The Cantor Dimension (15 page)

The Westminster monopoly continued but dislike for the new soap was so strong that Ralph Freeman, who was the mayor of London, was called upon to inquire about the quality of the new soap. Countesses, laundresses, and ladies of all persuasions were interviewed, all of whom reported that the new soap was inferior and that it burned the skin and the cloth.

In 1634 the soapers of Westminster, in an effort to sell their inferior soaps, engaged the services of one of the soap-boilers of London to manufacture the soaps. It was their hope that having a London stamp would bless the soap. Still the inferior soap did not sell and the soapers of Westminster finally surrendered their patent to the king for a price. Their equipment was sold to the soap-boilers of London who were now back in business with their own agreement to pay the king. The soapers of Westminster who had thought to revolutionize the business of soap were now dissolved.

One might presume that after the victory the businesses of the Londoners would be booming and would thus be eyed favorably by a woman seeking a wealthy husband, such as the Joane who married Edmond Halley the soap-boiler in 1682. One might also suspect one of the soapers of Westminster in having a hand in the death of a successful soap-boiler of London.

A few months after the victory, Mayor Ralph Freeman died. An interesting coincidence is that soap-boiler Edmond Halley's great-granddaughter was Mary Freeman, the daughter of Rowland and Sybilla Freeman. After Rowland died, Sybilla married the astronomer Halley's son who was the surgeon Edmond Halley, and her daughter Mary became the astronomer Halley's only grandchild. Whether Rowland and Mary Freeman were related to the Mayor Freeman who became involved in the soap wars is unknown.

Table of Contents

Brody was still reeling from Cindy's disclosures. She said Max had been practicing time travel and had apparently been on quite a few "trips" into the past, both distant and recent. Max had used the more recent trips, such as visiting Brody's apartment and hiding on the balcony to watch through the window, as test runs once he understood how to choose a specific location.

Brody snorted. "That's a bunch of baloney! Nobody can do that! If it were possible then Einstein or somebody would have figured it out!" An odd look came over his face as he remembered the autographed photo of Einstein on Max's wall.

"Think about it, Brody... unexplained disappearances could be people who've traveled in time and couldn't figure out how to get back to tell the story. Just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean nobody's done it. And speaking of Einstein, Max has a lot to say about Einstein. If you think I'm nuts, why don't you read it for yourself and decide?" She handed Brody a small stack of papers that she'd set aside.

Cindy continued, "And besides, how do you know that Einstein didn't figure it out? Max figured it out and he didn't tell anyone. For all we know lots of people could be doing it. For all we know the government could have secret research about it and be testing it. The government doesn't tell us what they're up to until twenty or thirty years after they've done it and sometimes not even then!

"Look at the
Philadelphia Experiment
. Our government is still denying that one, the same way they deny the UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. The
Philadelphia Experiment
was based on Einstein's concept of a unified field theory in which electromagnetism is the result of the unity of space and time into a single space-time entity. In the
Philadelphia Experiment,
the
USS Eldridge
allegedly transported to a location 200 miles away, in addition to going 10 seconds backward in time.

"Then there was the
Montauk Project
, where again the government allegedly experimented with time travel. The debunkers had a field day with both the
Philadelphia Experiment
and the
Montauk Project
and we'll probably never know whether either story is true."

Brody shook his head. "This all sounds like Max's friend Coggins, the space case, and his conspiracy theories!"

Cindy smiled. "Brody, even regular people are reporting things. Back in 1901, two very educated women named Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain experienced what was believed to be a 'time slip' traveling back over 100 years in time for a few brief moments.

"And of course, the Russians are working on their own version of a time machine. While the last installment of their machine didn't pan out for time travel as expected, and the scientists are now claiming publicly that time travel isn't possible, are any of these scientists of the same caliber as Einstein?

"The scientists who we revere for their incredible breakthroughs were ridiculed in their lifetimes, so anyone attempting to prove that time travel is possible would be no different. The only scientists who were considered credible in their day were the naysayers who ended up being WRONG, whether they debunked man's ability to fly in a plane, go to the moon, or even communicate over the airwaves."

"I'm not seeing the proof here, Cindy." Brody interjected. "It's just a bunch of theories which don't mean anything until someone does it, and proves they've done it."

