Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

antimatter. Others find that setup dangerously crowded-make it every second galaxy.

Still others prefer universe-and-antiuniverse with antimatter in ours only on rare

occasions when energetic particles collide so violently that some of the energy

forms antiparticles. And some like higher numbers of universes-even an unlimited

number.

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One advantage of light’s finite speed is that we can see several eons of the

universe in action, rather than just one frame of a very long moving picture.

Today’s instruments reach not only far out into space but also far back into time;

this permits us to test in some degree a proposed cosmology. The LST (Large Space

Telescope), to be placed in orbit by the Space Shuttle in 1983, will have 20 times

the resolving power of the best ground-based and atmosphere-distorted conventional

telescope-therefore 20 times the reach, or more than enough to see clear back to the

“beginning” by one cosmology, the “big bang.”

(Q: What happened before the beginning? A: You tell me.)

When we double that reach-someday we will- what will we see? Empty space? Or

the backs of our necks?

(Q: What’s this to me? A: Patience one moment….)

The star nearest ours is a triplet system; one of the three resembles our

sun and may have an Earthlike planet-an inviting target for our first attempt to

cross interstellar space. Suppose that system is antimatter- BANG! Scratch one

starship.

(Hooray for Zero Population Growth! To hell with space-travel boondoggles!)

Then consider this: June 30, 1908, a meteor struck Siberia, so blindingly

bright in broad daylight that people 1,000 miles away saw it. Its roar was

“deafening” at 500 miles. Its ground quake brought a train to emergency stop 400

miles from impact. North of Vanavara its air blast killed a herd of 1,500 reindeer.

Trouble and war and revolution-investigation waited 19 years. But still

devastated were many hundreds of square miles. How giant trees lay pinpointed

impact.

A meteor from inside our Galaxy can strike Earth at 50 miles/second.

But could one hit us from outside our Galaxy?

Yes! The only unlikely (but not impossible) routes are those plowing

edgewise or nearly so through the Milky Way; most of the sky is an open road-step

outside tonight and look. An antimeteor from an antigalaxy could sneak in through

hard vacuum-losing an antiatom whenever it encountered a random atom but

nevertheless could strike us massing, say, one pound.

One pound of antimatter at any speed or none would raise as much hell as

28,000 tons of matter striking at 50 miles/second.

Today no one knows how to amass even a gram of antimatter or how to handle

and control it either for power or for weaponry. Experts assert that all three are

impossible.

However…

Two relevant examples of “expert” predictions:

Robert A. Millikan, Nobel laureate in physics and distinguished second to

none by a half-century of re

search into charges and properties of atomic particles, in quantum mechanics, and in

several other areas, predicted that all the power that could ever be extracted from

atoms would no more than blow the whistle on a peanut vendor’s cart. (In fairness I

must add that most of his colleagues agreed-and the same is true of the next

example.)

Forest Ray Moulton, for many years top astronomer of the University of

Chicago and foremost authority in ballistics, stated in print (1935) that there was

“not the slightest possibility of such a journey” as the one the whole world watched

34 years later: Apollo 11 to the moon.

In 1938, when there was not a pinch of pure uranium-235 anywhere on Earth

and no technology to amass or control it, Lise Meitner devised mathematics that

pointed straight to atom bombs. Less than seven years after she did this, the first

one blazed “like a thousand suns.”

No possible way to amass antimatter?

Or ever to handle it?

Being smugly certain of that (but mistaken) could mean to you . . . and me

and everyone

The END

AFTERWORD

I am precluded from revising this article because Encyclopaedia Britannica

owns the copyright; I wrote it under contract. But in truth it needs no revision but

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can use some late news flashes.