including being followed day and night, and some times even openly harassed, that the subject was mentioned no further.
Rankin knew he had to be very, very careful with Rakesohn. He needed to silence this critic, but do it in a way that did not appear he was intentionally insulting or demeaning anyone’s religious beliefs.
The time for the public demonstration had come. A successful demonstration would be the final step to unify public support for his proposal to build the Cube and silence his critics once and for all. Rankin had already conducted the experiments which confirmed his theories to the satisfaction of the scientific community. Over the previous week he had also performed three successful dry runs of the demonstration. He and his hand-picked team felt confident and worked so well together that instructions weren’t required; everyone knew their job.
The demonstration was held at mid-day. It was broadcast live on Oria and rebroadcast later that day on all of the major planets of the galaxy. The only event in our history of such significance observed by all of humanity at a preordained time was Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. Per Rankin’s explicit instructions, there was no unnecessary hype: no pre-, or pre-pre-game shows, no over-the-top commercials made only for the event. He was concerned that if the program was too long, people might become bored and turned off, or even get irritated that their time was being wasted. Coverage began just ten minutes before the actual demonstration. Everyone knew the issues and their significance; there was no need for commentators. People would be sufficiently impressed by the results without a clueless, seemingly stoned commentator blubbering inanities such as, “Hey baby, look at that black hole,” or “Like, that was like, a most excellent virtual photon,” or “That dude Rankin’s kind of cute, and he really rocks.”
Rankin was dressed in a waist-length white lab coat over a white shirt and maroon bow tie, as was the fashion on Oria at the time. He was of slightly above average height with a build best described as wiry. Rankin wasn’t muscular, but his board-flat stomach and square shoulders attested to the fact he was disciplined in taking care of himself and that he considered his personal appearance to be important.
Overall, Rankin, the unquestioned greatest mind of his century, was just a very average-looking guy. He knew it and accepted reality. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t handsome either. He didn’t have those dashing good looks that make the opposite sex come running or leave their phone number on his pillow. His lips were average lips, his forehead seemed a little prominent, and his nose actually a little big. On most other men that kind of a nose would detract from their looks, but on Rankin it somehow added a look of strength and masculinity. His reddish-brown hair was cut short with the front combed in a crown. He could have been a welder, a schoolteacher, an electrician, a fireman, a waiter, a writer, a musician, a physician, an engineer, or even a professional gambler. He just happened to be the greatest scientific genius of the century.
Rankin was an introvert: a shy man most comfortable when by himself and deep in thought. He was, to one degree or another, uncomfortable when in groups or giving talks. But he understood from an early age that the only way to get ahead was by interacting with people, so he worked almost as hard on his social skills as on his science.
Rankin had rehearsed what he would say word for word, with accompanying voice inflexions, body motions and facial expressions, all week until it was flawless. And then he rehearsed it some more. He later admitted he was still nervous, but it didn’t show; his speech was clear and concise, as organized as his thoughts.
Rankin first introduced the four scientists that would be assisting him with the experiment. Then he introduced his five “honored” guests: Aht, who finally realized he’d been had but it was too late to do anything about it, Bowher, who remained totally clueless, Rakesohn, Csomor, and finally Omerah. Standing the vertically-challenged Omerah next to the statuesque Csomor was no mistake; Rankin wanted to make him look like the runt that he was.
Rankin began to explain the experiment, supplemented by graphs and images, or live shots when appropriate. “We have placed one hundred powered satellites equal distance from each other 100 thousand kilometers from the event horizon. Each satellite is connected to the adjacent one by flaxnor cables, stronger than spider silk, to form a ring around the black hole. For the demonstration itself, we will send ten solid iron spheres, each one meter in diameter, through the event horizon at one second intervals. The virtual photons will enter and then come back out of the black hole, allowing us to follow the path of the iron spheres in their course toward the singularity at the center of the black hole. Because virtual photons travel several orders of magnitude, several log units, tens to hundreds times faster than the speed of light, the computers will process the data to correct for this effect and present it in a way easier to understand.
“Gravity slows time. The stronger the gravity, the more time is slowed. The computers are also programmed to factor in this gravity-time distortion, so that everything will appear in our time frame.”
Rankin continued to explain the demonstration in a methodical, scholarly way, yet with words and pictures easy for the lay person to understand. “The accretion disk around the black hole is composed of gases and particles coming from the star Mhairi and beyond, from anywhere in our solar system or even the galaxy, that are captured by the gravity of the black hole. These gases and particles become increasingly dense and move faster and faster,” explained Rankin with a twist of his finger, “spiraling as they approach the black hole. In the immediate vicinity of the event horizon, the pull of gravity is so strong that the particles can no longer maintain this spiral course.”
Bowher was scratching her head as she texted away to her boyfriend.
“In their last moments,” continued Rankin, “the particles can resist the immense gravity no longer and plunge straight toward and through the event horizon into the black hole. These same centrifugal forces cause the accretion disk to be flat.”
The camera switched to a real-time shot of the black hole and the accretion disk. “The farther away the gases are from the event horizon, the lower the frequency of their emitted electromagnetic radiation. As they approach the event horizon, the gases become more agitated, energized, giving off electromagnetic radiation—the scientific term for light—of increasingly higher frequencies. This gradient gives the accretion disk the appearance of a rainbow. The periphery, or outer boundary, is red, the spectrum of colors then passing through orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, with the innermost area of the disk appearing violet.”
Switching back to a diagram, Rankin said, “To prevent the gases and accretion disk from interfering with our demonstration, the ring of satellites are a hundred meters above the plain of the accretion disk.”
A few perceptive people noted that Rankin used the possessive rather than the generic throughout the demonstration: “we” and “our” instead of “the.” He also made sure everyone knew it was “his” demonstration.
“Another flaxnor cable runs from each satellite toward the black hole,” he said. “Because of the immense gravitational pull these cables will remain taut and totally motionless. The ring of satellites will move in the same direction and at the same speed as the swirl, allowing them to maintain a synchronous orbit relative to the black hole. At the end of each cable are two, one-meter square mirrors fastened in parallel with the mirrored surfaces inward,” said Rankin, making a hand motion similar to putting two pieces of bread together to make a sandwich, “facing each other, separated by a distance of just one micron. With the mirrors so close, the Casimir Effect will facilitate the generation and orientation of the virtual photons. Because of the tremendous amount of energy required to maintain the stability of the system, the mirrors will be slowly lowered to their final position ten meters from the event horizon just moments before the demonstration will begin.”
Not one in a million people had ever heard of the Casimir Effect before Rankin mentioned it. By the next day it was all over the papers and taught in all of the beginning physics courses. It was also quickly picked up by the rag sheets, radio call-in talk shows, tweeters and frompers with comments such as: “How to prevent the Casimir Effect from hurting your children,” to “You must have your home scanned for stray Casimir rays.” Plaintiff’s attorney immediately realized the potential: