Scientists in the Hands of an Apathetic God
From the Associated Press- 5/12/2006
Today, physicists at the University of Cincinnati are attempting to re-create the results of last weeks fluke experiment when three department members using a particle accelerator and high powered laser to re-heat a pizza created an artificial gravitational field for three minutes. During these three minutes, everything fell towards the pizza as if it had a mass comparable to half of earths, but only objects within forty feet seemed to be affected. The effect stopped suddenly, resulting in three confused but cheesy PhD’s. At 11:45, they plan to re-heat another extra-large cheese pizza from local pizzeria Adriatico’s using the same methods as last Thursday. Members of the scientific community express hope that this experiment, if successful, could pave the way towards unification. Members of the press from every organization able to send a reporter in time for today’s test have done so, and the university is all abuzz.
From the Associated Press- 5/12/2006
Today there has been a lab accident at the University of Cincinnati. Analysis of the live feed from the test of last weeks fluke creating of an artificial gravitational field reveal that when the procedure was repeated, the pizza became radioactive for a short period of time. Instruments in the lab detected ultraviolet radiation exceeding that experienced on Mercury, poisoning everyone present. The pizza then exploded, decimating most of the campus. Every building within a quarter mile has been destroyed, casualties keep rising, and the scientific community is horrified by the possibility that they may never be able to safely create an artificial gravitational field. Upon prompting, they also revealed that they feel badly that people died as well.
From the Associated Press- 5/13/2006
Rescue crews have been combing through the rubble room by room in each of the seventeen buildings destroyed at the University of Cincinnati from yesterday’s lab explosion. They report that every room has had its windows broken from the explosion. Only six people have been confirmed dead, although six hundred sixty six standers by and members of the press are being treated for extreme radiation poisoning across the street at university hospital. Six thousand six hundred and sixty six persons are being treated for minor radiation exposure, and numerous others have moderate injuries from the resulting explosion. Surviving statisticians are going into withdrawal at the sheer improbability of such numerical symmetry; Theologians are shouting that this proves the existence of God while logicians remind them that it only proves the existence of the devil. The theologians then celebrate that they made the logicians admit believing in a supernatural being.
Of note is that only one room within the blast zone was unharmed. This was the local Starbucks.
Chapter 1
I came for the Pizza. I won’t lie. The professors were going to re-heat a pizza and said that if I came and helped I could have a piece. My job was to be simple; run the ultraviolet radiation detector. However, it soon became a look like you are running the ultraviolet radiation detector, because the faculty were so nervous they did everything themselves. All I did was watch a meter while the faculty cooked my pizza. Or that was the plan.
The press were everywhere. I had three guys from Scientific American standing behind me with a live feed camera aimed through my meter at my pizza. The devices were all calibrated, and the particle accelerator was ready to fire. They flipped the switch. Then the cheese turned a pale shade of “glowing plutonium” and the meter went to the red part. I always hated mesons anyways. The pizza subsequently exploded. That makes me mad for two reasons. First: I can no longer eat it. Second: I am now dead, close to it, or still asleep and the whole thing is a dream. I am hoping for the first or the last. I don’t mind continuing on living, it’s not too bad. I eat, sleep, attempt to decipher physics, write out long physics labs, and complain to physics majors about our lack of social lives. Being dead wouldn’t be too bad either. I know that when I die I go to a wonderful heaven where the food is great, I don’t need sleep anymore, there is an infinite amount of time, I can just ask the guy who invented physics and he can tell me how it all works, and I can spend the rest of eternity having fun and hanging out with all the cool saints and believers.
The white light from the exploding pizza is receding, I had better figure out what is happening.
Chapter 2
Everything appeared at once. “ID please,” the man at the desk in front of me asked with a heavy foreign accent. I pulled out my wallet and attempted to give him my driver’s license. I found my wallet had been replaced with an “Eternal ID.” I wasn’t all too upset; I am a student, all my wallet had in it was my under 21 drivers license, no money and my parents credit card, nothing important or irreplaceable.
