Out of Many Scattered Things: Epistolaric Empiricism

I say call a spade a spade, and call a transdimensional rift a transdimensional rift, am I right?

Chapter warnings: Realistic depictions of neurological, physical, and bureaucratic trauma. War. Grief. Death. Mental illness. Regular illness.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Epistolaric Empiricism

Dear Dr. Gottlieb, 

My name is Newton Geiszler, and I am a professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at MIT. I understand from a mutual acquaintance (Dr. Katerina “call me Kat or I’ll end you” Meyer) that you have recently completed your doctorate at the Berlin Institute of Technology. Congratulations!  I hope you’ll forgive an unsolicited letter from a non-physicist that’s about to take a left-hand turn straight from pleasantries into science, but I felt compelled to write to you in light of what happened last month [editorial aside: here read a horrible, xenobiological tragedy with all appropriate empathetic catch-phrases duly attached].

Are you aware that your recent Science paper regarding particle annihilation and small-scale energy fluctuations in spacetime turbulence at the subatomic level might have outrageously practical implications when it comes to understanding the transdimensional rift that’s opened at the bottom of the Pacific? [Unscientific aside: don’t tell me you’re one of those multiverse apologists. I say call a spade a spade, and call a transdimensional rift a transdimensional rift, am I right? I’m right. You love it. I hope you love it.] Anyway, tell me you’ve realized this. Tell me that you’ve been thinking about it. Tell me your thoughts on the mechanism by which such a transdimensional rift might be produced and perpetuated, because I find that I really want to know and you seem like the guy to ask.

Do you think these rifts open spontaneously from time to time when D-branes become a little too contiguous within the bulk? Is this a natural, stochastic phenomenon? Every educated bone in my body says yes, absolutely, stochasticity is a property of existence as we understand it and underlies most of the cruelties of biology. And yet. Aaaaand yet. I want your thoughts, all your thoughts, but especially your thoughts on the probability of this kind of event happening spontaneously. If you want to know the truth, I’m cursing the day I chose biology over quantum mechanics, except no, I’m not, because I think I’m going to be part of the governmental task force that gets the chance to analyze pieces of whatever it was that came through from wherever it is they come from. [Nomenclature aside: the scientific community seems to be settling on “kaiju” vis-à-vis “Kaiju.” I am, as one might colloquially put it, a “fan” of this emerging paradigm.]

I haven’t been able to find a physicist who will talk to me about this in an intelligent manner. That’s a lie a little bit, but I think, out of all existing work on the quantum foam, yours is the most relevant. I’m in the process of giving myself the background to follow your paper so come back at me with your A-game despite my biochemical credentials. I can take it.

Tell me.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

Newton Geiszler, PhD

Dear Dr. Geiszler,

You must pardon the indecorous enthusiasm of the response you are about to read, but I must confess I was thrilled to receive your letter. I cannot tell you how frustrated I have been, trying to communicate the relevancies of my model to a pedestrian academic hierarchy of an indentured faculty who distrust applicability purely on principle. I have run into an undue amount of resistance when conjecturing regarding what I feel to be obvious practical extensions of my studies in quantum-field topology. The only parties lending me an ear are a subset of string theorists whose work borders on the metaphysical and, frankly, this is not improving my outlook. There are times I’ve been made to feel as though I’ve lost my grip on rational discourse when I draw a parallel between my thesis work and that which may be sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. It is, of course, difficult to stop discussing it with my colleagues because of the overwhelming urgency and relevancy of the question—is the “Breach” a quantum-mechanical phenomenon manifesting itself on the macro scale, or is it something else? The limited data available preclude a definitive answer, but I will outline my argument for you in a colloquial manner within the text of this email and attach a document with a technical version of the same. Depending on your background, it may or may not be comprehensible to you—I confess that in its current form it contains some conceptual shorthand that likely will strike you as recherché.

Allow me to preface my argument with the following comment: it’s a common assumption in the popular press that the emergence of Trespasser is sufficient evidence for physical continuity between the depths of the Pacific and an extraterrestrial location. This is not technically true. There are a host of alternative explanations that cannot be logically excluded—each more ridiculous than the last and none of which deserve real credence (though I would be curious as to your thoughts on this topic, as I would imagine, from what you’ve said of your background, this lies within your domain of expertise). The point I’m attempting to make is that any kaiju-centric arguments ought to be separated from the paired questions of: A) does the Breach exist (constantly or periodically), and B) if it exists, what is its nature? 