Cindy sighed. She had suspected that Brody wasn't the believer-type but she had hoped. To Brody, she simply said, "I'm not out to prove anything to you, Brody, I'm simply trying to help you find your friend. Why don't you read these few pages for yourself and then we'll talk, okay?" She sat back, waiting for Brody to read the gist of the Cantor papers and draw his own conclusions. Brody took the papers and began to read:

Space-time combines both space and time into a single continuum rather than two separate entities. The first reference to space-time appeared in 1754 by Jean le Rond d'Alembert. This was followed by Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1797, who referred to geometry as having four dimensions. In 1843, the concept of space having three dimensions with time being the fourth dimension was put forth by William Rowan Hamilton.
Several others followed, adding to the theories which later became the basis for Einstein's theory of special relativity. Einstein's theories allowed for the concept of time dilation. Hermann Minkowski took it even further, combining all of the theories that came before into a unified four-dimensional space-time continuum in 1908. In other words, knowledge of the space-time continuum has been around for more than 250 years.
Minkowski was another link from Gottingen, the place that so much seems to link to, where he was a professor. He was Einstein's teacher, Hilbert's friend, and he studied the concept of n-dimensional space as Cantor had. On the subject of n-dimensional space Cantor himself exclaimed, "I see it, but I don't believe it!" in reference to how points correspond to n-dimensional space.
David Hilbert, colleague and friend of Einstein and Minkowski, stated that "Cantor has created a paradise from which no one shall expel us." Hilbert and Cantor vacationed together in Wengen, Switzerland, along with a number of other notable mathematicians who were sharing a brief holiday together.
Some of the greatest scientific and mathematical minds in history have studied the various aspects of space and time, and Einstein worked on the concept of a wormhole. If the great mind of Einstein believed in wormholes, why shouldn't we? If space-time exists as a single unit and wormholes are possible, the question then becomes: How do we open the wormhole?
Hypothetically, if we intersect the zero-dimensional Cantor space with the four-dimensional space-time continuum, we end up with a traversable wormhole through both space and time which would allow time travel.

Brody set the papers down for a moment and looked up at Cindy. "Okay, so suppose all this scientific theory is true. How come there aren't unexplained appearances where people from the future are popping up on the street like
I Dream of Jeannie
? Or even people from the past?"

"Brody, Brody..." Cindy shook her head ruefully. "Maybe there are. Who knows? Maybe the extraterrestrials that appear out of nowhere aren't from somewhere else at all. Maybe they're from right here in our future. Maybe some of our greatest inventors popped in from the future. Maybe I popped in from the future!" Cindy teased.

"You don't really believe that, do you? Like those little grey men with the big black eyes are our descendants? No way, Cindy! I don't believe we're going to evolve into...
those
creatures!"

"So you at least admit that
those
creatures exist?"

"No! No way! That's not what I said at all! You're twisting my words, Cindy."

"Look, we're getting off the subject here. Do you want to know what happened to Max or not?"

"Okay, okay. So what about Max?" Brody asked a little too harshly.

"What I was saying was that Max had found a way to go back in time. He found it, Brody, for real! Edmond Halley's compass and the Pallasite meteorite ring were the key ingredients. When brought together they opened a wormhole. Not only did Max figure out the secret, he brought back proof."

Ever the skeptic, Brody wrinkled his nose as if smelling a sour onion. "What proof? Show me the proof. I don't believe any of this. Max just has a wild imagination, that's what I think. Maybe you were reading one of the stories he wrote. He
is
a writer you know!"

A flicker of doubt took the harshness out of his statement. He was remembering the day he'd had lunch with Max. Could it be real? Cindy saw the flicker of doubt and smiled, gesturing to the papers. Brody picked them up and continued to read.