I gave him the ID; it had a picture of someone resembling me, and had a magnetic strip in it. “Thank you. Welcome to Heaven, this card will allow you access to every area you wish. Please use the panel in the next room and the magnetic strip to review your life and shortcomings. In the following room receive forgiveness and enter into blissful paradise forever.” The phone on his desk rang. “Hello, admissions and financial aid. How may I help you?” A short pause. “Yes, alright. I will send him right in.” He hung up. “You are to be issued a visitors pass instead of that ID” he snatched the ID from me and dug in his drawer.
I was curious. “I thought this was St. Peter’s Job.”
“Yes, it is. He hired me to come from my home country and work for him for twenty years.”
“What???”
He sighed. “I come from earth, I am still alive, although in a coma. St. Peter agreed that he would send me back to earth for one more day if I worked his desk for twenty years. However, God did not like this. He said that if an exception were made in my case he would have to allow the rich guy who ignored Lazarus and everyone else for that matter. He discovered that I am cheaper than St. Peter and so gave me the job anyways, but now I just get three seconds back on earth.” He frowned. “Just long enough to pray for salvation.”
I understood him through his accent, a handy skill I had picked up from calculus TA’s. I suppose I was wrong about the angel bit. He handed me a laminated piece of paper on a lanyard. “Please go through this door.” He pointed to the other door that I had not noticed until then, and I went through.
It was but a corridor, lined on one side with one way mirrors overlooked the aforementioned rooms. They were rather boring, although I suppose that they would be a bit harrowing from the other side of the mirror.
At the opposite end of the corridor, an open archway led to a large courtyard with a few trees. Just to my right there was a door into a large mansion that seemed to be God’s. There is just something about God’s house that looks like nothing other than God’s house, and every human knows instinctively what it looks like, even if they cannot describe it until they see it. I walked inside.
I found God straightaway. There were sixteen people other than me in the room, and only one looked like God. For reasons on how I knew this, see the part about God’s house. Anyways, God was sitting on a Lay-z-boy watching Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail with King David. I knew it was King David because he was sitting on the Lay-z-boy to God’s right. Twelve others were on Xboxes, each with his own plasma screen on the wall. I could tell right away that they were playing Halo 3 on Xbox live. Two were playing chess.
“Hello, how are you doing? Oh never mind, I know better than you.” God invited me to sit on a nearby sofa. I did so because it was approaching the black knight scene and I love that part.
After much laughing, God started the introductions. I was correct about King David and his own person, and found that St. Peter was a chess addict who was practicing to try and beat God by playing his brother Andrew. The other twelve disciples (Stephen taking the place of Judas the Betrayer), Paul and Solomon were playing clan matches online. They had started the Heavenlies clan, and were climbing through the rankings. HVN_WiseGuy was the leader of the clan. He was currently in the gunner’s seat of a warthog shooting the two ghosts that were in hot pursuit of the flag currently help by HVN_TheMartyr, who was in the passenger’s seat. HVN_SonOZebedee was driving like a maniac, while his brother HVN_LvdOne provided sniper support. HVN_Zealot launched some timely rockets to ensure the survival of the flag carrier, and the capture happened shortly afterwards. HVN_DoubtIt was contacted was given “the signal” a short while later; he uncloaked in the center of the enemy base, slaughtered most of the denizens, and tossed the flag out to HVN_TheMartyr for another capture. This whole time HVN_DamRoad, HVN_OtherJohn and HVN_BartStar provided expert base defense while HVN_DontCount and HVN_BstCeller kept stealing the enemy vehicles and parking them in the most obscure, hard to get to places one could think of. They also taunted a lot.
Turns out John the Baptist had formed his own clan and was challenging them. They were practicing for the upcoming tournament. From what I hear PAT_EatsBugs has his Patriarchs clan in tip top shape. I was warned to look out for PAT_InfiniteDad and his sword technique, he can cancel like no other, and PAT_PartH2O can vehicle jack from any situation.