In practice, these questions are functionally inextricable. Establishing the existence of the Breach requires one to hypothesize about its nature, then look for evidence to support said hypothesis, if only because it didn’t announce itself to global seismic, atmospheric, or oceanic monitoring systems. (Correct?) It was only retrospective analysis of geological data that allowed detection of the faintest seismic signal that something unusual might be occurring within the fabric of spacetime. Even considering the report from the Japanese seismology group (published in Nature—you must have seen it), a strange seismic pattern does not a spacetime tear make, no matter how notable the observed pattern. It, like the appearance of the kaiju itself, is only suggestive. Circumstantial. 

The theory I favor (which you have doubtless already surmised, based on the content of your letter), is that the nature of the Breach is best described as a local apposition of two branes of the multiverse, allowing unidirectional or bidirectional travel for an unknown period of time between two separate but closely apposed universes, possibly with different physical laws. An alternate possibility would be an Einstein-Rosen bridge. Considering the second proposal first—quantum field theory posits that there could, within the quantum foam, exist certain regions of space with a negative energy density (the Casimir effect) that might allow for a transient spontaneous bridge. It’s also possible that a sufficiently advanced civilization(??) might construct such a bridge out of exotic materials. I consider all of this unlikely, primarily because there’s been no detection of exotic matter and no evidence of time dilation from any of the deep-sea teams combing the bottom of the Pacific with every array of instrumentation that humanity’s collective ingenuity can bring to bear. So, while an Einstein-Rosen bridge is not impossible, I don’t consider it likely. [See pages 4-10 of the attached file for my technical argument.] This returns us to the idea of D-brane apposition. 

The mechanism you so charmingly described as “D-branes becom[ing] a little too contiguous within the bulk,” is not precisely what I proposed in my paper. Your word choice is inspired by the conceptual underpinning of detecting a D-brane/D-brane collision using temperature variations in cosmic background radiation (a proposal for testing the validity of the multiverse that has yet to be empirically demonstrated). In any case, I believe you’re thinking about the conceptual underpinnings correctly, in that your word choice communicates you are interested in learning more about a process, any process, that might conceivably create a dimensional rift large enough to transit the thing that laid waste to San Francisco. My paper doesn’t formally demonstrate but strongly implies waveform continuity between two D-branes on the level of quantum-scale spacetime turbulence at ground state energy in a vacuum. [See pages 16-28 of the attached file for a more detailed explanation.] What does this mean? I’m not certain.

However, I confess I have been deeply troubled—for a month now—regarding the exact questions you posed to me in your email. “Is this a natural, stochastic phenomenon?” If so, what is its empirical frequency, its empirical scale? And the counter question you didn’t pose, but rather implied: does the existence of this rift preclude a natural phenomenon, and if so—what then are the consequences of that particularly poisonous realization? Unfortunately, sir, I cannot give you definitive answers. I suspect this phenomenon is not purely natural—if only because of the scale of the entity that came through. I’m the first to admit I have an imperfect understanding of quantum phenomena, but this—this is something else again entirely. The ideas proposed in my paper explain how such a rift could arise spontaneously—on the quantum level. They do not explain how such a rift could be extended, expanded, and made stable (if indeed it is stable). I am very much anticipating the results of the group from Caltech who have been combing the ocean floor with the high-grade electromagnetic detection equipment humanity usually points into space. I’m hopeful there will be evidence, if not of an extant rift, at least an anomalous EM signature that could be further studied.

