Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2) (13 page)

“Tonight?” Johnson grated. “I thought your nights were reserved for your harebrained spin bumping experiments?”

“Uh, yes sir. But I have some things to do on my own experiment that must be done during the day over the next couple of days, so I’ll work on the ‘double slit’ tonight to make up for it.”

Johnson eyed her for a moment as if he wanted to say something more, but then turned to Roger.

That night Ell finished revising the setup on the new double slit experiment and ran it a couple of times, getting the same results as with the first setup. She sent Johnson a message with the results. Then she turned to her new circuits and solder bridged the faults she had put in the design. Then she used the micromanipulator to pick out a pair of nanotubes that should resonate with the frequency of the laser in the opto circuits as predicted by her equations, confirmed that they did, entangled and installed them. She hooked up the first one to a data output from her AI. In a fit of historical whimsy she sent Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone message, “Mr. Watson, come here.” Her heart trip-hammered in her chest as she saw the message appear on the display screen hooked up to the second device! She realized that she was so excited that she’d slipped into her zone and had to take several long calming breaths to get herself back out of it.

Ell left one PGR, as she was calling the photon-gluon resonance circuits, hooked up to the signal from the national atomic clock and headed back to her apartment for a shower. The entire walk back she was able to see the signal from the clock on her second PGR. There was no way for her to determine whether the transmission was instantaneous or merely light speed as yet, so she went to bed and, after some restless thrashing, was able to get almost her usual three hours of sleep. When she woke up she went online and submitted an IDF or “Invention Disclosure Form” to the NCSU Office of Technology Transfer. She also placed a request for an appointment in their office, then she headed out to meet Emma for her run.

“Hey, where were you yesterday. I had to run by myself, in constant fear of the “Rigellians.’” Emma grinned at her.

Ell laughed; James’ “Rigellians” were gaining fame. “Sorry, I slept over in the lab last night. Finally having some luck with my experiment.”

“Arggh! Mine is going terrible. I will seek my revenge by running you into the ground this morning.”

Ell said, “Sorry, I know what it’s like. Can I help?”

“Hey, great idea. Could you check my math on this new experiment for me?”

“OK, while I’m doing that maybe you could look at a circuit I built that turns out to be really expensive. Roger says you’re a wizard at designing cheap circuits.”

“OK, but I’m still going to kill you on this run.” She turned and jogged off into the early morning mist. Despite her threatening words she was supportive during the run, cajoling Ell to run farther and faster than she thought she could.

Ell found two minor errors in Emma’s math which were probably responsible for her frustrating results. However, Emma managed a circuit redesign that cut the cost of Ell’s circuit a hundredfold by using existing microchip circuits for almost all of it. It was also much smaller. Ell was ecstatic and immediately submitted a request for five pairs of them.

Fred, her AI said, “Dr. Johnson wants to know, ‘where the hell you are?’”

“Tell him I’m on my way to the lab.”

When Ell arrived, Johnson barked, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Sir, I was helping Emma Kenner from the Sponchesi lab… She helped me with my project at the same time.”

“I assume that by ‘my project’ you mean your ridiculous pursuit of spin bumping?”

“Yes sir, though I’ve given up on spin bumping per se and…”

“Don’t waste my time explaining it.”

“But I…”

“
Don’t!
I thought you’d promised me that you’d only waste time on it evenings and weekends.”

“Yes sir.” Ell bit out. “But you’ll remember that I worked on the dual slit experiment last night so that I could have some daytime hours to work on my project.”

He studied her, “But all you did last night was get the dual slit experiment to fail.”

“No sir. It worked.”

“What the hell do you mean ‘it worked’? It’s still reporting flux at both slits when a single photon passes!”

“Yes sir! Which is exactly what m, m… what Donsaii’s equations predict!”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s a bunch of crap. You’re doing something wrong! Don’t wait for
me
to figure it out for you. Get in here and figure out what you’re doing wrong yourself. There’s a limit to just how much ‘hand holding’ I can do around here.” He spun on his heel and exited.

