The Zero Game

66

“Now what’s this for again?” Dr. Minsky asks, unbending a paperclip and tapping it lightly on the edge of his desk.

“Just background,” I say, hoping to keep the discussion moving. “We’ve got this project we’re looking at-”

“A new neutrino experiment?” Minsky interrupts, clearly excited. It’s still his pet issue, so if there’s some new data out there, he wants to play with the toys first.

“We really shouldn’t say,” I reply. “They’re still in the early stages.”

“But if they’re-”

“It’s actually someone who’s a friend of the Congressman,” I interrupt. “It’s not for public consumption.”

The man has two Ph.D.s. He gets the hint. Congressmen do favors for friends every day. That’s why the real news on Capitol Hill is never in the newspapers. If Minsky wants any more favors from us, he knows he has to help us with this.

“So neutrinos, eh?” he finally asks.

I smile. So does Viv — but as she turns her head slightly, glancing out the window, I can tell she’s still searching for Janos. We’re not gonna outrun him without a head start.

“Let me do it like this,” Minsky says, quickly shifting into professor mode. He holds the unbent paperclip up like a tiny pointer, then motions downward, from the ceiling to the floor. “As we sit here right now, fifty billion — not million — fifty billion neutrinos are flying from the sun, through your skull, down your body, out the balls of your feet, and down through the nine floors below us. They won’t stop there, though — they’ll keep going past the concrete foundation of the building, straight through the earth’s core, through China, and back out to the Milky Way. You think you’re just sitting here with me, but you’re being bombarded right now. Fifty billion neutrinos. Every single second. We live in a sea of them.”

“But are they like protons? Electrons? What are they?”

He looks down, trying not to make a face. To the educated man, there’s nothing worse than a layperson. “In the subatomic world, there are three kinds of particles that have mass. The first and heaviest are quarks, which make up protons and neutrons. Then, there’re electrons and their relatives, which are even lighter. And finally come neutrinos, which are so incredibly lightweight there are still some doubters out there who argue they don’t have mass at all.”

I nod, but he knows I’m still lost.

“Here’s the significance,” he adds. “You can calculate the mass of everything you see in a telescope, but when you add all that mass up, it’s still only ten percent of what makes up the universe. That leaves ninety percent unaccounted for. So where’s the missing ninety percent? As physicists have asked for decades: Where’s the missing mass of the universe?”

“Neutrinos?” Viv whispers, accustomed to being a student.

“Neutrinos,” Minsky says, pointing the paperclip her way. “Of course, it probably isn’t the full ninety percent, but a portion of it… they’re the leading candidate.”

“So if someone’s studying neutrinos, they’re trying to…”

“… crack open the ultimate treasure chest,” Minsky says. “The neutrinos that we’re swimming in right now were produced at the big bang, at supernovas, and even, during fusion, at the heart of the sun. Any idea what those three things have in common?”

“Big explosions?”

“Creation,” he insists. “That’s why physicists are trying to figure them out, and that’s why they gave the Nobel to Davis and Koshiba a few years back. Unlock neutrinos and you potentially unlock the nature of matter and the evolution of the universe.”

It’s a nice answer, but it doesn’t get me any closer to my real question. Time to be blunt. “Could they be used to build a weapon?”

Viv looks away from the window; Minsky cocks his head slightly, picking me apart with his scientist’s eyes. I may be sitting in front of a genius, but it doesn’t take one to know something’s up.

“Why would someone use it as a weapon?” he asks.

“I’m not saying they are — we just… we want to know if they can.”

Minsky drops the paperclip and puts his palms flat against his desk. “Exactly what type of project is this for again, Mr. Defresne?”

“Maybe I should leave that for the Congressman,” I say, trying to defuse the tension. All it does is shorten the fuse.

“Maybe it’d be best if you showed me the actual proposal for the project,” Minsky says.

“I’d love to — but right now it’s confidential.”

“Confidential?”

“Yes, sir.”

The fuse is on its last hairs. Minsky doesn’t move.

“Listen, can I be honest with you?” I ask.

“What a novel idea.”

He uses the sarcasm as a mental shove. I purposely twist in my chair and pretend he’s got control. Rope-a-dope. He may have twenty years on me, but I’ve played this game with the world’s best manipulators. Minsky’s just someone who got an A in science.

“Okay,” I begin. “Four days ago, our office got a preliminary proposal for a state-of-the-art neutrino research facility. It was hand-delivered to the Congressman at his home address.” Minsky picks up his paperclip, thinking he’s getting the inside poop.

“Who did the proposal? Government or military?” he asks.

“What makes you say that?”

“No one else can afford it. You have any idea how much these things cost? Private companies can’t pull that kind of weight.”

Viv and I exchange a glance, once again rethinking Wendell, or whoever they really are.

