profession has as- looked back at the communication unit. The ."I cannot change my purpose." sumed that we get sufficient copper in our function selector was still on date/time. The - "change not purpose— change form- daily diet, up to five grams a day. Some re- voices again? become as lucifer" cent studies, however, question this. They "god" claim that we get much less copper than He looked again at the two green rocks. The thread of a thought spoke to him. Lu- previous studies had indicated— only one "What?" cifer has no protection against the add. Then and one half to two grams per day. "We may "take me with you" what has Lucifer become? And what must I jus! be squeezing by on copper," says Cer- "Why?" become to live? klewski. "Other diets— hospital diets, for ex- "there is a new one more powerlul than ample—often provide even less." Further- this thing" "I afraid." am more, people who lack a balanced diet from The rock on the right. He didn't know how, "goo'—you want us to have faith in you— the four major food groups may also be cop- but he knew that was the one that was talk- nave faith in us—become as lucifer" per-deficient. If they're taking vitamin C ing to him. Have I slowed down that much, megadoses on top of that, says Cerklewski. he wondered, or have the rocks finally got- There was not enough tissue left to force they could be asking for trouble. it ten info high gear? Or have I lost my mind? air through vocal cords that no longer ex- "This is admittedly pure speculation," he "god bring me"- isted. His thought his was response. Very says. "We. cannot say that people will have "Why?" well. I will become as Lucifer. copper deficiency if they take two to three "I can help you" He stood, his height above the crest of the grams of vitamin C each day. But it is con- "Help me to do what?" hills, his reach wider than the plain beneath ceivable they could be pushing themselves "i can help you to fight lucifer" his feet. Beyond the hills a massive head toward the edge." So Forrest is calling himself Lucifer. Tobias leered back at him. The face rot, was cor- The real question, claims Cerklewski, is leaned against the mule and looked toward ruption, evil. one of risks versus benefits. Vitamin C is im- the hills. nodded. He "Sure: You can come." "You are if hissed. God," portant, but people may reach the level And he saw the rock move. "Lucifer." where megadose damage outweighs any It seemed to flow across the red dust. A A glow invaded the engineer's heart. He possible benefits. balloon filled with water. Light and dark. reached out fiis great arms and wrapped Not everyone agrees with Cerklewski. Rapidly shifting shadows. Time. Again light, his fingers around. the monster's throat. Among the skeptics is Pauling, the man who then dark, light. The rock was now next to started the C fad. "Pauling called me after the mule. When they came to investigate the weak, our report came out," Cerklewski says. "He He watched Mantchee streak across the garbled signal from the Oids Belt, they told me he's been taking ten grams of as- sky, leaving him not in day or night but in quickly located the beacon. It was from a corbic acid every day for twenty years, and half-light. That fast, he wondered, or have I type of commercial cargo ship that hadn't he doesn't suffer from copper deficiency; so become that slow. been in use for.overa century. Of the ship, that proves I'm wrong."

'Am I seeing this as you see it?" passengers, and crew, the only trace re- Pauling's testimony is intriguing, says "i do not know how god sees" maining was a curious statue of two naked Cerkiewski, but a number of animal tests Tobias pulled himseli into the drivers seat. human in men, mortal combat, standing confirm the work he and Finley have con- The brace he had grabbed came away in upon the five bodies of other humans, the ducted in human trials. his hand. The metal of the mule was pitted.- sculpture surrounded by a wall ol red ma- 'And besides," Cerkiewski says with a corroded, like lace. The supplies, the soft sonry. The local life form informed them that laugh, "Pauling also told me he takes cop- suit, the water containers— all dust. - the statue was titled "Equilibrium. "DO per supplements each day. "DO 128 OMNI formance of lOITELLIEEfUCE one player apart from his team, cantly, of the 88 players who were eligible then integrating it into another team. This is for arbitration after the 1983 season, only particularly useful in gauging the effects of seven chose to go before the judge. Mann's "to evaluate its cost-effectiveness." In the a possible trade. How might the Mets have calculus is so accurate, so fair, that soon it meantime they collect stats by hand. in fared 1984 if Ihey had kept Tom Seaver? will have all but eliminated arbitration. The clubs use a variety of machines. The Based on Seavers performance and that of Computer analysis is also bound to help Mets use an IBM PC-XT; the Yankees use this year's Mets, the general manager can managers rewrite portions of "the book, " the two Apple lie's, one that travels with the club pretty get a good idea of the effect Seaver unwritten list of plays' that seem to work mos! and one lor scouting; Ihe Braves have five would have had. of the time — the percentage plays. In the Televideo and 803s, for 802s two the office, Computer analysis is sure to affect con- book The Hidden Game ol Baseball, Pete one with the club, one in the minors, and one tract arbitration, a process by which a play- Palmer joined with writer John Thorn to ex- with the scouts. er's salary is decided by an impartial judge. amine several of baseball's axioms. They The computer has room to store and ma- In the last few years, since arbitration has used a computer to analyze all the proba- nipulate bits of data from thousands of at become an accepted part of baseball, the bilities thai each of these plays would pro- bats, pitch by pitch; every player in the yearly inflation rate for players' salaries has duce runs in each of the 24 possible situa- league is represented on the disk. When a been 27 percent, mostly because a player's tions (zero through three men on base, with manager wants know to how a particular value to a team has been a subjective judg- zero, one, or two outs). The probabilities were player is doing against a certain pitcher, how ment. Unless a player's stats were wildly out based on a computer simulation of all games hard he is hitting the ball, or what pitches of line with he the rest ol his league, there was played between 1900 and 1977, and their is hitting best, the manager enters the bat- no way to prove conclusively that he was conclusions were based on real outcomes ter's I.D. number. The screen displays a either much better or much worse than any from 1961 to 1977. Among their findings: graphic representation of field. a Each ball other player. Mann has used computer anal- A bunt gives up one third of your inning hit by the player is represented by a line ysis to change all that. He has been working and isn't guaranteed to work, even with an showing how far the ball went and whether with Tal Smith, formerly the general manager excellent bunter and a fast baserunner. In it was a safe For hit, each line, the screen of the Houston Astros, consulting with the almost every case, even a successful bunt also prints out the inning, score, the ball-and- club owners before and during arbitration decreases the probability of a win. strike count, whether the pitcher is right- or hearings. By analyzing performance statis- •The stolen base is highly overrated. Unless left-handed, and the type of pitch (fastball, tics and correlating them with players' sala- the thief is successful 75 percent of the time, curveball, and so on) that was hit. These ries years ot and major-league service, Mann he is costing you more runs than he is sav- numbers are studied between games to help has created what he calls a calculus of ing you. One factor in the rise of the Mets in formulate strategy in different ballparks, baseball salaries. The formula fills a single 1984 is Johnson's use of the computer to de- make lineups, and evaluate players' prog- page, with one four-color diagram. In the cide when to steal. He raised the club's suc- ress during the season. three years they have worked with the clubs. cess rate in stealing to 80 percent by ana- Computers can also project performance 'Mann and Smith have won 18 and lost only lyzing what the bali-and-strike counts are over a simulated season, isolating the per- arbitrators' 10 decisions. But more signifi- when most pitchers throw curveballs (it's easier to steal a base when the pitcher throws a curveball than when he throws a fastball). Johnson then has his players steal only on those counts. • Home runs are more important than good defense. Power hitters win more games be- cause they score more runs. Homers score runs, often multiple runs, automatically. Ten outstanding defensive plays won't win a

game if you don't score any runs. • The intentional walk does indeed reduce

the run-scoring potential of the opponent in th'& inning (especially in the National League, where the walk is often used to force the

pitcher to bat). But the decrease is more than offset in !he next inning by the increase caused by the opponent's starting an inning with their leadoff hitter. The traditional attitudes toward these plays are left over from lower-scoring eras, when teams had to scratch for every run. These plays haven't been effective (according to

the real percentages) in 60 years.