After Johnson left, Roger came over, carefully this time, without touching Ellen before he spoke, “There is nothing more horrific in science than the murder of a dearly held hypothesis by dastardly data.”

Ellen shoulders slumped and she turned to Roger, suddenly burying her face in his chest, “Why does he hate me?”

Roger awkwardly put his arms around her and gently squeezed. “He doesn’t hate you. He hates
Donsaii
, I think, and her brilliant equations. He really doesn’t want them to be right.”

Ell snuffled into his shirt. “Same thing.” She said enigmatically, without elaborating on the double meaning.

Ell dutifully studied her double slit apparatus a few minutes, pondering whether she could, in fact, have overlooked some flaw, decided that she hadn’t and spent another half hour pulling her preliminary notes together into a paper ready for submission. She sent it to Johnson’s inbox and went downstairs to pick up her new PGRs. On the way back Fred notified her that she had an appointment in the Tech Transfer Office at 1PM with a Mr. Wayne Stillman. She went back to the lab and put nanotubes in all of her new PGRs and tested them to be sure they worked.

They didn’t!

In a panic she reviewed Emma’s design and with some relief realized that Emma had replicated the faults Ell had built into the first design. It was extremely difficult to microsolder the tiny bridges on Emma’s smaller design but Ell got it done on one pair. Once the bridges were soldered, that pair worked fine and she solder bridged the rest of them. Ell checked out a pair of small picosecond accurate clocks, synched them exactly, and hooked one up to the input of one PGR and the other clock to a “micro” AI which was also attached to the second PGR so that the AI could measure the difference between the readings of the two clocks. She put the first clock-PGR combo into a double FedEx box and addressed it to Australia with instructions on the inner box to mail it back to her apartment. Not a perfect experiment, but about as cheaply as she could think to check for light speed delays. Another pair of PGRs she used to hook Allan, her AI, up to the net through one of the lab’s computers. Months ago, she’d modified the power switch on her AI so that flipping the power switch turned off the outer case lights but left the actual AI running. She had also installed a microphone inside the case so that Allan could hear what was happening around him without being jacked to the AI headband. Thus Allan already was able to report to the police and her family if something happened to Ell.

But with the PGR connection, Allan would be able to reach the net even if someone using a net jammer kidnapped her!

Roger’s chair scraped back and he said, “Hey busy lady, wanna grab some lunch?”

Ell looked up, surprised to see it was noon and said, “Sure!” She picked up her FedEx box and a couple of her PGRs and they headed out.

Roger said, “What’cha sending?” nodding at the FedEx box.

“Hmmm, a little experiment.”

“You can’t send our equipment to someone else! You’re in enough trouble over using the fab aren’t you?”

“It’s going out and coming back. Nothing’s actually going to anyone else. I’d rather not talk about it. How’s your experiment going?”

“Going out and coming back?”

“How’s your experiment going?” She grinned crookedly up at him.

He snorted, “Crappy as usual. The output is a factor of 6 lower than it should be.”

“Hmmm, ‘there is nothing more horrific in science than the murder of a dearly held hypothesis by dastardly data.’”

“Hey! I was being nice to you and accusing
Johnson
of being wedded to a hypothesis. Now you’re throwing it up to me?”

“No, but I’m wondering if the output is only low because it is rotated to your receiver.”

“What? Rotated how?”

“Because, if your hypothesis is wrong, according to Donsaii’s theory the output should be polarized and if it is polarized but rotated differently than that big ass polarizer filter you’ve got on the front of your receiver you’d lose most of your reception.”

Roger stopped stock still on the stairs, staring off into space. Then he turned and started climbing the stairs again.

Ell said, “Hey, where are you going?”

“Back up to rotate my ‘big ass’ polarizer filter!”

“What about my lunch?”

“You’ll have to eat it by yourself.”

“But, aren’t you going to buy me lunch for figuring out what’s wrong with your experiment?”

He stopped, grinned down at her, then turned and descended again. “A man must eat. I’ll turn it later. But I’m not buying you lunch until you’re proven right!”

“Oh ho! You know I am. I’ll charge you interest on lunch tomorrow by having a dessert!”

