The Einstein Papers

CHAPTER 19

In his office at the NIA, Martinez scanned his computer database and retrieved a biography of Einstein. Reading the biography, he began to form a more complete mental picture of the famous scientist. Einstein's famous work on the theory of relativity, the theoretical foundation for the technology behind the atomic bomb, was published early in the physicist's life, while Einstein was still a young man.

For the remainder of his career as a physicist, both in Europe and later in the United States, Einstein had worked tirelessly to try to prove his Unified Field Theory. It was rumored he was even working on it the day he died.

For decades prior to his death, the Unified Field Theory had consumed all of Einstein's vast mental attention. The theory he was attempting to prove appears simple enough even to a layman. The Unified Field Theory sought to explain all the forces in the universe — how gravitation, electricity, and magnetism might be tied together. There was no way to know the impact it might have on the world if the relationship between these forces could be understood.

Martinez glanced at the clock on the wall of his office. It was now past 7:00 a.m. He walked to the break room and filled his coffee cup, then grabbed a corn muffin from a plate on the counter. Balancing the cup to keep it from spilling, he reentered his office. Placing the cup on his desk, he closed the door and sat behind his desk. He picked up the phone and dialed George Washington University. An operator at the main switchboard answered and asked for an extension.

"Professor Harris, please," Martinez said. "One moment. May I ask who's calling?" the operator inquired.

"Larry Martinez. I'm a friend of the professor's." He waited several minutes to be connected. "Larry, you old fart, what's on your mind?" Mel Harris said when he came on the line.

"Still an early riser, I see," Martinez said.

"I've been doing three miles on the running track Monday through Friday. I'm still in the locker room, in fact."

Harris had been attached to the National Security Agency for several years prior to returning to teaching. He and Martinez had worked together often on joint operations. Still in his mid-thirties, Harris didn't fit most people's mental image of a physics teacher. He looked and dressed like a golf pro but his lightning-fast mind was that of a pure physicist.

"What I'm about to tell you is classified or soon will be. Are you still cleared?'

Martinez asked seriously.

"I still get occasional assignments from the Crystal Palace, so yes, I have my ticket," Harris said.

The reference to the Crystal Palace, as the NSA was sometimes called, inferred Harris enjoyed a high degree of clearance.

"Tell me what you know about Einstein's Unified Field Theory," Martinez asked without further comment.

Harris ran through the theory, stopping to expound on the details only when Martinez sought clarification. 'That's about the basis of it. By the way, everything I told you is in textbooks. It hardly qualifies as top secret. What else do you need to know?'

"Did he ever finish the work?" asked Martinez.

"Who knows? Apparently not, though some of his papers from his final hospital stay are missing. Plus, no one has ever really deciphered his last set of equations," Harris said.

Martinez considered the statement, "Mel, if Einstein had completed the theory, could it be used to create a weapon?'

"Yes. That and a thousand other uses I could think of."

"Just theoretically, how much power might such a weapon contain?" Martinez asked carefully.

Theoretically, Larry? To put it into layman's terms, it would make a hydrogen bomb look like a popgun. Depending on how exactly the theory was utilized, you might be able to produce an object roughly the size of a golf ball that could blow up a land mass the size of Australia."

"Shit," Martinez blurted out without thinking.

"No shit, Larry. If controlled properly, a mass the size of a small car could blow up the world," Harris said. "But who would be dumb enough to want to blow up the world?'

"Maybe not blow it up," Martinez said carefully. "The mere threat might be enough."

"That would be one hell of a threat," Harris agreed.