On a personal note, may I also add that I found your “unsolicited email” to be an enormous conceptual relief. At times I’ve felt like I am the only person who genuinely takes this connection between quantum mechanics and the appearance of Trespasser seriously and has not gone back to business as usual post the events of this past August. Perhaps it is because San Francisco is half a world away from Berlin, perhaps it is because theoretical physics is a somewhat insular discipline, but I confess to feeling misunderstood by my colleagues, who view me as indulgently perseverating on a link between my work and what will certainly end up being one of the defining events of the century. I do not feel as though I am being taken seriously. Indeed, I am not. It is not as though they are not interested, just not interested enough to arrest their current pursuits in order to spend time, mental energy, and financial resources redirecting the avenue of their intellectual pursuits. There has been much discussion here regarding my ideas, the relevancy of my paper—but very little material support, and I am being continuously advised not to hitch my career to understanding a single, if cataclysmic, empirical event. Perhaps because it was an isolated incident in another country? Perhaps because, like so many other things, it may fall outside the purview of theoretical physics? I am certain that my Doktorvater (in America you say, “thesis advisor?”) has my best interests at heart, but it is frustrating to be encouraged away from one’s scientific instincts. Maddening, really. I’ve had a terrible day—there is no excuse for this paragraph. I should delete it, but I will leave it in, if only to contextualize what has become an unforgivably long missive with an unforgivably dense attachment. Suffice it to say: I found your email perceptive and—how to put this—well…it restored some of my wavering faith in my own ideas, I suppose. 

I do find it notable that your scientific interests range so widely—I must confess, I have never met a biologist with the inclination or training to read primary physics literature. In fact, it’s unusual to find anyone reading outside his or her discipline of choice these days. I admit I don’t know the first thing about “Chemical and Biological Engineering;” but, then again, I’m quite up to date with what has been discovered regarding the biochemistry of Trespasser, though, granted, I have obtained most of my information from the kaiju-centric issue of Nature, which admittedly includes summary reviews at the non-specialist level. So perhaps that is the connection—an interest in what happened in August that sparked your interest in quantum mechanics and mine in xenobiology? In any case, I am curious as to how you came across my paper. Did you encounter it by chance in your review of the literature? Did Dr. Meyer point it out? I’d very much like to know.

Sincerely,

Hermann Gottlieb, PhD

Dear Dr. Gottlieb,

Indecorousness pardoned now and forever. In fact, I actively encourage indecorousness at every opportunity. That sounded unpardonably lascivious; allow me to rephrase. The turnaround time on your exquisitely worded “missive” was unbelievable. It will take me a few days (years?) to navigate through the document you sent—I do not math the way you math, I don’t think. But with some supplementary…er, everything, maybe I’ll at least marginally appreciate the way you’re (obviously) doing the conceptual equivalent of bridge building. I’m getting the gestalt but not the details, and that VEXES me, sir, I’ll have you know. [Inquisitive aside: I can make it through this document of yours with graduate-level P-chem, right? I can teach myself quantum field theory, yes? Yes. No problem. The quantum vacuum state is Lorentz invariant, right? I’m losing you when you renormalize for thermal fluctuations…or at least that’s where I THINK I’m losing you. I’m dying. I’m a biologist, man, not a quantum physicist. (Help me.)]

The point of the above paragraph, in case it wasn’t clear, is that I need a few days to collect my thoughts. I did, however, want to expeditiously email you and say the following:

One. Thank you. This is an amazing piece of work. It’s also shockingly laudable that you’d just—send me this without any caveats or reservations or swearing me to secrecy—in short, without knowing me at all. You realize this is a little bit insane? Don’t send your groundbreaking thoughts to potential competitors. You know this, right? Someone HAS told you this? Right? At some point? Send them to your friends and colleagues and then let your competitors read them after publication and grind their teeth. Not that I’m your competitor, but Dr. Meyer could potentially be considered your competitor. The point is, just—well, way to do science like it’s supposed to go, kid, and not like it actually goes. In case you’re regretting sending me this in a fit of intellectual nihilism because no one is listening to you—I won’t show this to anyone.

Two. Oh my GOD, yes, okay, just yes. I love this with a passionately voyeuristic kind of love. “Passionately” because of passion; “voyeuristic” because of voyeurism—this pure and secret math isn’t really the kind of thing I run across every day and it makes me feel very scientifically cosmopolitan to be checking out the quantitative ground floor of something that might have turned into a lovely and concise paper in Quantum Physics Letters but will now probably evolve into something even more concise with a sort of eau de démolition that lands in an even better journal given the inevitable practical applications of what you’re discussing. 