The cost of computerization is relatively

low. Mann can provide a club with all the programs and training necessary for under $50,000; he'll throw in the hardware for an- other $40,000. Computers alone can't turn a losing club into a pennant winner. But they

can digest a lot of information and present it in new ways so that managers can use the talent on their clubs more effectively. For a pretty small price, computers will give a team a real edge. As Davey Johnson says, "A manager, not relying solely on what the com-

puter says bul using it as an advantage over the other manager, can definitely win. "DO rr

© ART CUMINGS

I need to get away a How about an TsJand vacation"? p ,^ IRJTERWIEIAJ

Omni: It also guarantees thai nobody comes in and fudges the data.

Cabrera: That's right. It gives you so much information. It's nice to correlate certain noises with people being around. It's not specifically intended as a security guard, but it turns out to be a valuable piece of infor- mation. This final line is a cosmic-ray shower detector—three little scintillators [devices for measuring radioactive emissions] sitting in an equilateral triangle underneath this floor.

If all three of them trigger during the same time window, it means there's been an ergetic primary cosmic-ray shower in the upper atmosphere that's hit all of them. But what we want for a monopole signal is something that looks absolutely sharp, down to our ten-millisecond resolution. It's hard for disturbances in the device to mimic such sharp, fast signals.

So that's where we are now. It's been run- I ning for six months. The computer system is very nice, built by one of these people who dreams and breathes computers. It sits there and takes one thousand data points per second all day and all night. Omni: How does your monopole detector differ from earlier monopole traps? Cabrera: Ours was the first specifically de-_ signed to detect the superheavy monopoles that grand unification predicts. Earlier re- searchers had looked for a much lighter par- ticle. Until grand unification came on the scene, people thought that the monopole would be much lighter— possibly ten or a hundred times the proton's mass. Particles somewhat heavier than the proton can be detected by conventional methods. For ex- ample, you can accelerate them in a mag- netic field up to near-light speed and then check for the powerful ionization trails that they will leave in a bubble chamber. A mag- netic particle moving that fast will really stand out. You would also look tor such particles in cosmic-ray showers. But GUT monopoles are a different kettle of fish. These monsters are much too heavy to be accelerated to near-light speed either by earthbound ac- celerators or, for that matter, by any pres- ently occurring natural process. You expect them to be moving very slowly by the stan- dards of particle physics —at velocities a thousandth or a ten thousandth of the speed "' of light. At these velocities, monopoles

Cabrera: In 1974. Working independently of. each other. Gerald t'Hooft, of the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, and Alex- ander M. Pplykov, of the Landau Institute of Physics, near Moscow, showed that unifi- cation theories predict the existence of monopoles. Later in the decade, their math- ematical proof was applied to GUT and pre- dicted Ihe existence of superheavy mono- poles trillions of times more massive than assumed in previous searches. Omni: So on Saint Valentine's Day some- thing passed through your detector that had all the characteristics of one of these GUT

monopoles. Do yoa believe that it was a magnetic monopole? Cabrera: The reading was precisely what one would expect to get from a monopole pass- ing though the niobium loop. Unfortunately,

our device was too simple to let us definitely rule out the possibility that something else caused the event. That's why we have re- peatedly emphasized that we do not have enough evidence on the event to say that the signal was a monopole. This new detec- thundering roar of The not satisfied. tor is designed in a way that will let us un- Porsche's 250 hp engine told you Now you can ambiguously determine the cause of any fu- was a Mercedes SSK. The fastest sports of the world's finest one ture monopolelike event. car of its time. This highly detailed 1/18 classics on your desk tor the price of Omni: Would existing estimates of mono- scale replica is authentic right down to a tank of gas. pole abundances lead you to expect to de- Its knock-off hubs and soft rubber tires. tect more than one Functional steering system actually turns jomnumB monopole with your de- wheels. Includes two removable spare vices in three years? tires in case of flat. Remove the adjust- Cabrera; There's a lot of leeway in those es- toll free lines. Order # MS28 for the able hood strap, open the hinged timates, but the Saint Valentine's Day event 1928 Mercedes SSK. Or send a check I hood, and observe the highly detailed is consistent with postulated for S29 plus 3.50 del. (Order two for 1 numbers by 7 liter, dual carburetor engine. S49 plus 4.50 del.) , relevant models that involve grand-unifica- Comes completely assembled. Die- tion-theory superheavy monopoles rather cast metal body will lost a lifetime. 800 443-0100 SS it than any lighter monopole. Hand assembled in Italy. Beautiful brown, Omni: Suppose thai the Valentine's Day event two-tone enamel finish. Weighs 14 ozs. H" long. One year warranty. is confirmed and it turns out that a small but Comes with our 30-day home trial, steady stream of monopoles wanders with a prompt and courteous refund if jr catalog of unique through the earth's neighborhood every year. products. § Might you then try to use monopoles as ex- perimental tools for studying regions of high- SAVE BIG ON COMPUTER PRODUCTS energy physics presently unapproachable SAVE 31%-43% HEWLETT-PACKARD with our largest machines? Cabrera; Celainly. oecajsc the payoff would PRINTERS be enormous. The energy unleashed in the EPSON •OK1DATA •DIABLO collision between monopoles of opposite SCM • Dfc LTA GEMINI • TTX NOVATION RADIX'CQMPUTE-MATE magnetic polarity [a north and a south MANNESMANN TALLY monopole] would be trillions of times higher than what we can produce in our biggest present-day accelerators. You could do high- energy physics at energies that we now can't

begin to dream of reaching. If it proves fea-

sible, it would make sense to spend the big money presently devoted to building and running accelerators to constructing a ma- CALL FOR PRICES chine that detects monopoles. attempts to collide them with one another, and then ob- serves the results of these incredibly ener- getic collisions. QUAOflAM HAND HELD COMPUTERS Omni: Wouldn't a monopole microscope also DISKETTES enable scientists to " study subatomic reac- dd "stib's.—s tions occurring over distances that are fan- tastically smaller than any presently ame- nable to investigation? Cabrera; Yes. There's a direct relation be- tween the distance that you can resolve in an experiment and the energy you must pro- duce. The smaller the distance, the higher the energy. The most powerful existing par- ticle accelerators can study subatomic in- teractions occurring over distances as small as 10"'5 meters. Monopole destruction would -33 let us probe all the way down io about 10 meters. That's only about a thousand times ELEK-TEK.ii greater than the so-called Planck length, I where all our notions of ordinary space and time break down. The presenl opinion is that have something convincing in hand, I won't of one hundred billionth o' a gauss. It's con- the ultimate unification of the four forces of spend years thinking about what might be ceivable that magnetic objects, such as nature —electromagnetism, gravitation, the the case. submarines, could be detected using such strong force, and the weak force —de- Omni: Can you conceive of any military ap- a system. mands a much deeper understanding of plications of your work? Omni: Do you have any moral qualms about phenomena at this level. Cabrera: There would certainly be an enor- doing weapons research? Omni: A handful of eminent physicists. David mous amount of energy unleashed by an- Cabrera: You have to follow your scientific

Bohm among them, believe that present-day nihilating two monopoles. The process re- conscience. Personally, I wouldn't feel par- quantum theory will ultimately be replaced leases about a megawatt—as much energy ticularly comfortable working in some of the by a radically new picture of subatomic real- as a large electric power plant produces in highly classified areas in weapons research

ity when physicists are able to study these a second. But it's incredibly unlikely that being conducted around the country. But I interactions at such close distances. Do you monopoles will be discovered in sufficient also think that it's impossible to determine share Bohm's dissatisfaction with present- numbers to even raise this possibility. More- whether or not the work you're doing is even- day quantum physics? over, you have to understand that the mono- tually going to have harmful applications. In