“What can you tell me about the project?” Minsky asks.

“According to them, it’s purely for research purposes, but when someone builds a brand-new lab a mile and a half below the earth, it tends to get people’s attention. Because of the parties involved, we want to make sure that ten years from now, this won’t be coming back to haunt us. That’s why we need to know, worst-case scenario, what’s the potential damage they can do?”

“So they’re going with an old mine, huh?” Minsky asks.

He doesn’t sound surprised. “How’d you know?” I reply.

“It’s the only way to get it done. The Kamioka lab in Japan is in an old zinc mine… Sudbury, Ontario, is in a copper mine… Know what it costs to dig a hole that deep? And then testing all the structural support? If you don’t use an old mine, you’re adding two to ten years to the project, plus billions of dollars.”

“But why do you have to be down there in the first place?” Viv asks.

Minsky looks almost annoyed by the question. “It’s the only way to shield the experiments from cosmic rays.”

“Cosmic rays?” I ask skeptically.

“They’re bombarding the earth at all times.”

“Cosmic rays are?”

“I realize it must sound a little sci-fi,” Minsky says, “but think of it like this: When you fly from coast to coast on an airplane, it’s the equivalent of one to two chest X-rays. That’s why the airlines regularly screen flight attendants to see if they’re pregnant. We’re being bathed in all sorts of particles right now. So why put your science underground? No background noise. Up here, the dial in your wristwatch is giving off radium — even with the best lead shielding, there’s interference everywhere. It’s like trying to do open-heart surgery during an earthquake. Down below the earth’s surface, all the radioactive noise is shut out, which is why it’s one of the few places where neutrinos are detectable.”

“So the fact that the lab’s underground…”

“… is pretty much a necessity,” Minsky says. “It’s the only place to pull it off. Without the mine, there’s no project.”

“Location, location, location,” Viv mutters, glancing my way. For the first time in three days, things are finally starting to make sense. All this time, we thought they wanted the mine to hide the project, but in reality, they need the mine to get the project going. That’s why they needed Matthew to slip the mine in the bill. Without the mine, they have nothing.

“Of course, what really matters is what they’re doing down there,” Minsky points out. “Do you have a schematic?”

“I do… it’s just… it’s with the Congressman,” I say, smelling the opening. “But I remember most of it — there was this huge metal sphere filled with these things called photomultiplier tubes-”

“A neutrino detector,” Minsky says. “You fill the tank with heavy water so you can stop — and therefore detect — the neutrinos. The problem is, as neutrinos fly and interact with other particles, they actually change from one identity to another, making different neutrino ‘flavors.’ It’s like a Jekyll-Hyde type of affair. That’s what makes them so hard to detect.”

“So the tubes are just for observation purposes?”

“Think of it as a big enclosed microscope. It’s an expensive endeavor. Only a few exist in the world.”

“What about the magnet?”

“What magnet?”

“There was this narrow hallway with a huge magnet and these long metal pipes that ran the entire length of the room.”

“They had an accelerator down there?” Minsky asks, confused.

“No idea — the only other thing was this big crate labeled Tungsten.”

“A tungsten block. That definitely sounds like an accelerator, but-” He cuts himself off, falling unusually silent.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing — it’s just, if you have a detector, you don’t usually have an accelerator. The noise from one… it’d interfere with the other.”

“Are you sure?”

“When it comes to neutrinos… it’s such a developing field… no one’s sure of anything. But up until now, you either study the existence of neutrinos or you study their movement.”

“So what happens if you put a detector and an accelerator together?”

“I don’t know,” Minsky says. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.”

“But if they did… what’s the potential application?”

“Intellectually, or-”

“Why would the government or military want it?” Viv asks, getting to the point. Sometimes, it takes a kid to cut through the nonsense. Minsky’s not the least bit thrown. He knows what happens when the government digs its nails into science.

“There are certainly some potential defense applications,” he begins. “This doesn’t require an accelerator, but if you want to know if a particular country has nuclear weapons, you can fly a drone over the country, get an air sample, and then use the ‘quiet’ of the mine to measure the radioactivity in the air sample.”

It’s a fine theory, but if it were that simple, Wendell — or whoever they are — would’ve just requested the mine from the Defense subcommittee. By trying to sneak it though Matthew and the Interior subcommittee, they’re playing dirty — which means they’ve got their hands on something they don’t want public.

“What about weaponry… or making money?” I ask.

Lost in thought, Minsky twirls the tip of his paperclip through the edge of his beard. “Weaponry’s certainly possible… but what you said about making money… you mean literally or figuratively?”

“Say again?”

“It goes back to the nature of neutrinos. You can’t just see a neutrino like you see an electron. It doesn’t show up under the microscope — it’s like a ghost. The only way to see them is to watch their interactions with other atomic particles. For example, when a neutrino hits the nucleus of an atom, it generates a certain type of radiation like an optical sonic boom. All we can see is the boom, which tells us that the neutrino was just there.”

