An Academic Life
Idol Mini-Season 2024
Prompt 13: Omakase
Due Date: October 28, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Omakase: "I leave it up to you."
A meal consisting of dishes selected by the chef.
AN ACADEMIC LIFE
The bottom fell out of John Wilson’s stomach and he almost tripped over it on his way to Prof. Schmidt’s office, who had summoned him for some unknown reason.
“What have I done now?” he muttered. John was not the professor’s favorite student. Prof. Schmidt had a very low opinion of his graduate student’s intelligence, and usually called him Depp [1] in his heavily accented German. He had never bothered to learn John’s name, assuming that he would not be around long enough to bother.
John knocked politely on the half-open door to the sanctum and went in. He was always intimidated by the huge desk and shelves crammed with books and journals on theoretical physics, with the professor’s own books prominently placed. Prof. Schmidt had once been a Nobel Prize candidate for his work on black holes. The loss had continued to eat at him and had made him even more unpleasant.
“Too bad they don’t give out Nobel Prizes for being a jerk,” John thought.
“You will sit in that chair,” the professor commanded, pointing to an old wooden chair near the door, not one of the nice leather ones opposite The Desk. John quickly obeyed.
“You are familiar with the quantum accelerator in the basement of Curie Halll, yes?”
The quantum accelerator had once been state of the art and Prof. Schmidt had used it as a young man for his ground-breaking work. Even though few people now utilized it, the professor had always liked it and had fought off several attempts by the university to scrap it after a modern one had been built.
“Yes,” said John. Prof. Schmidt liked short, direct answers, especially from John.
“Don’t waste my time, Depp,” he had often said, especially after John had said more than ten words.
“I have been running a critical experiment on it, one which will finally prove that cold fusion can be achieved.”
Cold fusion had long been Prof. Schmidt’s obsession and he was determined to create a workable cold fusion reactor, despite the First Law of Thermodynamics and Newton’s Third Law of Motion, as well as many other bedrock precepts of physics. Cold fusion had long been consigned to the junk science bin, along with faster than light travel. It ranked slightly above UFOs in credibility.
“I have to leave today for a conference on cold fusion in Las Vegas,” said the professor. “I need you to monitor my experiment. You don’t need to do anything but watch the data streams and call me if there is anything interesting. You can handle this, yes?”
“Absolutely,” said John, although he had no idea what data the professor might consider interesting, since he had never involved John in his cold fusion experiments.
“Don’t let me down, Depp,” commanded the professor, “and whatever you do, don’t touch anything! I’ll be back in four days.”
Prof. Schmidt was famous for his Las Vegas conferences. No one had ever been able to find a scientific conference of any kind in Sin City. Everyone assumed he was going to Vegas for the same reasons as everyone else.
The professor gave John the keys to the reactor lab and hurried him out the door.
John walked to Curie Hall with his shoulders back, a sparkle in his eyes, and confidence in his step.
“At last,” John thought, “he’s given me something important to do!”
Prof. Schmidt would have disagreed with this. He thought of him as Depp the babysitter, nothing more.
The quantum accelerator resembled a huge doughnut, and it took up the huge basement of Curie Hall. It was painted bright red with frequent yellow radioactive material signs on it. There were pipes, valves, and gauges galore, with thick bundles of wires leading to a bank of old computers on a long desk pushed up against a wall, with numerous monitors displaying green characters against a black background.
Prof. Schmidt’s papers and notes were neatly stored in a nearby bookcase and his personal, modern laptop was on the desk. Prof. Schmidt had taped a note to one of the monitors: “Depp Do Not Touch Anything!!!”
Everything was quiet, except for the occasional hiss from one of the larger pipes.
“It’s the 1970s,” thought John as he plopped into an old desk chair, which squeaked whenever he shifted his weight.
At first, he watched columns of numbers streaming down the screens. One screen was devoted to the results of the accelerator and another screen contained the heading “Cold Fusion Status.” The various outputs all read zero.
“No cold fusion,” John thought.
He settled in for a few days of boredom. There was a small kitchen with a refrigerator and a microwave oven, and another tiny room had a cot.
“Everything a grad student needs,” John sighed. It sadly reminded him of his studio apartment, only better.
The numbers rushing by on the several computer screens meant nothing to John. He looked at the cold fusion status screen from time to time. After about an hour, he opened his backpack and took out his laptop.