They ate in the cafeteria and Ell put her package in the FedEx pick up bin on her way out of the building. As she was walking to the tech transfer office Allan came on and said, “You have a call from Phillip Zabrisk.”

“Put him on! - Phil, what brings you to call, you broke and need a loan?”

Phil’s voice said, “Exactly. I’m coming home next week for Thanksgiving and thought I’d see if I could get you to buy my broke ass another lunch?”

“Great! Call me when you get free from the family and I’ll meet you somewhere.”

They spoke a while longer, catching up, but Ell had to hang up when she was called in for her appointment in the tech office.

“Ms… Symonds, is it?” the small man behind the desk said, looking at his screen.

“Yes sir.”

“And you work in Dr. Albert Johnson’s lab in Physics, a first year grad student?”

“Yes sir.”

“Yet you haven’t listed Dr. Johnson on your invention disclosure form?”

“It doesn’t have a blank for my professor.”

“Ah,” Stillman said with a condescending tone, “but any intellectual property you have developed has been under his guidance and mentorship.”

“No sir.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“He has specifically and repeatedly denied me guidance or assistance on this particular project and denied me the use of any University funding for it. He has, in fact, frequently told me to stop wasting time on it. I’ve compiled an audio-video file of those conversations that my AI is sending to your AI—now. I have used University facilities and equipment evenings and nights. Otherwise I could argue that the University has no interest in this intellectual property.”

“Oh you could, could you?” His tone became mildly threatening.

“Yes sir. But I’m not arguing that. The University itself has provided some support.”

“Hmmm, and you claim it is based on Ell Donsaii’s quantum theory?

“Yes sir.”

“But you don’t believe she has any rights to this invention due to her development of the theory?”

“No sir. The discoverer of a principle does not, therefore, own rights to all devices based on that principle. She did not patent use of the principle.”

“Hmmm. And you claim that it will allow communication between two points but no others? Kind of like a walkie talkie?”

“Yes sir.” Ell had a feeling that this man could not see any of the potential of such a device. She began to wonder if she would have to point out its uses to him.

“Well, I’m sorry Ms. Symonds. I’ve already spoken to Dr. Johnson. He tells me that this ‘project’ of yours is an absolute dead end and based entirely on wishful fantasies on your part. The University would not want to put any resources behind an attempt to commercialize something like this.”

Ell rocked back, stunned by the Stillman’s short sightedness. For a moment she considered showing him the working model but realized that he would likely deny the evidence before his own eyes in favor of testimony from Dr. Johnson. He seemed to believe that its ability to send messages to only one receiver was a problem, not an advantage. “So… then you’ll turn the rights to the invention back over to me and I’ll have to patent it myself?”

“Well, it has to be approved by our committee, but essentially that is what I expect. The University may keep a 5% interest, just in case you are actually able to make a useful device from your concept, but it won’t invest any more of its resources into development. The committee meets on Friday so we should be able to let you know then.”

Chapter Eight

Ell wandered back to the physics building in a daze, somewhat ecstatic that NCSU would likely grant her most or all of the rights to her invention rather than only 40% of the royalty stream as was their usual, but daunted by the need to commercialize it all by herself. “Allan, please see if I can speak to Dr. Smythe at MIT?”

She was nearly back to the physics building when Smythe came on line. “Ell, great to hear from you! Sorry to say, we’ve been unable to get diddly going using spin bumping. Are you and Al having any luck?”

For a moment Ell was confused, and then remembered that Dr. Johnson’s first name was “Al” and Dr. Smythe would be referring to him, not Al the grad student in the Johnson’s lab. “Uh, no sir. No luck. In fact, Dr. Johnson forbade me to work on it except evenings and weekends. I have had some luck with photon-gluon resonance though.”

“Oh no! Is Al one of those guys who are pleasant at meetings but a real curmudgeon at home?”

“Uhhh…”

“No, no, don’t sugar coat it, go ahead and tell me if that’s what’s going on. Al and I are friends but, I’d like to think that you and I are friends too.”