Three. I think you’re so right by the way. Just to be clear, I already thought you were right when I emailed you; I just didn’t know if YOU knew how right you were, but it seems like you definitely do, so congratulations there (ha). I liked your laid-out argument, though I submit to you that given the results of the paper I’m attaching, which has been submitted to my superfriends at Nature [Accuracy aside: the editorial board of Nature may actually deeply and genuinely despise me because I argued with them so much about a paper on cellular senescence I submitted eighteen months ago or so…I’m not sure they’ve forgiven me yet; but they will. Eventually. I can be very charming. But in a totally above-the-board, ethical way. Full disclosure. Too much disclosure], the kaiju, having a biochemical makeup incongruous with terrestrial biochemistry [Accuracy aside: by which I mean the existence of nucleic acid monomers that differ markedly from our local walking, talking collections of organized primordial ooze] in and of itself comprises a piece of evidence that is no longer circumstantial. For example, the, er, optimistic people who search for the Loch Ness monster might tell you the oceans are full of waiting carnage, but principle-of-parsimony-wise, no terrestrial ocean is going to be full of waiting xenocarnage unless there’s alien continuity.

Four. With regards to everyone patting your head and saying “nice job” as you communicate civilization-altering hypotheses; dude, this is an uber-common feature of la vie en académie as a young scientist, except (in your case) writ large as unbelievably high stakes meet your relatively junior position. People aren’t supposed to care about the hierarchy, and, to some extent in academia we’re freer [grammatical aside: that’s a word, right? Free-er?] of this proclivity than other fields are, but it’ll be the non-issue it should be. Speaking of positions and optimizing them, what are you doing right now, by the way? Finishing up more quantum-foam thinking? Looking for a postdoc? Working this giant document you sent me into a paper? That’s what I’d do if I were you; it’s almost like…a mathematical opinion piece that’s going to make you look like an outrageous quantum mechanical savant if you publish it before the empirical data that everyone’s waiting on, and like a prepared mathematical badass if you wait. You should probably wait. [Enthusiastic aside: don’t wait! Responsible aside: wait.] Honestly though, if you wanted to step into the position of quantum savant I have no idea where you’d send such a thing. If you’d already won the Nobel Prize (or something) then you’d have the leverage to get yourself a platform, but as a relatively unknown, recently minted doctorate, yup, I think the reality is you’ll need to wait for more factual parameters to hit the published literature before you take this thing into the public sphere, especially considering how much attention [editorial aside: here read “negative attention”] you’re likely to get when you publish. When another one of those things crawls out of the Pacific I bet your quantum mechanical clout will only increase, which is not exactly a happy thought, but it’s a progressive thought. That’s the thing about science, am I right? You keep saying the correct thing over and over and people will eventually have to notice, and you’ll accrue more resources as they do. So hang in there.

As for the question of how I came across your paper—it was indeed during a literature search. Even as I type this I feel like it makes me sound like a little bit of a crackpot quantitative dilettante. But I typed it anyway. YOLO. I’ve been following every rational scientific throughline pertaining to what the heck happened in August because, full disclosure, as I mentioned in my original email I’d really like to jump ship and switch fields to exobiology. Really really. A lot. I’m just obsessed [confessional aside: probably not an exaggeration] with where that thing came from and what it is. Anyway, I found your paper and took it to Kat, who is my go-to quantum person for these sorts of things, meaning I met her at a really boring and really mandatory training session at MIT (we both joined the faculty at the same time and hit it off within the impersonal nightmarish milieu of “setting up a lab”). Anyway, she’s willing to humor my quantum mechanical interests and we went through your paper. She mentioned she knew you and I asked her if she knew you well enough for me to cold-call you, as it were, and she said yes, and so here we are. Honestly, I would have contacted you anyway. I’ve been writing intermittently to other quantum people, but no one has so much “written back to me” as “ignored me.” Not that I necessarily blame them; if some quantum physicist tried to get my attention regarding nucleic acids, I’ll be honest, I’d look at them in a way most mildly described as “askance.”   So I get it, but at the same time? Come on. This is awesome. 

Sincerely,

Newton Geiszler, PhD

P.S. Can I…kind of send you back your document with notes attached, whereby “notes” I just mean brackets next to question marks annotated with the words: “what IS this even.” 