“This is the perfect time to make some real progress on my thesis,” John thought. He was researching the intersection of Newtonian physics with quantum physics, but he hadn’t made any real progress for months. He had started to feel his Ph.D. slipping away.
John could be diligent and focused when he wanted to, but this was not one of those times.
“I’m going to be here for days,” he thought. “I need a break.”
Fortunately, the breakroom refrigerator was well-stocked with beer. German beer. Heavy, dark, and bitter. But beer was beer, so John opened a bottle and went back to his laptop. The accelerator seemed to be doing what accelerators do, and John thought this would be a good time to play a few games.
He quickly settled into a routine. Check the accelerator data screens, drink some beer, play some games, take a nap, repeat and repeat and repeat.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Prof. Schmidt was not having a very good conference. Luck was decidedly against him and his bankroll was looking a little thin. So, he did what all gamblers do in such situations - he kept playing because surely his luck would change.
The history of science is full of “Eureka!” moments, where all the hard work finally comes together and a scientist can now prove his hypothesis, advancing our understanding of the universe. This was almost one of those times.
Three days into John’s babysitting, the computer monitors showed something extraordinary. The streaming numbers changed from random to a few patterns, which gradually merged into one big pattern of data. At that point, the status screen started blinking, “Cold Fusion Achieved.”
Moments like this are rare in science. John didn’t know what to do. There are some people who know exactly what to do. These are the ones who should be in control. John was not one of those people. Prof. Schmidt should never have left him in charge. It was the kind of mistake that can ruin lives and destroy reputations.
John had clear proof that cold fusion was possible and the old accelerator was now a cold fusion reactor, producing more energy than it consumed. This was the answer to global warming, air pollution, and a host of energy-related problems.
John just sat there, frozen, gazing at the computer screens. The simple answer was to call Prof. Schmidt with the news. There was a telephone on the desk, but something held him back.
It was hatred. Hatred of Prof. Schmidt. Hatred of cold fusion. Pure, soul-crushing hatred.
John knew what he had to do. Prof. Schmidt must never know of his success. There must not be a Nobel Prize. Cold fusion had to die as it was born, in an old, dilapidated accelerator. One that was prone to mechanical problems and strange breakdowns. Prof. Schmidt must not merit even a footnote in the annals of physics, other than as a cautionary tale and the source of many jokes.
“He deserves it,” thought John.
There was a large pipe running into the accelerator, with a big valve, and two imposing signs reading “Coolant” and “Do Not Turn Off.” John cranked the valve shut.
Almost immediately, deep within the accelerator, strange grinding sounds started. The accelerator started to shake and it became hot. Then hotter still. At this point, John grabbed his laptop, as many of the professor’s notebooks as he could cram into his backpack, and the professor’s laptop.
Then he did what even a Depp would do, and he ran for his life.
Alarms sounded and red emergency lights blinked as John bolted out of the basement. He kept on bolting as firetrucks and a hazmat team arrived. The hazmat team took some radiation readings, then they too ran away, followed quickly by the fire department.
The accelerator did not care about all the pandemonium. It continued to do what naturally happens when its coolant is cut off. It melted down. And then it stopped. There were no more scary noises or geysers of steam. Just quiet.
The next day, the hazmat team returned. They were surprised when they found no excess radiation. Because this was cold fusion, no lasting radiation had been emitted. The accelerator itself had broken apart and was partially melted, but there was no danger any more. Curie Hall was otherwise undamaged.
John kept on running. He knew he had ruined his academic career and lawsuits would follow. He packed his car and headed to California, famous for dreams and second chances. Needing a new identity, John adopted Prof. Schmidt’s hated nickname for his last name, and he finally settled in Hollywood, where he worked as a tutor until something better came along, which surprisingly did.
Prof. Schmidt finally returned from his conference, unshaven, bleary-eyed, and broke. As soon as he set foot on the campus, he was escorted to the Provost’s Office, where he was terminated. He then did what anyone in his position would do. He returned to Germany and became lost to history.
Cold fusion research was set back years, but its true believers kept working at it. A variant of cold fusion finally produced more energy than it consumed and pilot programs are underway. A condition of the grants was that neither John nor Prof. Schmidt be allowed anywhere near the program.
_________________________________
[1] The German word Depp is offensive and translates to "fool," "idiot," "twit," "dope," "jerk," or "jackass."
