New Theorem from MIT and the IAP

10/26/58

Physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently published a paper including a radical new discovery - the possibility of an untapped energy source. The paper was heralded by debate among the International Association of Physicists (IAP) as to the likelihood of such a thing. As the notion gains popularity, the Energy Exchange Commission (EEC) has offered 5,000,000 dollars (USD) to whichever organization proves itself most capable of researching potential applications. But does the mere possibility of a new energy source really warrant the attention and funds it is receiving?

“It seemed impossible at first,” stated Dr. Halvson of the IAP, “But we haven’t been able to really discredit it yet. If this turns out to be correct it’s only a matter of time before we’ve solved the energy crisis.”

When asked about the limits of the hypothetical energy source, Dr. Halvson responded that there is “no reason” to believe that it is infinite but also that “we can’t prove that it isn’t, either.”

Continued on A7, “Physics”

A lithe figure raced over the desert hills, far ahead of his mentor. He was young, yet to see his sixteenth summer, and excited by the day’s task. His lean form darted between creosote bushes and rocks. Rash with youth and over eager to proceed, the boy ran up along the rocky ridge of a dune. Part of the eroded rock crumbled under his weight and sent him tumbling onto the plant covered ground several feet below.

“Watch yourself, boy!” his mentor’s basso tones rolled down from the top of a hill. He was neither as hard nor as lean as the boy, but his voice was anything but soft. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll step on a cactus, and where will you be then? If you think I’m hauling your crippled carcass back to your mother’s teepee, you’re much mistaken.”

The boy groaned, more from annoyance than pain, and began plucking hair-like cactus spines from his bare chest and shoulder. By the time his mentor stood above him on the ledge, fewer than half had been removed. The boy looked up and grimaced.

“Mind lending a hand?”

The older man squatted down and solemnly offered his student a hand up onto the ledge. The boy shook his head, but grasped the hand and clambered onto the rock.

“Thanks, old man, but not what I meant.”

“Be grateful for what you get, Cheveyo. Any reasonable child in your position would be suitably humble.” With a brief grimace of his own, he added, “and I’m no older than your parents.”

“That’s old enough and more. Believe me.” Cheveyo snorted and tried to stick a spine in his teacher, but it fell to the ground, impotent. He thrust his hands up in disgust.

“See, Howahkan? Why can’t you do that for me? Just make all of them fall off.”

His teacher smiled. “I’m sorry you weren’t so fortunate as to come at all the spines from the wrong end. If you ever find yourself on the inside of a cactus, you’ll see. But the day isn’t getting any cooler. We should get going.”

The sun rose higher in the sky as the pair continued through the hills, Cheveyo plucking at cactus spines. By the time he had removed them all, the sun was at its apex, and they had arrived at the beginning of a flat plain. They continued for about a quarter mile until they could see the shimmer of a fence in the heat. They sat for a few minutes and Howahkan took out some flatbread, dividing it between the two of them.

The boy looked disdainfully at his portion of the dry bread and tried to hand it back to his teacher, saying, “I’m not hungry. Not hungry enough to eat that.”

“You’ll eat what you’re given,” mumbled his teacher, mouth full. “You need to keep your strength up.”

“I’m fine.”

“Tell that to the coyote.” Finished, his teacher brushed crumbs off his lap and stood. “If you don’t want to eat now, it’s fine with me. But if you find yourself wanting to eat the first rattler you catch, it’s your own damn fault.” He snatched the other portion of the flatbread and tore off a piece to eat, putting the rest back in his satchel.

Cheveyo got up and stretched before exuberantly bounding a few meters further into the plain. “Can I start now?”

“You may not respect ceremony, but at least let me go through the motions here. Your task today is to catch and kill-”

"To catch three rattlesnakes," he said, interrupting. "I must then take the poison of the snakes and use it to concoct two draughts, one harmful and the other curative. After I've made the draughts, I'm to drink the harmful one, and after three days and three nights of hideous pain and suffering, alone in the desert, I'm to return to camp to drink the curative potion."