God then took me aside into his study. It had a really nice computer and what looked like a place to put a large machine. The Computer had a paused game of The Sims 2 on the screen. He asked, “What would you like to know? I would like to give you the satisfaction of asking.”
“What happened to my pizza that sent me here prematurely?”
“Your professors unexpectedly found a hole in the fundamental laws of the universe. The hole was subsequently fixed and a corollary rule was put into place to discourage future incursions into the area just in case it was not adequately filled.”
I mulled over this information. One glaring question with several growing out of it presented itself. “Aren’t you perfect? Shouldn’t all of the laws of the physical properties of the universe already be in place sans holes? And why would you do such a patchwork job of fixing it? With the very destructive side effects?”
“Very simple. I didn’t do it.”
“Please explain?”
God sighed. “It’s a long story, but you don’t mind if I start from the beginning. In the beginning I created everything. From the fundamental laws of physics to matter to light to time to space to every infinitely complex process that you could never figure out if you were given eternity. I just made it happen. It was PERFECT. I then moved on to forming the grand scope of the universe. I chose one small, otherwise insignificant rock around a fairly average star to be my pet planet. But it had a great view. Your electric lights ruined that for most people. I then formed it into the perfect place for carbon based life. I made small little creatures, then slightly bigger ones, plants, fishes, fuzzy cute things, birds, and finally dolphins. All was perfect. I then went about creating something that could plumb the depths of all I had created, allow them to work with the laws, bend them to the utmost to create their own stuff. So I did. I do things like that.”
I interjected “So then we came along and messed everything up?”
“No, you were just fine. I created you, gave you a couple rules to live by that I knew you couldn’t. Despite the best efforts of the devil, a good number of you tried to obey, we became good friends, and the times were great. I am not sure if you were able to notice, but I am incredibly good at what I do. I could fix every problem you managed to create for yourselves, I protected you, I punished you with JUST the right amount of sternness and overflowing love. There was Abraham and we got along great, he trusted me. Thus started a long line of people I kept an extra special eye on. I had the perfect plan. The intricacy was so awesome. I finally unveiled my big twist. I sent my Son to die to save all mankind. Threw the devil for a loop, I’ll tell ya. In fact, most of you still can’t understand it. That is how good it was.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Well, it just started to grate on my nerves. You were all whining most of the time, rebelling, and the devil was ALWAYS at the door asking to take you out. He was the main problem, not you. I could deal with you for eternity, he was just so annoying. I finally had enough of him. I blew up one day. He had his main boy on the planet burn a favorite city of mine down and blames it on my people. I screamed at him, threatened him, but I had already sentenced him to the worst fate he could imagine, he was just waiting for me to put him away. I thought up a better one, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I let him have some of my job. That’s right; I let him control the world. I told him that this world would last forever if run correctly, and he was in charge now. I said that on two conditions I would end everything and send him to his pit forever. The first is if the world dies. The second is if any of you find the answer.”
“The answer? 42?”
“No, but VERY close. You see, I stripped the universe of all of the complex under layers of physics that day. The bottom layer is now what you call unification. Its teetering on nothing, very fragile. If anyone discovers it, the devil’s toast.”
“So that is why the explosion happened?”
“Yes, you were on the right track, he had missed a hole created by me ripping out some hidden laws of the universe. The devil wanted to cover his mistake.”
I pondered this for some time. I formed up a list of questions, but He answered before I could ask.
“I let the angels deal with the ‘forces of good’ part. The devil has to stay within strict bounds to not defeat himself, but within that I have Michael and his people protecting you all. Starbucks wasn’t destroyed because the devil doesn’t like to destroy his own property. I let him do this because he is the cleverest created thing and it really kills him to have what he wanted in the beginning KNOWING he can’t make it work. It’s also ironic and kind of funny. The Sims is a guilty pleasure, nostalgia for the good old days. Yes, pizza has much more to do with it than you thought. No, no-one told Adams how close he was. On the dolphins either. Yes I still do the prayer things as a part time job. Yes I outsource my tech support and gate personnel.”
“Oh.”
That answered most of the questions I had saved up during my life. I was ready to go back home.