Prompt 13: Omakase
Due Date: October 28, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Omakase: "I leave it up to you."
A meal consisting of dishes selected by the chef.
AN ACADEMIC LIFE
The bottom fell out of John Wilson’s stomach and he almost tripped over it on his way to Prof. Schmidt’s office, who had summoned him for some unknown reason.
“What have I done now?” he muttered. John was not the professor’s favorite student. Prof. Schmidt had a very low opinion of his graduate student’s intelligence, and usually called him Depp [1] in his heavily accented German. He had never bothered to learn John’s name, assuming that he would not be around long enough to bother.
John knocked politely on the half-open door to the sanctum and went in. He was always intimidated by the huge desk and shelves crammed with books and journals on theoretical physics, with the professor’s own books prominently placed. Prof. Schmidt had once been a Nobel Prize candidate for his work on black holes. The loss had continued to eat at him and had made him even more unpleasant.
“Too bad they don’t give out Nobel Prizes for being a jerk,” John thought.
“You will sit in that chair,” the professor commanded, pointing to an old wooden chair near the door, not one of the nice leather ones opposite The Desk. John quickly obeyed.
“You are familiar with the quantum accelerator in the basement of Curie Halll, yes?”
The quantum accelerator had once been state of the art and Prof. Schmidt had used it as a young man for his ground-breaking work. Even though few people now utilized it, the professor had always liked it and had fought off several attempts by the university to scrap it after a modern one had been built.
“Yes,” said John. Prof. Schmidt liked short, direct answers, especially from John.
“Don’t waste my time, Depp,” he had often said, especially after John had said more than ten words.
“I have been running a critical experiment on it, one which will finally prove that cold fusion can be achieved.”
Cold fusion had long been Prof. Schmidt’s obsession and he was determined to create a workable cold fusion reactor, despite the First Law of Thermodynamics and Newton’s Third Law of Motion, as well as many other bedrock precepts of physics. Cold fusion had long been consigned to the junk science bin, along with faster than light travel. It ranked slightly above UFOs in credibility.
“I have to leave today for a conference on cold fusion in Las Vegas,” said the professor. “I need you to monitor my experiment. You don’t need to do anything but watch the data streams and call me if there is anything interesting. You can handle this, yes?”
“Absolutely,” said John, although he had no idea what data the professor might consider interesting, since he had never involved John in his cold fusion experiments.
“Don’t let me down, Depp,” commanded the professor, “and whatever you do, don’t touch anything! I’ll be back in four days.”
Prof. Schmidt was famous for his Las Vegas conferences. No one had ever been able to find a scientific conference of any kind in Sin City. Everyone assumed he was going to Vegas for the same reasons as everyone else.
The professor gave John the keys to the reactor lab and hurried him out the door.
John walked to Curie Hall with his shoulders back, a sparkle in his eyes, and confidence in his step.
“At last,” John thought, “he’s given me something important to do!”
Prof. Schmidt would have disagreed with this. He thought of him as Depp the babysitter, nothing more.
The quantum accelerator resembled a huge doughnut, and it took up the huge basement of Curie Hall. It was painted bright red with frequent yellow radioactive material signs on it. There were pipes, valves, and gauges galore, with thick bundles of wires leading to a bank of old computers on a long desk pushed up against a wall, with numerous monitors displaying green characters against a black background.
Prof. Schmidt’s papers and notes were neatly stored in a nearby bookcase and his personal, modern laptop was on the desk. Prof. Schmidt had taped a note to one of the monitors: “Depp Do Not Touch Anything!!!”
Everything was quiet, except for the occasional hiss from one of the larger pipes.
“It’s the 1970s,” thought John as he plopped into an old desk chair, which squeaked whenever he shifted his weight.
At first, he watched columns of numbers streaming down the screens. One screen was devoted to the results of the accelerator and another screen contained the heading “Cold Fusion Status.” The various outputs all read zero.
“No cold fusion,” John thought.
He settled in for a few days of boredom. There was a small kitchen with a refrigerator and a microwave oven, and another tiny room had a cot.
“Everything a grad student needs,” John sighed. It sadly reminded him of his studio apartment, only better.
The numbers rushing by on the several computer screens meant nothing to John. He looked at the cold fusion status screen from time to time. After about an hour, he opened his backpack and took out his laptop.
