Flights

DARK MATTER

In the third hour of the flight, when the man sitting next to me came back from the bathroom and I had to get up to let him in again, we exchanged a few polite remarks on the weather, the turbulence and the food. During the fourth hour of the flight, however, we introduced ourselves. He was a physicist. He was returning home after giving a series of lectures. When he took off his shoes, I noticed he had an enormous hole in the heel of his sock. Thus I became aware of the physical presence of the physicist, and from that point forward we spoke in a more ordinary way. He told me stories about whales with great enthusiasm, although his work dealt with something else.

Dark matter – that was what he worked on. It’s a thing which we know exists, but without being able to access it, with any instruments. The evidence of its existence arises out of complicated calculations, mathematical results. All signs point to it occupying some three-quarters of the universe. Our matter, clear matter, the matter with which we are familiar and which comprises our cosmos, is inordinately scarcer. Dark matter, meanwhile, is located everywhere, says this man in the sock with the hole in it – right here, all around us. He gazes out the window, indicating with his eyes the blindingly bright clouds beneath us: ‘It’s out there, too. Everywhere. The worst part is we don’t know what it is. Or why.’ I wanted to immediately put him in touch with those climatologists who were flying to their conference in Montreal. I got up and glanced around for them, but then right away I realized, of course, that that was not this flight.