Today, physicists at the University of Cincinnati are attempting to re-create the results of last weeks fluke experiment when three department members using a particle accelerator and high powered laser to re-heat a pizza created an artificial gravitational field for three minutes. During these three minutes, everything fell towards the pizza as if it had a mass comparable to half of earths, but only objects within forty feet seemed to be affected. The effect stopped suddenly, resulting in three confused but cheesy PhD’s. At 11:45, they plan to re-heat another extra-large cheese pizza from local pizzeria Adriatico’s using the same methods as last Thursday. Members of the scientific community express hope that this experiment, if successful, could pave the way towards unification. Members of the press from every organization able to send a reporter in time for today’s test have done so, and the university is all abuzz.
From the Associated Press- 5/12/2006
Today there has been a lab accident at the University of Cincinnati. Analysis of the live feed from the test of last weeks fluke creating of an artificial gravitational field reveal that when the procedure was repeated, the pizza became radioactive for a short period of time. Instruments in the lab detected ultraviolet radiation exceeding that experienced on Mercury, poisoning everyone present. The pizza then exploded, decimating most of the campus. Every building within a quarter mile has been destroyed, casualties keep rising, and the scientific community is horrified by the possibility that they may never be able to safely create an artificial gravitational field. Upon prompting, they also revealed that they feel badly that people died as well.
From the Associated Press- 5/13/2006
Rescue crews have been combing through the rubble room by room in each of the seventeen buildings destroyed at the University of Cincinnati from yesterday’s lab explosion. They report that every room has had its windows broken from the explosion. Only six people have been confirmed dead, although six hundred sixty six standers by and members of the press are being treated for extreme radiation poisoning across the street at university hospital. Six thousand six hundred and sixty six persons are being treated for minor radiation exposure, and numerous others have moderate injuries from the resulting explosion. Surviving statisticians are going into withdrawal at the sheer improbability of such numerical symmetry; Theologians are shouting that this proves the existence of God while logicians remind them that it only proves the existence of the devil. The theologians then celebrate that they made the logicians admit believing in a supernatural being.
Of note is that only one room within the blast zone was unharmed. This was the local Starbucks.
Chapter 1
I came for the Pizza. I won’t lie. The professors were going to re-heat a pizza and said that if I came and helped I could have a piece. My job was to be simple; run the ultraviolet radiation detector. However, it soon became a look like you are running the ultraviolet radiation detector, because the faculty were so nervous they did everything themselves. All I did was watch a meter while the faculty cooked my pizza. Or that was the plan.
The press were everywhere. I had three guys from Scientific American standing behind me with a live feed camera aimed through my meter at my pizza. The devices were all calibrated, and the particle accelerator was ready to fire. They flipped the switch. Then the cheese turned a pale shade of “glowing plutonium” and the meter went to the red part. I always hated mesons anyways. The pizza subsequently exploded. That makes me mad for two reasons. First: I can no longer eat it. Second: I am now dead, close to it, or still asleep and the whole thing is a dream. I am hoping for the first or the last. I don’t mind continuing on living, it’s not too bad. I eat, sleep, attempt to decipher physics, write out long physics labs, and complain to physics majors about our lack of social lives. Being dead wouldn’t be too bad either. I know that when I die I go to a wonderful heaven where the food is great, I don’t need sleep anymore, there is an infinite amount of time, I can just ask the guy who invented physics and he can tell me how it all works, and I can spend the rest of eternity having fun and hanging out with all the cool saints and believers.
The white light from the exploding pizza is receding, I had better figure out what is happening.
Chapter 2
Everything appeared at once. “ID please,” the man at the desk in front of me asked with a heavy foreign accent. I pulled out my wallet and attempted to give him my driver’s license. I found my wallet had been replaced with an “Eternal ID.” I wasn’t all too upset; I am a student, all my wallet had in it was my under 21 drivers license, no money and my parents credit card, nothing important or irreplaceable.