“This is the perfect time to make some real progress on my thesis,” John thought. He was researching the intersection of Newtonian physics with quantum physics, but he hadn’t made any real progress for months. He had started to feel his Ph.D. slipping away.
John could be diligent and focused when he wanted to, but this was not one of those times.
“I’m going to be here for days,” he thought. “I need a break.”
Fortunately, the breakroom refrigerator was well-stocked with beer. German beer. Heavy, dark, and bitter. But beer was beer, so John opened a bottle and went back to his laptop. The accelerator seemed to be doing what accelerators do, and John thought this would be a good time to play a few games.
He quickly settled into a routine. Check the accelerator data screens, drink some beer, play some games, take a nap, repeat and repeat and repeat.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Prof. Schmidt was not having a very good conference. Luck was decidedly against him and his bankroll was looking a little thin. So, he did what all gamblers do in such situations - he kept playing because surely his luck would change.
The history of science is full of “Eureka!” moments, where all the hard work finally comes together and a scientist can now prove his hypothesis, advancing our understanding of the universe. This was almost one of those times.
Three days into John’s babysitting, the computer monitors showed something extraordinary. The streaming numbers changed from random to a few patterns, which gradually merged into one big pattern of data. At that point, the status screen started blinking, “Cold Fusion Achieved.”
Moments like this are rare in science. John didn’t know what to do. There are some people who know exactly what to do. These are the ones who should be in control. John was not one of those people. Prof. Schmidt should never have left him in charge. It was the kind of mistake that can ruin lives and destroy reputations.
John had clear proof that cold fusion was possible and the old accelerator was now a cold fusion reactor, producing more energy than it consumed. This was the answer to global warming, air pollution, and a host of energy-related problems.
John just sat there, frozen, gazing at the computer screens. The simple answer was to call Prof. Schmidt with the news. There was a telephone on the desk, but something held him back.
It was hatred. Hatred of Prof. Schmidt. Hatred of cold fusion. Pure, soul-crushing hatred.
John knew what he had to do. Prof. Schmidt must never know of his success. There must not be a Nobel Prize. Cold fusion had to die as it was born, in an old, dilapidated accelerator. One that was prone to mechanical problems and strange breakdowns. Prof. Schmidt must not merit even a footnote in the annals of physics, other than as a cautionary tale and the source of many jokes.
“He deserves it,” thought John.
There was a large pipe running into the accelerator, with a big valve, and two imposing signs reading “Coolant” and “Do Not Turn Off.” John cranked the valve shut.
Almost immediately, deep within the accelerator, strange grinding sounds started. The accelerator started to shake and it became hot. Then hotter still. At this point, John grabbed his laptop, as many of the professor’s notebooks as he could cram into his backpack, and the professor’s laptop.
Then he did what even a Depp would do, and he ran for his life.
Alarms sounded and red emergency lights blinked as John bolted out of the basement. He kept on bolting as firetrucks and a hazmat team arrived. The hazmat team took some radiation readings, then they too ran away, followed quickly by the fire department.
The accelerator did not care about all the pandemonium. It continued to do what naturally happens when its coolant is cut off. It melted down. And then it stopped. There were no more scary noises or geysers of steam. Just quiet.
The next day, the hazmat team returned. They were surprised when they found no excess radiation. Because this was cold fusion, no lasting radiation had been emitted. The accelerator itself had broken apart and was partially melted, but there was no danger any more. Curie Hall was otherwise undamaged.
John kept on running. He knew he had ruined his academic career and lawsuits would follow. He packed his car and headed to California, famous for dreams and second chances. Needing a new identity, John adopted Prof. Schmidt’s hated nickname for his last name, and he finally settled in Hollywood, where he worked as a tutor until something better came along, which surprisingly did.
Prof. Schmidt finally returned from his conference, unshaven, bleary-eyed, and broke. As soon as he set foot on the campus, he was escorted to the Provost’s Office, where he was terminated. He then did what anyone in his position would do. He returned to Germany and became lost to history.
Cold fusion research was set back years, but its true believers kept working at it. A variant of cold fusion finally produced more energy than it consumed and pilot programs are underway. A condition of the grants was that neither John nor Prof. Schmidt be allowed anywhere near the program.
_________________________________
[1] The German word Depp is offensive and translates to "fool," "idiot," "twit," "dope," "jerk," or "jackass."