Cabrera: I won't pretend to be a theorist, but pole's extraordinary mass means that it will general, technology has definitely done far it's, not at all inconceivable that something be almost impossible to stop or capture. It more good than harm. I'm optimistic, but the

will eventually replace quantum mechanics. would take a magnetic field a million times arms race scares the daylights out of me. I For example, there may be more elegant as strong as the earth's, and extending as can't understand the mentality of leaders who ways to handle certain types of phenomena far out into space as the earth's, to stop even believe that it's necessary to have the ca- that present-day quantum theory handles in a slowly moving monopole. [The earth's pability of annihilating mankind ten times a cumbersome way. New theories will prob- magnetic field is one gauss: the tiny but in- over, rather than once. There doesn't seem ably arise in response to what we learn by tense magnetic field of a child's toy magnet to be a good understanding ot the destruc- studying subatomic phenomena at dis- is about one hundred gauss; a large electro- tive power of our arsenals. Unless things tances and energies presently. beyond our magnet used to move scrap metal is about change radically in the next fifteen or twenty reach. Certain applications of present-day one thousand gauss; the most powerful man- years, some sort of accident seems inevi- quantum theory, however, are very precise made magnets used in research have a table. Take, for example, proposals to launch and correct. In some cases the theory's pre- strength of one hundred thousand to two our missiles as soon as our computers re- dictions have been confirmed to eight or nine hundred thousand gauss.] port that the other side has launched theirs. decimal places— pretty impressive, to say Omni: Might your SQUID have any military It's absolutely crazy to rely on computers. the least. More generally, I would say that the Failures can mimic a Russian surprise at- grand-uniticaiion approach may well lead to Cabrera: A SQL! D is oas ca / a magnetom- tack. It's impossible to make a nuclear-power some new understanding of quantum me- eter. And this particular SQUID is probably plant that's one hundred percent accident chanics, but I must caution that in physics, the most sensitive DC magnetometer that's proof, and it's equally impossible to make a you take things one step at a time. Until we" been operated: We can detect field changes completely foolproof launch-on-warning

"BLUE MOON" by David Archer, or send check to: SPECIAL OMNI OFFER 5275.00 SWANSONART GALLERIES, LTD. Francisco, 94109, / 885-4896 USE YOUR VISA OR MASTER CARD r^j 799 Beach St., San CA 415 —

system. The nuclear buildup is just a disas- your decisions about what lines of investi- These previous Nobel Prize-winners, whom ter waiting to happen. gation to pursue in your research. In this I respect immensely, cautioned me to exer- Omni: How have you with coped the knowl- special but very meaningful sense you must cise restraint. They received much notoriety edge that if your sighting is confirmed, you make a scientific leap of 'faith. from their achievements in physics; so they will almost certainly receive a Nobel Prize? Omni: Doesn't it sometimes seem ironic to probably had good reason to urge caution. Cabrera: It's hard to actually think about the owe your to sighting fame a that will remain But I have no particular regrets about hav- prize or it real. make a question mark as massive as a monopole ing discussed those results [the Valentine's

Omni: What' motivates you to do physics? until it receives ironclad confirmation? an Day event], I think ft is very important in sci- Cabrera: Both my father and grandfather Cabrera: Fame or infamy—one or the other! ence to put things on the table—to discuss were physicists. I was'raised in a home en- But seriously, aspects of the experience have your experiments as openly as possible, vironment where science was imbued with been highly enjoyable. I've had the oppor- Omni: I see that you've pinned a valentine, an air of excitement and fulfillment. As very a tunity to talk with eminent specialists in all from some admirers at Harvard, on one of young child, I would sometimes watch my fields of physics. The most compelling as- your office walls. It reads roses are red, vi- father working on his physics and experi- pect of the monopole story is that it involves olets ARE BLUE. THE TIME HAS COME FOP ments, and I can remember thinking that he almost every major avenue of physics, from MONOPOLE TWO. LOVE, HARVARD GAUGE GROUP, was obviously deeply satisfied with what he astrophysics to elementary-particle physics HARVARD UNIVERSITY, LYMAN HALL OF PHYSICS, was doing. His research gave him great and solid-state physics. I've even talked to CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. happiness. And that is really sufticient. Win- people here in Silicon Valley who have Cabrera: That arrived a year ago last Val- ning the Mobel Prize is not what drives thought me about using magnetic bubble mem- entine's Day. I've certainly felt some frustra- to do physics. I think that the occupation of ories, designed for computers, as mono- tion. The event looked very good, and I cer- physics, or work in any scientific field, fulfills pole detectors. In fact, whenever a disk tainly felt pretty strong about it from very early the same human needs as religion. Like in most crashes I these parts, get blamed for it on. But to a large extent, the excitement of scientists, I believe that there is something just another monopole barreling down El confirming that first event has offset the frus- fundamentally important, real, and true about Camino Real. tration. What's essentially kept me sane is doing science. Omni: Has the fact that all this fame hit you building the new detector, plus working with Omni: physics is in your So some ways sec- while you were still quite young made any a talented group of graduate students and ular religion. difference? Has this instant notoriety led to a postdoctoral fellow. That's gone quite well. Cabrera: Physics does in fact have its any resentment or other problems, with se- I think that science boils down to asking an priests the advocates of the various theo- — nior researchers, for example? interesting question, getting preliminary re- ries that happen to be at the popular I mo- Cabrera: Well, actually had an extremely sults, and then pushing forward with far more ment. Moreover, there comes in a point one's positive reaction from the people in the de- elaborate tests designed to provide a defin- work where you can no longer calculate partment. During the first weeks after the itive answer. So far we haven't found a cor- everything as well as you would like to be- event, the most cautious were Felix Bloch roborating event, but we're not going to stop lieve point where —a imponderables affect (who recently died) and Bob Hofstadter. just quite yet. DO —

home is at the limil ol today's technology. Texas Instruments SPACE PHONES Scientists can certainly create a neutrino beam. If need be, they could also pulse it to SUE 3FBOMPAQI send messages in a Morse-like code. The

S™ idea whether anyone actually received it. signal would pass easily through the center Like Drake's work and the Cornell study of the galaxy, unaffected by the dust clouds,

betore it, most research into interstellar com- nebulae, stars, and planets it met on the way. munication has focused on microwaves and The transmitter would be expensive, but othertypesof electromagnetic radiation, but the prototype of any device is expensive. The subatomic particles could also carry signals neutrino radio could well be built early in the

through space. At first, any particles other next century, il not sooner, making it a strong than tachyons look like a poor bet. Most par- candidate for interstellar communications.

ticles have mass; it HP-71B "399 so takes a lot of energy When it comes to talking to the stars, the to hurl them away from this planet, and they hardest part will it EXPANDABLE COMPUTER not be technology: may can never travel at the speed of light. But not even be time. It's an advantage that E.T. f BASIC Language A-vsrced Math what about particles without a rest mass had and we do not: He spoke the language. • 17.5K RAM particles that travel at the speed of light and If you think that any civilization advanced E/L-ar-'dijble to 33.5K RAM £-4< RDM can effortlessly pass through an entire planet enough to receive our messages must also or other large mass? be bright enough to translate them, consider

