AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Unless we found a longer straw,” Kurt said.
“Exactly,” she said, “except that physics tells us that, at some point, there’s no such thing as a longer straw.”
“Can you give me a real example?”
“The classic case is helium,” she said. “As it’s cooled, the molecular activity within the sample begins to slow, and the helium turns from a gas to a liquid. At absolute zero, it should freeze into a solid, and all molecular activity inside it should stop. But no matter how far one lowers the temperature, right down to absolute zero, helium will never turn into a solid under normal atmospheric pressure.”
“Meaning?”
“Some energy remains in the system. Some energy that can’t be removed.”
“And that’s zero-point energy?”
“Exactly,” she said once again.
“So if it can’t be removed,” Kurt said, “what hope is there in accessing it?”
“Well,” she hedged, “all things are impossible until they’re proven otherwise. Theoretically, there are fields of energy all around us sitting at their zero point. The same theory that postulates the existence of such fields suggests it may be possible to dislodge this hidden energy the way someone dislodges electrons in a power grid and reaps the benefits of electricity. Only, no one has been able to do it yet.”
It sounded a little like the mythical ether of the old days to Kurt, a substance that was once believed to fill the emptiness between planets and galaxies when scientists of the day couldn’t believe there was such a thing as a vacuum.
“Has anyone tried?” Kurt asked. “Before you and Thero, I mean.”
“A few brave souls,” she said. “I assume you’ve heard of Nikola Tesla?”
Kurt nodded.
“Tesla was one of the first,” she said. “In the 1890s he began developing what he called his Dynamic Theory of Gravity. He tinkered away on it for years until 1937, when he claimed it was finally complete and promised boldly that it would displace Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, at least in explaining how gravity works.”
“Don’t we know how gravity works?”
“We know what gravity does,” she corrected, “but we don’t know how it causes what it causes. Tesla believed it was connected to a kind of energy field that existed everywhere, but in some places this field had greater concentrations than others. He also believed that that field could be tapped and the result would be an unlimited energy source, one that would bring peace and prosperity instead of thermonuclear explosions and genocide.”
“So you’re telling me that zero-point energy and gravity are connected?”
She nodded. “If Tesla’s right — and Einstein and the others are wrong — then, yes, the two are connected in very complex ways.”
Kurt considered this. “Complex enough to cause what Thero is threatening?”
She seemed to need a second to think about it. “Tesla spent four decades working on his theory,” she said, “more than half his life. He made his great announcement, insisting to the world that he’d finally completed the Dynamic Theory of Gravity, that all the details were worked out, and then he never published it. After all that work, he locked it away and never spoke of it again. Despite years of ridicule and the crushing poverty he’d fallen into thanks to the treachery of Westing
house and Edison, Tesla took the Dynamic Theory of Gravity to his grave.”
Kurt had never heard this story. “Has any record of it ever surfaced?”
Hayley shook her head. “When Tesla died, your government seized all his belongings and papers — despite having no legal reason to do so. They were held for a year or so and then finally released to his family. His work on zero-point energy and the Dynamic Theory of Gravity were not among them.”
Kurt considered what she’d told him. He knew Tesla’s reputation as a genius and as a mad scientist of sorts. He also knew Tesla was primarily considered a pacifist. It was fully conceivable that Tesla had destroyed all records of his theory. It was also possible that somewhere in the vast archives of the federal government there lay a file with Tesla’s name on it with the missing papers inside. He made a mental note to relay this information to Dirk the next time he checked in.
“The fact is,” Hayley continued, “we’re dealing with a primal force of nature. Many would tell you it’s something best left alone.”
“But Thero isn’t leaving it alone,” Kurt pointed out. “So what happens if he makes a breakthrough?”
“If he’s successful, a vast output of energy and a side effect of short-lived, extremely powerful gravitational fluctuations.”
“Can you try that in English,” Kurt said.
“The Earth isn’t going to be vaporized or anything,” she said. “We’re not going to start floating out of our chairs like astronauts in zero g.”