I gave him the ID; it had a picture of someone resembling me, and had a magnetic strip in it. “Thank you. Welcome to Heaven, this card will allow you access to every area you wish. Please use the panel in the next room and the magnetic strip to review your life and shortcomings. In the following room receive forgiveness and enter into blissful paradise forever.” The phone on his desk rang. “Hello, admissions and financial aid. How may I help you?” A short pause. “Yes, alright. I will send him right in.” He hung up. “You are to be issued a visitors pass instead of that ID” he snatched the ID from me and dug in his drawer.
I was curious. “I thought this was St. Peter’s Job.”
“Yes, it is. He hired me to come from my home country and work for him for twenty years.”
“What???”
He sighed. “I come from earth, I am still alive, although in a coma. St. Peter agreed that he would send me back to earth for one more day if I worked his desk for twenty years. However, God did not like this. He said that if an exception were made in my case he would have to allow the rich guy who ignored Lazarus and everyone else for that matter. He discovered that I am cheaper than St. Peter and so gave me the job anyways, but now I just get three seconds back on earth.” He frowned. “Just long enough to pray for salvation.”
I understood him through his accent, a handy skill I had picked up from calculus TA’s. I suppose I was wrong about the angel bit. He handed me a laminated piece of paper on a lanyard. “Please go through this door.” He pointed to the other door that I had not noticed until then, and I went through.
It was but a corridor, lined on one side with one way mirrors overlooked the aforementioned rooms. They were rather boring, although I suppose that they would be a bit harrowing from the other side of the mirror.
At the opposite end of the corridor, an open archway led to a large courtyard with a few trees. Just to my right there was a door into a large mansion that seemed to be God’s. There is just something about God’s house that looks like nothing other than God’s house, and every human knows instinctively what it looks like, even if they cannot describe it until they see it. I walked inside.
I found God straightaway. There were sixteen people other than me in the room, and only one looked like God. For reasons on how I knew this, see the part about God’s house. Anyways, God was sitting on a Lay-z-boy watching Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail with King David. I knew it was King David because he was sitting on the Lay-z-boy to God’s right. Twelve others were on Xboxes, each with his own plasma screen on the wall. I could tell right away that they were playing Halo 3 on Xbox live. Two were playing chess.
“Hello, how are you doing? Oh never mind, I know better than you.” God invited me to sit on a nearby sofa. I did so because it was approaching the black knight scene and I love that part.
After much laughing, God started the introductions. I was correct about King David and his own person, and found that St. Peter was a chess addict who was practicing to try and beat God by playing his brother Andrew. The other twelve disciples (Stephen taking the place of Judas the Betrayer), Paul and Solomon were playing clan matches online. They had started the Heavenlies clan, and were climbing through the rankings. HVN_WiseGuy was the leader of the clan. He was currently in the gunner’s seat of a warthog shooting the two ghosts that were in hot pursuit of the flag currently help by HVN_TheMartyr, who was in the passenger’s seat. HVN_SonOZebedee was driving like a maniac, while his brother HVN_LvdOne provided sniper support. HVN_Zealot launched some timely rockets to ensure the survival of the flag carrier, and the capture happened shortly afterwards. HVN_DoubtIt was contacted was given “the signal” a short while later; he uncloaked in the center of the enemy base, slaughtered most of the denizens, and tossed the flag out to HVN_TheMartyr for another capture. This whole time HVN_DamRoad, HVN_OtherJohn and HVN_BartStar provided expert base defense while HVN_DontCount and HVN_BstCeller kept stealing the enemy vehicles and parking them in the most obscure, hard to get to places one could think of. They also taunted a lot.
Turns out John the Baptist had formed his own clan and was challenging them. They were practicing for the upcoming tournament. From what I hear PAT_EatsBugs has his Patriarchs clan in tip top shape. I was warned to look out for PAT_InfiniteDad and his sword technique, he can cancel like no other, and PAT_PartH2O can vehicle jack from any situation.
God then took me aside into his study. It had a really nice computer and what looked like a place to put a large machine. The Computer had a paused game of The Sims 2 on the screen. He asked, “What would you like to know? I would like to give you the satisfaction of asking.”