They are called neutrinos. Physicist Wolf- the Voyager probes. Voyager 1 and 2 each gang Pauli predicted their existence in the carry a phonograph record of greetings in early Thirties; they were needed, he said, to 50 languages. There are also messages from preserve the law of conservation of energy President Jimmy Carter and United Nations in subatomic processes. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim; sounds Researchers immediately began looking of rain, people, cars, and so forth; 90 min- tor them. Although not everyone agreed that utes of musical excerpts; and 116 pictures.

such odd particles existed, even the skep- Even if extraterrestrials figure out how to de- tics were fascinated by the possibility that code what we've sent them, they are likely

they might. According to Pauli, the neutrino to find it incomprehensible. has no rest mass—some physicists now be- Here on Earth, work to detect and decode

lieve it may have a very tiny one—and it has interstellar transmissions began with Frank no charge. All that is lett is a spin and the Drake's Project Ozma, fn 1960. In that first

energy of its motion. organized search for extraterrestrial intelli- " Most important, though, is that ordinary gence, Drake used the 85-foot radio tele-

matter hardly affects it. Compare it with a scope at Green Bank, West Virginia. For 200 neutron, for example. On average, a neutron hours over three months, he listened to the will travel through only a foot or so of water 21-centimeter transmissions from the re- before being stopped by an atom of hydro- gions around two stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Science Teaches that gen or oxygen. A typical neutrino would pass Eridani, both about 11 light-years away. He ENERGY is 0/Vf/V/-Present through 3,600 light-years of water. It would found nothing. penetrate a full light-year through solid lead. The search has continued intermittently Theology Teaches that Physicists finally managed to detect the ever since. Today it is being carried on by GOD is O/WM-Present neutrino in 1953, but even today the particle Project Sentinel, directed by Paul Horowitz. remains little more than an enigmatic move- An effort of the Planetary Society {assisted ment. Physicists can map neutrinos University), the project CONCEPT-THERAPY* by by Harvard is using charting the movement of particles in a bub- a radio telescope a- Oak Ridce Observatory

CORRELATES ble chamber. If a reaction has taken place to scan the sky. A signal analyzer, custom- THESE TRUTHS in which a particle is clearly missing, it's a made to identify artificial signals, studies a good bet it's a neutrino. Recently physicists band of 130,000 separate wavelengths cen- have come to believe that there is not just tered on the 21-centimeter hydrogen line.

one kind of neutrino but three. No one is sure, Eventually, it will be replaced by one that Ho-

but il seems that one form of neutrino can rowitz says will be able to scan 8.4 million turn into another. And neutrinos may have wavelengths. The search will continue for some mass after all— about 55 billionths that years—or until a message is heard. Ironi- of a proton or neutron. Again, it's not certain. cally,' it's just possible that other intelligences Yet the idea ol neutrino-based telephones are already bathing the earth with tachyon is already being iaken seriously. Since radio transmissions, waiting for us to decode them. waves are strongly absorbed by water, the Once we've developed the technology to Defense Department would like to use neu- capture and translate these signals, we may THOSE GOVERNING THE trinos to talk with submarines. And a group find an interstellar news network offering us UNIVERSE AND headed by Robert Wilson, founding director the wisdom of the stars. THE PERSONALITY of the giant FermiLab particle-physics re- For Ihe present, SETI research— the search center, in Batavia, Illinois, has an even search for extraterrestrial intelligence—is a For FREE Information more daring scheme. They suggest that small effort. According to one estimate, CALL TOLL FREE the neutrino beams produced by a particle ac- total funding for SETI research to date has 1-800-531-5628 celerator could be aimed straight through the been less than the cost of one military attack Or Write: earth, giving an X-ray look at the planet's in- helicopter. Most of the significant wave- terior. The device, dubbed, the Geotron, lengths and regions Concept-Therapy® Institute of the sky remain un- could look both at the planet's molten core studied. Drake concludes: "The searches to 0-9 and nearer the surface, where it could well date have been like trying to find a needle 25550 Boerne Stage Road find oil, gas, and minerals. in a haystack by walking past the haystack San Antonio, TX 78255 Using neutrino transmitters to help E.T. call now and then. "DO "

sexual preferences), and the simple geo- TOOTH FAIRY metric shapes that, if copied incorrectly, would pick up any sign of brain damage. CONTINUED FROM P* Living Everything I needed to prove her sane. But on the aching, bul it seemed like a good idea I knew now that she would have tested out

I it I I to follow them home. And 1 was right. A kosher. knew as surely as knew would the razor's tooth was waiting for me under the pillow. never see her again, never be able to tell into It was a weird shape, but I was desperate, her how her slightest look turned me and it slipped in as if the roots had been a bowl of Spaghettios. edge? I silent hand-carved for my mouth. I left a pep- was saying a good-bye when they

permint Life Saver. It was all I had." brought her in. There we're two purple She had drifted to a slow stop. She was bruises on the side of her neck. Her eyes tost in that moment, before things turned were dead, as if somebody had snuffed bad on her. out the lights in her brain.

• "What happened then, Sally?" "Give us a room," I told one of the guards. sit She frowned. "I'm not sure. I stayed in "A whole room with something sofl to on that house for a while. There were toys, and no bars, grates, or tennis nets I want hard things, soft things, a book on the cof- nothing between us."

it; fee table. I got down on my hands and We got she didn't look capable of much

knees. I remember chewing on the leg of dangerous activity. I led her through a the table, knocking down the book, grab- doorway, my arm around her shoulders, bing the binding between my jaws and and helped her to put one' foot in Iront of gnawing on it, the taste of the glue, the the other. I sat her down in an upholstered

chewinessof the glue. I was growling. Oh, vinyl chair with half its insides on the out-

side. I stool, it in front God, 1 was growling." She paused long grabbed a plunked enough to regain control. "I heard foot- of her, and sat. Her knees pressed against

it steps and ran to the window. I flew out, flew my shin. I took her hand and squeezed until I was exhausted. Finally I landed on in both of mine. the roof of Bachman's department store." "What happened? Tell me." 'And that's where they found you." Her lips barely moved. "I needed to

chew. I the chair legs, Are you "In the slippers, tearing them up, drool- So chewed on steel— ing all over them." She looked at me sul- the corners of the bunk. It tasted cold and lenly, challenging me to feel sympathy for. 'hard, and it hurt, but I couldn't stop. I ready for her now. chewed so hard that I lost my newest tooth.

"Are you having any strange ideas along It hadn't had time to set, and it fell righl out. with the chewing behavior, Sally?" Then I didn't have to chew anymore. But I

. Thursday "Chewing behavior?" she mocked. "No. needed another implant. That aching no strange ideas," But she said it too again. I had to get out, and I got out. That's quickly and didn't look at me. all. That's all." 11 I "ny briefcase October "The truth." rememberec and the tests

"I don't remember. This morning they put it held. To hell with it, I decided. me in a room that's all steel, with nothing "Then what?"

