Michelle frowned, hesitating to state the obvious. Eric nodded encouragingly. “Yes?”
“Because the air . . .”
“The atmosphere is moving with us,” he completed for her. “That’s right. There’s no catch. It’s like when you’re in a plane. You can talk easily to the passenger next to you in the cabin because your whole acoustic environment and its physics is moving with you. But try doing it sitting out on the wing.”
“Okay. . . .” Michelle nodded that it made sense so far.
Eric shrugged in a way that seemed to say that was all she really needed to understand. “The Earth carries its electromagnetic environment along with it too, in exactly the same way.” He used both hands to trace a vertical, streamlined drop shape in the air. “You can see it clearly on the field plots of data from space probes over the last fifty years. There’s a huge bow shock-wave about ten Earth radii out, which the charged-particle flux from the sun streams around like water around a boat.”
“You mean like a kind of . . . bubble?”
“Exactly—with us inside it, like the cabin of the plane. Well, about a century ago, before all that was known, a famous experiment was performed to measure the electromagnetic wind of the Earth moving through space. But it didn’t detect anything.”
“So? . . .”
“So they invented Relativity to explain why.”
Michelle screwed up her face, checking for something she might have missed, then shook her head. “But why would it need explaining? They shouldn’t expect to detect anything. It would be like . . .” she sought an analogy, finally settling for the one Eric had used, “trying to measure your airspeed inside the plane.”
Eric nodded. “Exactly. But it’s in all the textbooks. And the clergy have been taught not to question the written Word, you see.”
Michelle looked at him disbelievingly. “Surely it can’t be that simple.”
“I really think it is. So do a number of other physicists. But they’re not the ones in charge. Science has gone the way of the medieval European Church and sold out to politics. It doesn’t pursue truth anymore; it promotes correct agendas.”
“So are you saying that Relativity is wrong?”
“Not wrong. Just a needlessly complicated way of interpreting what’s going on. Ptolemy’s epicycles weren’t ‘wrong.’ You can still say that the planets move in loops if you want. It fits the observed data. But trying to figure out laws of motion to make it work would drive you crazy. We’re still waiting for the new Copernicus to come along who’ll be listened to—but in the meantime, we do what we can. In fact I’ll be speaking on this at a conference that’s being held up in the mountains over the holiday weekend. So wish me luck, eh?”
“Oh? Where’s this?”
“A place called Barrow’s Pass. It’s a new, glitzy creation that doubles as a conference center and ski resort.”
Michelle shook her head. “Vanessa away this weekend. You next week. Is it always like that? You don’t seem to see too much of each other.” She meant it as a hint to take a look at his life, without wanting to sound critical.
“We’re like the two yuppies in the story, aren’t we?” Eric said, smiling. “Did you hear about them?”
“Go on.”
“They pass each other on the stairs of the house, both wearing suits and carrying briefcases. He’s just come in; his wife is just rushing out. He shouts back at her, ‘Where are you going?’ She shouts, ‘Tokyo. Where are you back from?’ He says, ‘London.’ Then, just as she gets to the door, she stops and calls back up the stairs, ‘How are the children?’ And he answers, ‘I thought they were with you.’ ”
Michelle laughed, but then her expression became serious again. “We joke about it, but it’s not far from the way a lot of people are getting these days. Life is something that should be lived, not strip-mined. Don’t you think so?”
Eric snorted. “That sounds funny coming from a lawyer. I thought they were supposed to be among the worst.”
“We’re like airplanes,” Michelle told him. “You only hear about us when one flies faster, higher, or crashes.”