“So you measure the reaction when the two things collide,” Viv says.

“Exactly — the difficulty is, when a neutrino hits you, it also changes you. Some say it’s because the neutrino is constantly shifting identities. Others hypothesize that it’s the atom that gets changed when there’s a collision. No one knows the answer — at least, not yet.”

“What does this have to do with making money?” I ask.

To our surprise, Minsky grins. His salty beard shifts with the movement. “Ever hear of transmutation?”

Viv and I barely move.

“Like King Midas?” I ask.

“Midas… Everyone always says Midas,” Minsky laughs. “Don’t you love when fiction is science’s first step?”

“So you can use neutrinos to do alchemy?” I ask.

“Alchemy?” Minsky replies. “Alchemy is a medieval philosophy. Transmutation is a science — transforming one element into another through a subatomic reaction.”

“I don’t understand. How do neutrinos…?”

“Think back. Jekyll and Hyde. Neutrinos start as one flavor, then become another. That’s why they tell us about the nature of matter. Here…” he adds, opening the top left-hand drawer on his desk. He rummages for a moment, then slams it shut and opens the drawer below it. “Okay, here…”

Pulling out a laminated sheet of paper, he slaps it against his desk, revealing a grid of familiar square boxes. The periodic table. “I assume you’ve seen this before,” he says, pointing to the numbered elements. “One — hydrogen; two — helium; three — lithium…”

“The periodic table. I know how it works,” I insist.

“Oh, you do?” He looks down again, hiding his smile. “Find chlorine,” he finally adds.

Viv and I lean forward in our seats, searching the chart. Viv’s closer to tenth-grade science. She jabs her finger at the letters Cl. Chlorine.

17

Cl

“Atomic number seventeen,” Minsky says. “Atomic weight 35.453(2)… nonmetallic classification… yellowish-green color… halogen group. You’ve heard of it, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, years back, in one of the original neutrino detectors, they filled a hundred-thousand-gallon tank with it. The smell was horrific.”

“Like a dry cleaner’s,” Viv says.

“Exactly,” Minsky says, pleasantly surprised. “Now remember, you only see neutrinos when they collide with other atoms — that’s the magic moment. So when the neutrinos plowed into a chlorine atom just right, the physicists suddenly started finding…” Minsky points down to the periodic table, pressing his paperclip against the box next to chlorine. Atomic number eighteen.

17-18

Cl-Ar

“Argon,” Viv says.

“Argon,” he repeats. “Atomic symbol Ar. Seventeen to eighteen. One additional proton. One box to the right on the periodic table.”

“Wait, so you’re saying when the neutrino collided with the chlorine atoms, they all changed to argon?” I ask.

“All? We should be so lucky… No, no, no — this was one little argon atom. One. Every four days. It’s an amazing moment — and completely random, God bless chaos. The neutrino hits, and right there, seventeen becomes eighteen… Jekyll becomes Hyde.”

“And this is happening right now in the air around us?” Viv asks. “I mean, didn’t you say neutrinos are everywhere?”

“You couldn’t possibly see the reactions with all the current interference. But when it’s isolated in an accelerator… and the accelerator is shielded deep enough below the ground… and you aim a beam of neutrinos just right… well, no one’s come close yet, but think about what would happen if you could control it. You pick the element you want to work with; you bump it one box to the right on the periodic table. If you could do that…”

My stomach twists. “… you could turn lead to gold.”

Minsky shakes his head — and then again starts laughing. “Gold?” he asks. “Why would you ever make gold?”

“I thought Midas…”

“Midas is a children’s story. Think of reality. Gold costs what? Three hundred… four hundred dollars an ounce? Go buy a necklace and a charm bracelet, I’m sure it’ll be very nice — nice and shortsighted.”

“I’m not sure I-”

“Forget the mythology. If you truly had the power to transmute, you’d be a fool to make gold. In today’s world, there are far more valuable elements out there. For instance…” Minsky again stabs the periodic table with his paperclip. Atomic symbol Np.

93

Np

“That’s not nitrogen, is it?” I ask.

“Neptunium.”

“Neptunium?”

“Named after the planet Neptune,” Minsky explains, forever the teacher.

“What is it?” I ask, cutting him off.

“Ah, but you’re missing the point,” Minsky says. “The concern isn’t what is it? The concern is what it could be...” With one final jab, Minsky moves his paperclip to the nearest element on the right.

93-94

Np-Pu

“Pu?”

“Plutonium,” Minsky says, his laugh long gone. “In today’s world, it’s arguably the most valuable element on the chart.” He looks up at us to make sure we get it. “Say hello to the new Midas touch.”