fading again; she losing it. all on. I just to get out of was was 1984? at to chew have She

this place. Please." I squeezed her fingers. "Then what. Sally?" it's the debut of ESPIONAGE— the I waited for her to go on, playing the She looked at me with those dead eyes. first digest magazine devoted entirely I professional when what I really wanted to "It was just getting dark. was flying over do was smuggle her out under my coat. an old house, a very old house. There was to the oft-laudable, oft-despicable netherworld of spies.. .secret agents... "Okay," she said. "Here's a strange idea something about it." She looked away, moles.. .cover-ups.. .secret codes.. .the for you, and it comes with its own behavior. "What was in the house?" and conduct and mis- took breath, with little men women who I keep imagining myself licking your face." She a deep a conduct the top-secret world of She glared at me. She really hated me then, choking sound at the end of it. government spy wars. They, and more, blamed me for forcing her into saying this "A tiny coffin. I stood near it and watched are all in ESPIONAGE MAGAZINE, out loud: "I would very much like to climb it until it was very dark outside, and the lid 16^1 pages, six times a year. into your lap and lick your face." started to open, and I saw the white face Check your local newsstand beginning A guard announced that our time was of a little boy. The color came to his cheeks October 11, 1984, and be sure you get up. Sally slumped into her chair and closed very slowly, and then he looked like any the premiere issue of ESPIONAGE her eyes. I promised I'd see her tomorrow, other little boy. When he saw me he laughed same time, with a battery of psychological and reached under his satin pillow and held (a collector's iteml). Inspect the unexpected,..To gel a sub- tests. I'd get her out, I told her. out a pointy tooth. He held it out to me in scription to Ibis primarily fiction, Frank beat me 6-1, 6-2, 6-1. And to tell the palm of his hand. I said, 'I have nothing lavishly illustrated, brand-new spy mag- the truth, I didn't even care. to give you,' and he said, 'Yes you do.' She was finished. She wasn't afraid to azine, send $11.70 (a savings of $1.50 off newsstand price), in check or But she didn't keep the date. When I got look at" me now, and her eyes were alive. money order (in U.S. funds), made to "receiving" they told me she'd flown the "You don't want to lick my face anymore, payable to LEO 11 PUBLICATIONS, LTD., coop, managed to find a window that was do you, Sally?" and send lo SUBSCRIPTION open at !he top, above the steel bars. They "No, Licking seems like a century ago," DEPARTMENT. ESPIONAGE MAGAZINE, showed me the fragment of wing that had she said, smiling. PO. Box 8974, Wilmington, DE 19899. I caught on the edge of the rusty frame. I saw the tooth. Canadian subscriptions add $2.00 only cry at movies. I thought about getting involved with a and foreign subscriptions I living for- I picked up the briefcase with the Ror- vampire. Then thought about add $3.00. schach cards, TAT cards, the Draw-A-Per- ever. With Sally. I loosened my tie.

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"There's a pro- That leads me to the ultimate question. always the same: Far fewer are falling to Earth found mismatch between the way the hu- With all these young Turks churning out their than theory predicts. "In other words," Bah- man mind works and the way quantum me- best work at a frantic pace, is there another call says, "the usual textbook account of why chanics works," Banks says. "If quantum Einstein in the wings? the siars shine may be wrong." mechanics is right— really basically and I ask around. People know what I mean. Bahcall and colleagues have leapt into the fundamentally right and that's the end of fhe "You'd better see Stephen Wolfram," as- theoretical void with an idea for a new ex- story—then people may never truly com- tronomer Linda Sparke says. periment. Perchloroethylene, he explains, prehend the universe. If they could, they A particle physicist says, "I don't know if absorbs only high- energy neutrinos, the kind wouldn't be able to function in the real world, he's another Einstein, but Wolfram's like five produced by the secondary reactions. But because the real world, on a gross scale, smart people."

anofher substance, gallium, can detect doesn'f behave quantum mechanically. If I Putting the matter as politely as he can, lower-energy neutrinos generated by fhe in- had to think of the quantum-mechanical Bahcall tells me, "I'm not sure that you and itial fusing of two protons, the primary reac- meaning of what happens when I pick up a Stephen Wolfram will be well matched. He's iion taking place within the sun. pencil, I'd never be able to do it." really very technical."

If gallium ends up absorbing the pre- Banks is not saying that we don't under- So I go to see Wolfram dicted number of particles, it would mean stand quantum mechanics as atheory. "We The whiz kid's whiz kid, Stephen Wolfram that current measuring techniques can de- understand the theory, and we understand is twenty-four, the same age Einstein was in tect neutrinos from the sun. One could then the rules," Banks says. "But 1 don't believe 1905, the "miracle year" during which he conclude that scientists conducting the we really understand what those rules mean. wrote his epochal papers on Brownian mo- perchloroethylene experiment had not en- It's like learning the rules for some video tion, light, and special relativity. Shorf and countered measuring problems—and that game where what happens on the screen unprepossessing, except for a wild tangle of their experiment reflects the actual condi- hair, Wolfram is too modest to speak of his tions in the sun. own accomplishments. It was someone else, In thai instance, Bahcall explains, we'd be not he, who told me about his MacArthur fel- forced to revise current theories about the lowship, [he no-strings-attached grant for a sun's secondary reactions. "We'd have to go hefty sum of money and five years to pursue '•The dress is back to the drawing board and come up with the project of his choice. new ideas." casual: flannel shirts, sweaters, "I'm essentially a physicist," Wolfram says That's okay, of course, because at the in- in his British accent, "a theoretical physicist lots of khaki pants stitute, coming up with ideas is the business by trade. It so happens that I started doing corduroys. at hand. And if Bahcall sets the pace, most and They might look theoretical physics rather early. I guess I

aren't behind. wrote couple of papers while I was still in of his younger proteges far like a bunch of a One young scientist in the tried-and-true high school."

. grad students, but every one is clean-hands IAS tradition is particle physi- I ask how old he was when his first paper cist Tom Banks. Born and raised in Brook- a Ph.D. They was published. lyn, New York, Banks is a ringer for the late "Fifteen," he says, embarrassed. "Buf it are the institute astrophysicists.^ actor/comedian Andy Kaufman. wasn't very interesting. It's about elemen-

From Reed College, in Oregon, Banks tary-particle physics. I think it's really lousy.

went on to that great shrine tor American I don't even have a copy of it anymore." physicists, MIT, and then to Stanford Univer- How about his nexf article? "Oh, that was sity's Linear Accelerator Center, where he written much later," he says, "when I was did work in gravity theory. His specialty is isn't what happens in the real world: You have sixteen. Still, it's not very exciting." He rum- quantum gravity, but he steps aside now and video-game rocket ships staying intact when mages around in some boxes looking for a then to wonder whether quantum theory, with they crash, and you can learn the rules and copy. Finally he comes up with one and all its weirdness, really makes any sense. play the game so that you win. But you could hands it to me. Published in Nuclear Physics

Quantum mechanics describes the laws never apply those rules to your experience in 1976, it's titled "Neutral Weak Interactions of the subatomic world, positing a universe of the real world," in Particle Decays."

that is both baffling and bizarre. While con- Though the human mind can'! fathom the I wonder what it must have been like ventional Newtonian physics states that the world's deep structure, Banks adds, math- growing up in Britain and writing papers on processes of the universe are precisely cal- ematics can capture its essence at the fin- particle physics instead of playing cricket. "I

it culable, quantum mechanics says events are est, deepest level of phenomena. Why is don't think I was that weird a kid," he says, unpredictable from one moment to the next. that math, a discipline invented for measur- laughing. "And I did play cricket, although I

Some implications of the theory: Particles ing stones, has relevance to the complex way was never very good at it In fact, I learned move from here to there without going the world Works? Why does mathematics the best positions on the field so that I could through the space in between; they travel in capture what the human intellect cannot? read a book during the match." a seemingly random manner, whizzing by Banks is af a loss. "I don't know," he says, "You're not serious."