“What happened to my pizza that sent me here prematurely?”
“Your professors unexpectedly found a hole in the fundamental laws of the universe. The hole was subsequently fixed and a corollary rule was put into place to discourage future incursions into the area just in case it was not adequately filled.”
I mulled over this information. One glaring question with several growing out of it presented itself. “Aren’t you perfect? Shouldn’t all of the laws of the physical properties of the universe already be in place sans holes? And why would you do such a patchwork job of fixing it? With the very destructive side effects?”
“Very simple. I didn’t do it.”
“Please explain?”
God sighed. “It’s a long story, but you don’t mind if I start from the beginning. In the beginning I created everything. From the fundamental laws of physics to matter to light to time to space to every infinitely complex process that you could never figure out if you were given eternity. I just made it happen. It was PERFECT. I then moved on to forming the grand scope of the universe. I chose one small, otherwise insignificant rock around a fairly average star to be my pet planet. But it had a great view. Your electric lights ruined that for most people. I then formed it into the perfect place for carbon based life. I made small little creatures, then slightly bigger ones, plants, fishes, fuzzy cute things, birds, and finally dolphins. All was perfect. I then went about creating something that could plumb the depths of all I had created, allow them to work with the laws, bend them to the utmost to create their own stuff. So I did. I do things like that.”
I interjected “So then we came along and messed everything up?”
“No, you were just fine. I created you, gave you a couple rules to live by that I knew you couldn’t. Despite the best efforts of the devil, a good number of you tried to obey, we became good friends, and the times were great. I am not sure if you were able to notice, but I am incredibly good at what I do. I could fix every problem you managed to create for yourselves, I protected you, I punished you with JUST the right amount of sternness and overflowing love. There was Abraham and we got along great, he trusted me. Thus started a long line of people I kept an extra special eye on. I had the perfect plan. The intricacy was so awesome. I finally unveiled my big twist. I sent my Son to die to save all mankind. Threw the devil for a loop, I’ll tell ya. In fact, most of you still can’t understand it. That is how good it was.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Well, it just started to grate on my nerves. You were all whining most of the time, rebelling, and the devil was ALWAYS at the door asking to take you out. He was the main problem, not you. I could deal with you for eternity, he was just so annoying. I finally had enough of him. I blew up one day. He had his main boy on the planet burn a favorite city of mine down and blames it on my people. I screamed at him, threatened him, but I had already sentenced him to the worst fate he could imagine, he was just waiting for me to put him away. I thought up a better one, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I let him have some of my job. That’s right; I let him control the world. I told him that this world would last forever if run correctly, and he was in charge now. I said that on two conditions I would end everything and send him to his pit forever. The first is if the world dies. The second is if any of you find the answer.”
“The answer? 42?”
“No, but VERY close. You see, I stripped the universe of all of the complex under layers of physics that day. The bottom layer is now what you call unification. Its teetering on nothing, very fragile. If anyone discovers it, the devil’s toast.”
“So that is why the explosion happened?”
“Yes, you were on the right track, he had missed a hole created by me ripping out some hidden laws of the universe. The devil wanted to cover his mistake.”
I pondered this for some time. I formed up a list of questions, but He answered before I could ask.
“I let the angels deal with the ‘forces of good’ part. The devil has to stay within strict bounds to not defeat himself, but within that I have Michael and his people protecting you all. Starbucks wasn’t destroyed because the devil doesn’t like to destroy his own property. I let him do this because he is the cleverest created thing and it really kills him to have what he wanted in the beginning KNOWING he can’t make it work. It’s also ironic and kind of funny. The Sims is a guilty pleasure, nostalgia for the good old days. Yes, pizza has much more to do with it than you thought. No, no-one told Adams how close he was. On the dolphins either. Yes I still do the prayer things as a part time job. Yes I outsource my tech support and gate personnel.”
“Oh.”
That answered most of the questions I had saved up during my life. I was ready to go back home.
posted by Duncan Ohio at 9:28 PM
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