Magnetic compasses contain a magnet that interacts with the Earth's magnetic field and aligns itself to the magnetic North Pole. Early compasses were made of lodestone, which had natural magnetic properties. Compass accuracy is compromised if the compass is close to a strong electromagnetic force. The compass will no longer point to Earth's magnetic north.
One variety of compass consisted of a pivoting needle in a glass box. Better compasses were made with a jewel bearing. Jewel bearings were invented in 1704 and used diamonds, sapphires, rubies or garnets.
According to the Mariner's Compass as published in 1866, the words 'north,' 'east, 'south' and 'west' belonged to both the Old Norse and Teutonic peoples. The compass points as we know them were introduced to England by the Saxons, and to France by the Normans or 'Northmen.' The original spelling was 'northr,' 'austr, 'suthr,' and 'westr.' That these words existed in both France and England proved that the Teutonic and Saxon invaders were of kindred races.
Jacob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm, was fascinated with the mythology and superstitions of the Teutonic peoples back to their earliest beginnings. It was once believed that several countries, including Germany where the Grimm Brothers were from, derived their words for the compass points from the Teutonic peoples.
In Old Norse, the compass points are respectively given the meaning of 'narrowing (pinching),' 'violent,' 'seething,' and 'wet.' Some languages have even more interesting derivations of the meanings for the compass points. The language of Lezgian, an almost extinct language in parts of Russia, Turkey, the Ukraine and thereabouts, offers one such interesting meaning.
The word 'kefer' which is used for 'north' can also mean 'disbelief,' since to the north of the Lezgian regions were the lands inhabited by the Avars and Chechens, who brought disbelief to the Lezgians.
The origins of the Chechens are of particular interest. They are considered a Vainakh people, who were once pagan in their beliefs. They worshipped trees, believing that invisible spirits lived within the trees, and each variety of tree had its own ritual. Nature was of such importance that it was considered sinful to ruin an anthill or hunt goats during their mating season.
The Chechens believed in many gods including P'eerska - the Keeper of Time, Maetskhall - Lord of the Rocks, and Aira - Patron of the Eternal Timeline.

Brody paused and looked up at Cindy. "Okay, so some ancient peoples believed in the gods of time. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Notice that they also believed in the power of rocks and were connected to Pallasite meteorites as you are about to read. In other words, the powers of the Pallasite and its effect on time travel were known centuries ago, Brody. Keep reading."

The Chechen language belongs to the family of Nakh languages, as does the language of the Bats people, connecting the two peoples. The first reference to the Bats people was made in a book written by Johannes Guldenstadt and published by none other than Peter Simon Pallas, of whom the stony-iron meteorite known as the 'Pallasite' was named after.
That the Bats people worshipped gods who were the Keepers of Time and the Eternal Timeline, and a god who was Lord of the Rocks, and had contact with the man who first discovered the Pallasite meteorite, was quite amazing in light of what we now know about the powers of the Pallasite and its relation to the time line.
Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin in 1741, and died in Berlin in 1811. He attended the University of Halle where Georg Cantor was a professor for his entire career beginning in 1874. Pallas' father was also a professor at the university. While neither of the Pallases would have encountered Cantor, it is an interesting coincidence.
Peter Pallas also attended the University of Gottingen in 1759, the same university where Einstein gave lectures at the invitation of Hilbert in 1915, and which was located in the same town where Josef Grimm was pastor in 1945 during World War II. Most notably, the University of Gottingen boasts one of the largest collections of rocks, minerals, fossils, and meteorites in the world, with more than four million individual specimens.
Gottingen was also the location of one of the first magnetic observatories, established by Gauss and Weber for the study of geomagnetic measurements. This observatory became known as the 'Center of the Magnetic Union' in Gottingen in the early 1800s, and most of the magnetic observatories used what was known as 'Gottingen time' rather than 'Greenwich mean time.'
Weber, along with Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, formed a political group called the 'Gottingen Seven' to protest against the King of Hannover. Gauss, who was not one of the Seven, assisted the astronomer Piazzi in calculating the orbit of the asteroid Ceres. Gauss's son Eugen founded the First National Bank of St. Charles, Missouri.
Not only was Gottingen the hub of geomagnetic studies, it was the central location for the study of meteorites. Pallas, the Grimms, Minkowski, Hilbert, Einstein, Cantor, and Captain William Parry's son - all were connected to Gottingen - the place where time began as the Center of the Magnetic Union.
Pallas was in London in 1761, home of the Halley family where he could have met the descendants of Edmond Halley. Pallas later went to Berlin. It seems as if everyone connected to the science that allows one to travel through time touched their feet in the same places during their lifetimes, and many were linked to one another in strange and sometimes secret ways.