His mentor sighed and took another piece of flatbread.

“The first draught is also to give you dreams, boy, to let you commune with your elders.”

“I’m communing with my elders fine right now.” He paused, and was gratified by a snort from the older man. “But seriously, don’t expect me to believe that drinking some potion will allow me to talk with the dead. The dead are gone. Anyone I talk to while out in the desert will be a hallucination. And you know it, Howahkan. You can’t possibly believe all this.”

“Your chief wished the tribe’s next shaman to be more… traditional than myself. I see that it is a lost cause, but it wouldn’t kill you to pretend once in a while. It is a comfort to many of your people.” Howahkan held up a hand as his student again began to speak. “The day grows hotter and your snakes are going deeper into their dens to escape the heat. I rather wish I could do the same. If you intend to catch any before nightfall, you had best begin now.”

Cheveyo cracked a grin. “Alright already, I’m starting.” Howahkan watched as his student sprinted out into the desert, looking to either side for a likely hiding place for the rattlers he hunted. He watched the distant figure stop and stoop to peek under the shadowed side of a rock. Then the figure brashly kicked the rock aside, and went to all fours and leapt forward. Only, he thought, the figure was still human.

Howahkan watched in muted horror as the figure of his student flinched and crumpled to the ground out of sight. What had gone wrong? The teacher ran forward, directing his thoughts down a more immediate road. His student would never have gone after the snake if it hadn’t been one of the rattlers he was supposed to be targeting. That was bad- the rattler was the most toxic of the snakes in the area. In fact, many considered to Mojave Rattlesnake to be among the most deadly of any snake in the America. Furthermore, he’d collapsed almost immediately. He must have gotten a large dose of the venom for the neurotoxins to begin to affect him that swiftly.

Howahkan arrived and gave his student a quick inspection. Still breathing, but with three bites, two on the arm and one on the neck- judging by the spaces between the fangs of the bite marks, two of them must have been young. He knelt down and began to suck the venom from the wounds, the one from the smallest snake first. His student was either cocky or unlucky to have turned over a rock hiding multiple snakes.

“Cocky,” Howahkan muttered. Cocky, to have kicked over the rock while still in man-shape. But he should have been able to do it, and the boy was wearing the talisman. He would have gone for the big one first, biting through the spinal cord while getting out of reach of the younger two. Then it would just be a matter of waiting until one of them made a move and reacting to it. But, Howahkan noted as he finished on the last bite, a human could do none of those things.

But that was in the past- the past could wait. He needed to get Cheveyo to a hospital, and fast. But the nearest hospital was more than fifty miles away. First he would take the boy to camp. There he could transfer him to a car, and maybe find something to keep him alive until he could drive him to the hospital. The trick would be getting to camp as fast as possible, and Howahkan knew what he was going to do, fully aware of the castigation he’d catch from the tribe.

“Tradition be damned, I have a life to save. They can debate later, as long as it isn’t over his corpse.” He pulled a few lengths of frayed rope from his bag and tied them firmly around the boy’s arms and midriff. Unsatisfied with the result, he spat on both hands and undid the knot. Howahkah tackled the task with renewed vigor the second time, carefully drawing the rope around the boy, and then pulling a new knot secure around the flaccid form. It reminded him too much of a hangman’s noose, and the man pulled the rope lower on the boy’s torso before securing the knot.

Howahkan then tied a loose circle of rope around himself and the boy, and lay face down, painstakingly pulling the boy on top of him. It was important that the boy’s weight be centered over him, otherwise this would never work. And if the rope binding them wasn’t tight enough… He took the loose end of rope in his teeth, grimacing.

Finally the man, the shaman, reached for a talisman hanging from his belt. There was no incantation to be said; he only had to draw his focus together. It was hard to do under pressure. Maybe the boy had just… no. Howahkan closed his eyes and grasped the sandy braid of hair in his hand tightly.

And then he changed.