Free Quantum Times by Bill Diffenderffer Page A

from him when she saw the effects of her words about Planck. She took his hand and said they should go back to their room. She seemed to have the same idea in her mind that David had a few moments earlier. Apparently all the talk about physics was a turn on. Or maybe it was just the island palms swaying, the setting sun and the warm ocean breeze on their bare skin. The laws of chemistry, if not physics, seemed to be working as usual.
     
         Later when David and Gabriela went to rejoin the professor and Planck, they found them already in spirited conversation sitting at a table on the outdoor patio. “David, Gabriela, I’m glad to see you. Planck and I have been having a wonderful conversation. My recent work and his actually coincide….He has just been much bolder than I have in pursuing the logical extensions of what our studies and theories have been telling us. Once again it is the young minds who lead the old in Physics.”
         Planck looked up at them with a smile and waved them to take a seat. “Dr. Wheeling is too modest. I am already sitting at his feet and learning. I was right in sharing my secret with him… and you too.”
         “So where are we?” David asked as he and Gabriela took seats around the table.
         The professor took the lead. “Basically we have three challenges to overcome and all three need to be addressed quickly. The first is what to do about The Object wanting to communicate with Planck? I think we know why it wants him and perhaps even how it found out about him.
         “The second challenge is in advancing the understanding of the Physics involved in his work. In dealing with The Object, whether it is friendly or hostile, we may need to use what Planck has been discovering.
         “The third challenge is in determining what to do about releasing to the world generally and other physicists specifically the results of Planck’s work. We must do so for two reasons: one because others are probably working on it already – rarely are even the most brilliant breakthroughs not being worked concurrently by one or two others and their purposes may be less benign than Planck’s. Second, the existence of The Object and the challenges it presents us may require full exposure.”
         “Wow,” David uttered.
         Then Gabriela interjected, “Since we are physicists I think we should start with the second challenge. The better we understand the actual physics involved the better we should be able to address the other two challenges.”
         Dr. Wheeling and Planck both agreed. As it was Planck’s nature to talk little and the professor’s nature to lead any intellectual conversation, he spoke first.
         “My new friend Planck and I have been talking for over two hours and in those two hours my thinking has crystallized more than in the last twenty years. The foundation for all physicists’ dream of a Theory of Everything is found in Planck’s work. Not surprising to me is that it is rooted in extending quantum physics to the Einstein world of large masses. What happens at the absolutely tiny quantum level sets the rules for the universe itself.
         “As we all know, it has been well accepted for years that an “observer” is necessary at the quantum level to turn potential mass into real mass. Without an Observer the world – the universe itself – is just a wave function of probabilities. Until the Observer shows up, nothing actually happens. Without an Observer, the universe, as it was at the time of The Big Bang, is almost without mass but it has almost limitless potentiality.
         “The Universe then consists basically of the laws of physics spoken in the beautiful language of mathematics. The laws of physics and our mathematics are the Universe. But there is something else lurking out in the universe –something that changes everything – literally changes everything. It is the Observer. Or as it is better