I faster than the speed of light; and like the "and don't think this is a problem that will "Sure. I nadto play cricket," Wolfram says. proverbial tree in the forest, they exist only be solved easily." "I wouldn't have played it by choice." when observed. Banks is the quiniesseniial IAS scienfist, "What kind of books were you reading at

Einstein was one of the last physicists to thinking at the highest levels about theory the time?" I ask him.

rail against this uncertainty. He argued. that and the world it's supposed to mirror. "Whatever I was interested in. I tended to

quantum mechanics was merely an approx- Whereas other institute theorists lend to have be interested in physics; so mostly I read imation and that if science delved a little computers in their offices, Banks doesn't. He books on physics."

deeper, it would find other variables that doesn't even have a typewriter. Why, I ask him, was he into physics at such would enable man to describe the universe "My primary work is done just sitting and an early age?

exactly. Most physicists said Einstein was thinking," he says. "If I have an idea and I "Well, it wasn't all thai early," he says. "I wrong. The great man had become too en- think it's going someplace, I'll start writing didn't really get all that interested in physics

trenched to accept new ideas, they said, and equations on a piece of paper. Then I go until I was about ten or twelve." despite the evidence, he harbored an un- and talk to somebody about it. That's the Wolfram attended Eton and Oxford in Brit- 142 OMNI — — — "

ain, then Caltech in the United States. He plain fhe gene:i<: code "DN.A is a very suc- hated them all. "I had the good fortune never cinct program for how to build a creature," B/=\nnES to have io go to classes or anything like thai, he §ays. "The number of bits it takes to make MK-.'-^K. roaA(v'Eo:r'A;:E '02)

because I learned what 1 needed to know a person's DMA program is about equal to from books. From everything I've seen, the number of bits on the larger disk drives WORD WORDS courses are just a waste of time, and one about the length of a medium-size book. So can learn most things a lot more quickly just clearly, given the complexity of the instruc- 1.Ge by reading aboul them." tions, there's a very clever kind of program- 2. Qh. Calliopes arid truancies can be writ- Despite his dislike of school, though, he ming there. ten on alternaiing lines as; did join Caltech as a faculty member and "Take a seashell, for example. You might CLIPS and TUNIS had soon developed his own computer lan- ask, 'How can DNA possibly contain the ALOE RACE guage "to help me do some calculations in code for such a complicated pattern?' Well, 3. Oc

theoretical physics," he says. "It turned out if the patterns are formed by the kinds of 4. Ma

that the language has pretty wide applica- simple rules I've been showing you, then it's 5. Cg. The examples become "Am I able to

tions in engineering and so on, and, well, I pretty easy to imagine DNA generating all get her." "At len dance," and "Sign if I can't."

guess it's now being sold by a computer sorts of intricate structures." 6. Rp, Sear can lose any one letter to be-

company that I started." And here we have it. The ultimate theory; come- eat, sat, set. or sea.

The computer language, which he named order out of chaos! The expression of mind 7. Jn. MDCIII is 1603, the year of the queen's SMP— Symbolic Manipulation Program over matter, the grandest poetic rendering death. Columbus's voyage was in MCDXCII, can handle algebraic expressions as well as of the world into.alinel or 1492. numbers. Most computer languages can Recently the institute built Wolfram an ex- 8. Tm

manipulate only numbers. "Caltech claimed tension onto Fuld Hall, a room with some ex- 9. If

that it owned the language," Wolfram tells tra space and air conditioning to keep him 10. Sq, The Ye in Ye Olde Gift Shoppe is the me. "They also did a lot of other silly things; and his computer hardware happy. Here you result of a misreading of the runic letter thorn,

so about two years ago 1 quit. That's when I can find him working, often late into the night, which stood for th. So the correct spelling

came here." juggling the phenomena, packing the uni- and pronunciation has been the all the time.

Wolfram is using his time at the institute to verse away into dots, reaching for the im- There is no such word as ye. In the 1944

work on a problem in statistical mechanics. possible, the perfect poetic reduction, the Merriam-Webste' ,'Vew international Diction-

"Essentially it's the problem of how complex eerie mystica : jniicaton. the final triumph of ary of the English Language, the ghost word structures evolve in natural systems," he. clean-hands science. DO dord appeared as an "abbreviation for den-

says, this time without embarrassment. sity." It was a misprint of "D or d." "There are lots of natural systems where you EINSTEIN, 1984 11. Nt. Letters can be inserted into rap to

start with something that is disordered, and Young Albert anstein. legend has it, was form trap, reap. ramp, or rapr. Bet hosts abet in the course of time the thing sort of spon- notoriously slow: He couldn't talk until he was belt, beet, and bets. taneously organizes reel" [Snowflakes are lour,' did poorly in primary school, and even 12. Hb one example; the whirls in a stream, another; tailed his college entrance exam. But the ru- 13. Pu. Barbarian and murmurous both have

the cells of the developing fetus, yet an- mor was jus! I he! New research reveals that the letter pattern 123123425. Googol and

other.] So I decided that what was really the youthful Einstein was brilliant—a verita- peeper are both 122123, and aluminum and needed was to understand the mathemati- ble prodigy »; physics and math and an ac- molecule ate 12345634.

cal basis of all this. And I tried to make up a complished victims; as vicli. 14. Bs simple model to capture what's going on." Einstein, in tact, was deeply moved at the 15. Do. The baby kangaroos are urge, va- Wolfram's model consists of a set of sim- age of four or five when his father gave him cate, eat, rascal, and dead, respectively. ple rules that can be conveniently imple- a compass. Because the needle always 16. Kk mented in a computer program. You begin pointed in the same direction, he reasoned, 17. A]

with an array, or line, of dots, he explains. something in space had to be compelling it; 18. Lr Each dot has a set of possible colors that, therefore space was no; empty. At sixteen, 19. El. The first example is misunderstand- evolve-according io simple rules. The same he produced his first scientific paper about ing (M is under ST and ING). The second rule is then applied over and over "again until the effect of magnetism on ether. And by translates as "Too wise you are, too wise you

a complex, organized structure evolves. age twenty-four, while working as an officer be, I see you are too wise for me.

"I might even be able to show you." Wol- in the Swiss patent office, he'd come up with 20. Ud fram says, turning to one of his three com- his startling theory of relativity, revolutioniz- 21. Fi puter-display screens. ing science and our view of the world. IN THREE WORDS; IM-"'""-POSSIBLE He types something into the keyboard Keeping all this in mind, Omni believes chik, chik, ohik, chik, chunk—and a line of that Einstein's successor—a young scientist ARROW. The commonest false hypothe- dots bubbles up from electronic depths. He whose ideas will alter our view of the uni- sis was 1. Actually, method 3 was used. types something else chik, chik, chik, verse yet again—might be just about any- SCREW. Technique 2 was a popular chik—and the dots start trucking down- where. To prove our point, we've decided to choice, but Caskey used method 1 DO ward, creating patterns as they go. The conduct a talent search for candidates to shapes are complex, even beautiful, like the take over the role of this preeminent Ameri- CREDITS diamond-shaped configurations on a snake's can researcher. We are looking for someone back. "Even though the rules that generate who, like young Einstein, is obviously brilliant these patterns are very simple," Wolfram but still unknown. The winning candidate,

caretully explains to me, "the patterns them- Who can be working anywhere from the pro- J ;;';,, " ; ^*'.'i" .U:.,'.. \v- sac selves are complex." verbial patent office to a garage to a con- 'i", Wolfram says there may be a connection ventional lab, 'must be under twenty-five, and ;' '?. ' -(!i(! ' "V(-r 'AX between these order-generating- mecha- . most .important, he or she must be deeply

1 ;>:,!!-.!! L. nismsand most all computer languages. He inspired with some great idea or theory in Rn .;": ;:;.v;;;'r hopes, in fact, to establish a "deep connec- the works. A story on the most interesting £% :'..::.".;,:-'; tion" between statistical mechanics and ar- nominees will be published in a future issue. ., !

tificial intelligence. Send nominations to Future Einstein, Omni Lambray/Syg i n.-Liif; 112 iT:!i: : |J„ The most mind-stretching possibility, magazine, 1965 Broadway, New York, NY :..;. - .. piigr. 111. Al-' i -io VV i:;i if,;) n'.""' though, is that Wolfram's program may ex- 10023-5965. Deadline: October 1, 1984. 144 OMNI COMING IN THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

'J'j'f ]'l '1 "'U

a EB l:lJggg gj |jg

BHBB.