P.P.S. What if you sent me your entire thesis. Not even an impertinent suggestion—just an uncensored thought? I read German.

P.P.P.S. Did you see commentary on abnormal plate tectonics that came out in Geology Today? Soooo not my area, but some of the synthesized geological data might be of interest to you. 

P.P.P.P.S. I hope you’re having a better day [time zone corrected: night] than you were yesterday [time zone corrected: last night].

Dear Dr. Geiszler,

I confess I was somewhat preoccupied the morning after sending you my initial communication because you are correct—I did, essentially, write you in a fit of “intellectual nihilism.” Consequently, I was more personally forthcoming than was perhaps advisable. You are very kind to have responded as you did to my lapse in decorum. Rest assured, I will be more considered with my comments in the future. This being said, I am grateful to have been on the receiving end of your thoughts. I very much appreciate your points on the social architecture of my academic frustrations. I surmise from your comments that you must have at least some experience with the struggle to be taken seriously. I took the liberty of looking up your h-index (I hope you don’t mind), and it seems that whatever your past struggles might have been you have more than “arrived” in an academic sense. Should you feel inclined to soliloquize further on the fine points of institutional politics, you would have an interested listener in me. I have more ostensible mentors than I know what to do with, but as they are all affiliated with my home institution or related to me by blood (my father has quite definite ideas about my career trajectory) I am not sure I can consider them free from bias. 

To address your third postscript first, I missed the article you mentioned in Geology Today, thank you for bringing it to my attention. Let me return the favor. Were you aware that there’s a recently established international repository of geologic data pertinent to the Breach? (The appropriate link is pasted beneath my signature.) It was created using open source software by a graduate student from Tokyo with more free time than I have. I’ve found it useful for computational modeling projects, though the elegance of the interface leaves something to be desired.

Thank you for sending me your as-yet unpublished manuscript. I assure you that I will treat it with the same level of confidentiality you have so thoughtfully displayed towards my unpublished work. I must confess that some of the finer points of your experimental technique are lost on me, but I believe I have understood the main conceptual thrust of the thing—which is that you have identified six nucleotides, all of which are silicon-based, correct? And therefore clearly distinct from terrestrial nucleic acids? (I believe you implied as much in your last email, but you occasionally break into a German style with English words and I confess it is not the easiest task to follow the throughline of your thoughts.) This has all the markings of a seminal paper and I do not doubt it will provide the leverage you’re looking for in order to gain a foothold in xenobiology. 

Please feel free to annotate the file I sent and return it to me with notes attached; I will clarify where I can. It would be helpful for me to know what kind of experience you’ve had in higher mathematics (if any) so that my comments can be better calibrated. I have attached my graduate thesis for your eventual perusal. It has been described as “dense” by members of the faculty at TU Berlin, so if you find it uninterpretable you will be in good company.

Again, my apologies for a somewhat unprofessional message, I assure you it will not happen again.

Sincerely,

Hermann Gottlieb, PhD

Dear Dr. Gottlieb,

YOU apologize? How about I apologize. For the thing I’m attaching to this email. It’s my comments on the document you sent. I am SO sorry. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m going to ignore all your questions about my mathematical background and just…send you this thing. Respond how you will, when you will. My notes are best described as “extensive.”

Sincerely, 

Newton Geiszler, PhD

P.S. I’m not great with rocks but thank you for the database link.

P.P.S. Yes, your thesis is uninterpretable. 

P.P.S. But not for long. 

P.P.P.S. That’s a lie. 

P.P.P.P.S. With regards to the xenobiochemistry I sent your way…you’ve got it, kid. If the book of one’s life is written in silicon, then, categorically, one did not arise from the local (carbon) sludge. Ergo, alien monsters are alien. Quod erat demonstrandum. BAM. Mic drop.

P.P.P.P.P.S.  Excuse me but my English is flawless, clear, and well explicated. Every time

Dear Dr. Geiszler,

Your credentials are extremely misleading. This is NOT what I was expecting.