Twisting chains o( ioi the side of a glass globe, splattering into "" of scintillating color. Plasrr- within this self-contained

Parker's nuclear-fusion i |M5ffi

3 born n this n '"""*" Turner captures r

in nit! wnu ueauty of this new electronic lithog- raphy, forms like those that may well have exist- ed in the first moments of creation. Looking ahead, in our sixth-anniversary issue, Omni predicts a new kind of life in the twenty-first-century place: The computerized bungak PREHISTORIC SEA CREATURE?

No, it's very likely alive and well and living in your eyelashes!

. . It goes by the fancy name of demo- revelations of the 4th dimension . HEF70 dex foiliculorum. It lives in the follicle constructed by a computer. .ii-fiji is SCIENCE 84 of the human eyelash—and nobody 3C 20005 Science You can read it for the knows where it comes from ... or 84. YES, pit even why it's there! drama of breakthroughs in genet- nc ics, in solar power, in physics and Fact is, there are scientific myster- medicine . . . you can read it for the SiH ss ies that surround and confound us H beauty of its photography and illus- every day. And every month, there is tration. Best of all, you and your one magazine that unveils them in a family can enjoy it all—because it's NAME way that makes the whole world of all written to be understood. science come alive. Science 84. ADDRESS Today, that means seeing through Science 84. Find out why more than CITY: STAT the eyes of a satellite the universe 2 million readers every month let that lies beyond our solar system as Science84 openuptheirlivestothe Canadian re id ants add a 1-B00-24 -S47D. much as probing through a micro- wonder of it all. Join them today. Cut scope the myriad worlds that live out the coupon on this page, fill it out c^CIE ^CE can- and send it in to the listed address within us. It's the discovery of a {*A cer created to fight cancer and the (or cail toll free 1-800-247-5470). PHEruonnEruM

IBmKSZSE

-,ders. German photographe ifred Kaqe, who Word words, impossible bottles cracked, and an oxymoronic competition

By Scot Morris

word that can lose any of its letters One consequence of the information explo- 1 7. pangram R. A still remain legitimate word. sion has been a flood of writing about 1 8. portmanteau word and a arising from an writing. The vocabulary of this field has 19. rebus S, An accidental word therefore grown so large that David Grambs, a former 20. retronym editor's or printer's error and copy editor around our offices, has 21. ^transposition nonexistent lexically. Words About Words T The cutting off of the last letter of a recently published DEFINITIONS (McGraw-Hill), a dictionary of words related word to leave a different word. Radio President to the craft of prose. A. A phrase or sentence containing all U. National Public People who play with words (logologists) 26 letters of the alphabet, ideally repeating Frank Mankiewicz's term for a new adjec- for which arises have their own special jargon to describe as tew letters as possible. tive-noun word, the need both the types of words that interest them B. A word that can have either of two because of newer senses of the noun. and the various verbal exercises they directly opposite meanings. EXAMPLES ______Z like to perform. Here is a quiz adapted from C. Dividing a word, without changing the Grambs's book, concentrating on the letter order, into other words that are not a. pirate, wheel, skill, and wheat all give words of logology. semantically related to the original. repeat plays. ambidextrously, and Most of us know the definition of acronym, D. A word carrying within it (without b. postneuralgic, pun, palindrome, and so on. This quiz will transposing any letters) a synonym of itself. dermatoglyphics are good examples. in-bloody-credible. deal with words that are less familiar but E. A visual riddle of letters, words, or c. which way soever, whose meanings can probably be guessed parts of words (sometimes with pictures) d. hardcover book, stage play, natural turf, transmission, and reel-to- in the process of taking our three-part that must be read aloud for the meaning to manual match-up test. For each numbered word be deciphered. reel tape recorder. e. billowy. on the first list, "Word Words," add the f. A new word made by rearranging the almost, charivari, cognoscenti. appropriate capital letter from the second letters in another word. f. nonpareil, quay, in amiable together, attendance, and list, "Definitions, " and the appropriate lower- G. A word whose letters appear alpha- g. significant starting points. case letter from the third list, "Examples." betical order. are good examples For instance, the first word word, abece- H. A word that contains no repeated h. calliopes and truancies are of words that can be written this way. darian, suggests by its spelling something letters. Also called a nonpattern word. — i. —ocean; enumeration to do with alphabetical ordering; so definition I. Mario Pei's term for a word one seldom canoe — crust. G applies. And a glance down the hears spoken and that usually appears mountaineer; pictures pie

j. 'Jackdaws love big sphynx of examples list shows that only choice e, only in print. Hence, a word frequently my {almost, billowy), has samples of words in mispronounced. quartz," or "Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D.. bags which the letters are in alphabetical order. J. A statement whose initial letters can few lynx." Some examples may require you to be deciphered as the Roman numerals for k. living death, deafening silence. The Zeppelin, Quiet Riot. try various kinds of wordplay to see which a specific, appropriate date. Lonely Crowd, Led abalone, ("a verbal exercises work best. K. A combination of two ordinarily incon- I. If 6, for example, is B what are these two examples? WORD WORDS gruous or contradictory terms. alone"), L. A word, that is blended from two other ST ING ; YYURYYUBICURYY4 me words. Also called a centaur word or a M 1 . Ge abecedarian word alternade telescope word. m. scampi, tramps, and brandy work. sandwich word M. Eliminating the initial letter from a n. The death of Queen Elizabeth I; "My is in immortality." " 'Made certain beheadm en t word leaves another word. day closed charade N. A word that becomes a different word discoveries extraordinaire .'1 Columbus

charitable word when one letter is added to it, especially informed Isabella." evacuate, feast, rapscallion, chronogram if the word can accept new word- o. encourage, curtailment forming letters in every possible position. and deceased are examples. eye word O. Inserting a word or phrase into another p. seat. ghost word word. Also-called tmesis. q. ye and dord (abbreviation for density). hospitable word P. One of two or more words that have r. brunch, smog, motel, medevac, the same sequential pattern of letters, gasohol, and Reaganomics. isomorph as indicated by numbers. s. cleave, sanction, and inflammable. Janus word Q. The writing of a word on two alternate t. rap, bet. kangaroo word lines so that the separate lines yield u. barbarian—murmurous; googol— oxymoron different words. peeper, or aluminum—molecule.

152 OMNI . "

compressible wood, such as pine or balsa. "If I've done anything I'm sorry for, I'm He heated one end in steam or boiling willing to be forgiven." water. He squeezed this end of the arrow —Edward N. Westcott

in a vise until it was narrow enough to

pass through the holes, shoved the arrow "The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of through the bottie, then reheated the com- sleep." pressed side to restore the arrow's shape. —W. C. Fields 4. The arrow is laminated from strips of

wood, which are curled over for insertion "There is one difference between a madman

through the holes, then fastened together and me. I am not mad." tor the final product. —Salvador Dali Foshee's arrow through Coke bottle (left) and 5. The glass was blown around the Caskey's screw through dowel (right), arrow, or was cut in half and then resealed "If people don't want to come, no one's after the arrow was in place. stopping them." —SolHurok IN THREE WORDS: IM-""—-POSSIBLE~ SCREW. Of 170 theories sent in to explain

In April the . our column on Museum of how Tom Caskey, ot Decatur, Michigan, "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?" Impossible the we presented several put his impossible screw through the dowel, —song title (Dan Hicks) paradoxical artifacts that seem as if they more than half (98) were essentially couldn't exist, In but do. the May and June correct. Of the following answers, which "If You Won't Leave Me Alone, I'll Find issues, we explained how several of them one best explains how Caskey did it? Someone Else Who Will" were created, but we asked readers to tell 1. He first drilled a hole through the dowel —song title (Delbert and Glen) us how they would re-create two extraordi- that was just big enough to accommodate nary items: a solid wood arrow that passes the screw. He put the screw in the bottle "This sentence no verb." through a Coke bottie—each end of the first and held it in place, on its flat head, —Douglas Hofstadter arrow being too big to pass through the half- against the side ol the bottle, using two- inch holes drilled in the bottle—and a sided tape or (if the screw is steel) a magnet. "Any oxymoron ... is ... the show-off bottle containing a dowel that has a wood Then he inserted the dowel and maneu- among figures of speech." screw passing through it horizontally. Here is vered its hole over the screw. —Helen Vendler, a report on readers' reactions to the items. 2. The screw is in two parts, with a spring The New York Review of Books ARROW was created for us by Gary in the middle. The point and head of the

Foshee (not Bob Foshee, as we misprinted), screw are pressed together to fit through the Our quiz this month on word words has of Issaquah, Washington. Of the 112 bottle's neck, Once inside, they spring called to our attention More on Oxymoron, a readers who submitted theories as to how out to the "impossible" position. new book by Patrick Hughes (Penguin). the feat was done, fewer than half (52) 3. The screw is threaded through the An oxymoron is a self-contradictory state- got it essentially correct. Here are the five hole by using a long string or rubber band. ment (oxymoron is itself an oxymoron; hypotheses that turned up most often. One 4. The bottom of the bottle is cut away from the Greek oxus, "sharp" and moros, of them is correct—which one is it? and then melted back into position once the "dull"). But Hughes expands the usual 1 He drilled holes through the bottle, wood and screw are in place. definition to include self-references, vicious then fit it over a sapling or the twig of a tree 5. The photograph is an optical illusion, circles, tautologies, or figures of speech and let nature take its course. When the and the screw is actually outside the. bottle. that otherwise make their points by an wood grew large enough, he cut it down and Answers are on page 144. amusing verbal twist. carved it into the shape of an arrow, leaving We'll take the same broad view in this COMPETITION #34: OXYMORONS enough wood on each side of the bottle contest, which is for more paradoxical to produce the apparent paradox. "If you go "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous wordplay like the examples above. Send into Foshee's backyard," one reader said, —graffito your entry on a card (one entry per card, "I'll bet you will see trees with Coke bottles please) to: Omni Competition #34, 1965 hanging from every limb." Broadway, New York, NY 10023-5965, 2. He heafed the glass around the holes, postmarked no later than October 15, 1984. melting it and expanding it, then put the —Reverend Spooner The grand prize-winner will be awarded arrow through. When the holes hardened, $100, and nine runners-up (2-10} will receive he had his paradox. The Memoirs of an Amnesiac $25 each. All entries become the property 3. His arrow was made of a light. —title by Eric Satie of Omni; none will be returned. DO

153 ' .

Ret i I!,..;. -for.

...... But when viewed from the air (something :. , , " have fed to a dramatic, reinterpretaiion of patently impossfoie for ancient man): mankinds earliest moments, me following its dolmens describe a cold-relief tablet or discov : is a- report by the head.of the team on its striking dimension: The additional discoveries and the significance thereof. ery that the sun rises exactly over two during ine equinoxes ieaos to .: . oi the ...... stones Island have long challenged msnJor an the for explanation, if they had shoulders/There released anc was possibly effective up would surely be chips on them, daring you to 12 hours. Though not yet completely hieroglyphic markings on the to solve theii scret.lt . . . deciphered, seems- impossible that the primitive tribss-

' men inhabiting the island could have : so precisely mahufactured.lahd laid out when under their influence. .vould be a 'The evidence- mounts' as millions of. new

i ii-\,o/ered challenge even for today's- engineer. It j r - the with each passing year. These various seems equally unlikely that they were . the work o- scire nonriufnan artisans. prehistoric ruins tell us much about

In turn, life . : :. ...:.:. ancient astronaut, and, about on findings by my team address themselves. his oianets. He suffered from clogged

i : ' .!'. I .'.:; the got acid stomach; so he had .at least s giant i ...... :; :....' rudimentary alimentary system. The roil-on obelisks discovered in Tunisia ;i amazed us wnen Quanta, our guide, perspired noticeably. LAST .unearthed c suggest he galactic roughly rectangular at its baseand quickly One could speculate that these neither tapering to a nczzlel.ike tip. More digging travelers left IheT worlds because WORD reveled niany more, laid outinihesarne of global catastrophe or famine, nor because 1 of- huge rj/i! !!!'! .'ir. 'ii'; :i'..!Os of a lust to. conquer, but- as part a

' By MikeWifkins. ... tjpdh:cieaning"fhem,.we.discovered market-reses hit bricks. Guy their over-the-counter drugs, snack something that us like a ton of . .' aids. Imagine ifjpon cleaning .;'. They were in fact monstrously targe store foods, and health-and-Peauty traversing light- 'them, we discovered:- replicas oi nasal-spray bottles: And this. their disappointment, })/ of modern years and finally landing on prehistoric " ' that, : breakfast something decohgestantsi Further inspection showed . Earth -laden with their cargo of

: : only find primitive man not hit us- like a- ton of bricks. a hieroglyph etcned into each bottle. On cerea s — to

the lei: was a sullen- looking Easier-Island .

: They were in fact . headi. In the'micldle, the giant slone nostrils crunch'y.in milk Is a valuable attribute. the monstrously.large stone , being given nasal spray, and onThe right, Undoubtedly it was they who planted " asmlfing'and w^kog head coking skyward, seeds of modem consumerism in- the *. .replicas of . of mankind's as if to thank someone from the heavens collective unconscious

. . , ' ! l-..'i nasal-spray bottles,^ e led .'! ::,..

,. . to one unavoidable conclusion:' Mot only were the architects of Easter Island from aeons, until

. . . , :.... i mother.worlds,: .but. they came with something' ..;

: ' galactic C io sell.. Easter Island Is In !aolahuge could decipher these ads. advertisement, an interstellar billboard. ihls was accomplished to the satisfac What we had discovered was 'he nasal the celestial-brand managers, Ii it that the- extraterrestrials left, promisi; . spray Of the godsi But was Easier Island the only site of one day to return from the skies. But

ancient abverti putei search obviously, it would not behoove these reappear until'm'an had both the done back. ico iny'cf- ; beings to the Earth's archaeological anomalies-are. in . desire for labor-saving devices and fact, urging disposable income to purchase them The following are but a lew astonishing Thar UrO sightings have increased

'' , fus intro- ex ) so .".'i antiq il- ex, iii ilver-and- ''ties and their related- product messages.'' duction of the aerosol can and some vTheGreatSphinx.'in Egypt, is the cheese-flavored dog food is seen by conceptual predecessor oi our civilization's as mere coincidence Worn currently acre and by my-. staff suggests instead that the resolute posture, ;he Sphinx has been evidence ports -undeniably -la-startling 'purih kind-- the embodiment of all that Is finicky far close encounters ot the are encounters that are folly for the rational . millennia. The nea-by pyramids huge rectilinear representations of dowfo of mind to continue to ignore. The aliens are cat food, set out to tempt the Sphinx to eat, arriving. Anc not or>y will we croc; then- shoppers, but shall likely buy 1 we Put 1 jtiaisf'xed as emptor. at the bran iofci m'ta zee by he something from them. Caveat QQ Great Pyramid (no dcubi. labeled great

by ii'; fna!< \ .great taste). When seen fronuhe ground, Stonehenge-