Sincerely, 

Hermann Gottlieb, PhD

Dear Dr. Gottlieb,

I’m not sure how to interpret your most recent email. Are you appalled by my mathematical illiteracy? [Reality-check aside: I’m a biologist, you realize.] Are you messing with me? Either way, keep in mind…I did apologize in advance?

-Newton

Dear Dr. Geiszler,

You grossly misrepresented yourself to me—this is NOT the commentary of a biologist having trouble recalling a distant class in physical chemistry. Your understanding of quantum field theory is professionally passable, which is—shocking, frankly. You owe me an explanation. I insist. In fact, I insist upon it before I return your notes to you with further notes. Did you begin in the physical sciences and switch fields? I hope you did, but I’m skeptical because of the unconventional terminology/notation you’re using to express yourself. Are you, possibly, something of an autodidact when it comes to applied quantum mechanics? This is the explanation I favor, though it seems wholly implausible given your days must be taken up with the business of cellular regeneration or biochemistry or whatever it is that you particularly specialize in—I made a real effort to determine this by looking at your list of publications and couldn’t easily do it—were you publishing in organic chemistry circa 2006? Were you publishing in bioethics before this? Is there another scientist who shares your name? Are there several?

To formally answer your question, I’m neither appalled by your mathematical literacy nor purposefully being obstructive. I’m delighted to encounter an askew mathematical twist upon a too-familiar problem, and I’m impressed at the degree to which you’re able to follow my work. Your grasp of quantum field theory is sounder than it has any right to be, I find your notation to be wholly charming, and I await a delineation of your mathematical/quantum mechanical credentials with much anticipation.  

Sincerely, 

Hermann Gottlieb, PhD

Dear Dr. Gottlieb,

Whew. Okay. GREAT. 

First. I can’t believe that you’re ransoming your thoughts for details on my mathematical history. Ha! It’s making my day. 

Second. If you’re going to be ransoming thoughts, at least hold out for something better. There’s got to be more you want to know. My favorite color is all of them. My favorite day is Tuesday because people forget about Tuesday all the time and I anthropomorphize things too much, including days of the week so I end up feeling sympathy for Tuesday. My favorite philosopher is Nietzsche. My favorite book is much too embarrassing for me to report to you at this juncture so don’t even ask me, stop it, stop it right now, okay fine, we’ll compromise; I’ll tell you if you guess it. Did you guess Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea? You did? You’re wrong. Too topical. Did you guess Frankenstein? You’re also wrong. Did you guess Jurassic Park? Excuse me, but I have better taste than that. Or do I?

Third. My mathematical history is pretty boring, I’m sorry to report. I have [since you’re intent upon wresting the details out of me] picked up the typical array of college level mathematics along my adventures in higher education...multivariable calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, and more statistics than one could shake a stick at. That’s pretty much it for pure and applied math. As for the P-chem side of things, I keep encountering it; I’ve come at it from the physics side, the chemistry side, the biochemistry side, the biomechanics side; that’s probably why my notation looks weird[ly charming!] to you. Ultimately, though, I can follow your math because I’ve spent the past month obsessively reading all available literature on string theory, dimensional rifts, dimensional transit, and the topology of the quantum foam. I give Kat a lot of credit for holding my hand for several weeks [again, to be clear, I did not show Kat your unpublished theorizing]. Long story short, I’m just interested in this sort of thing and possessed of a lot of raw processing power when it comes to my cerebral cortex.

Fourth. My publication history is a little all over the map; it’s true. I did switch fields from organic chem/biochemistry to biomedical engineering/neurobiomechanics and before that, yes, I did dabble in bioethics just a bit, but my most substantial work has been in the field of tissue regeneration, and that’s where I’ve been publishing (last-author style) for about four years or so. In terms of understanding me, as a scientist, you should probably just look at the spread of years from 2007 to present, because that spans the last two years of my PhD. I’ve been a PI for four years now (to anticipate and avoid your next question—I didn’t do a postdoc because my funding situation worked out). In order to answer your implied question, technically speaking, the main thrust of my lab is breaking the limits of cellular senescence while avoiding neoplastic transformation. We work in cell lines. It’s…less exciting than exobiology. And so. Here we are.

Fifth. Charming? Because there’s more where that came from. More science charm, that is. I have an endless supply!

Send me those notes,

Newton