Monday Afternoon
Assistant Professor Rick Munday checks his e-mail for the fourth time since lunch. The National Science Foundation will announce grant funding awards this week. Six months earlier Rick had submitted a grant proposal entitled Disturbance Beyond the Kuiper Belt: Potential Risks to Planet Earth. Rick hopes for news of his grant approval.
His office is a jumbled mess. Stacks of books and science journals clutter the floor. Rick has plastered the walls with drawings of planets, charts, and a map of the pockmarked dark side of the moon. A diagram of the solar system covers one wall. It's marked with notes in various colors. The diagram displays the solar system with the asteroid belt hovering between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. He has scribbled notes along the edges of the map marking the Kuiper belt, an area that lies beyond the acknowledged eight planets of our solar system.
In recent years, funds for space science have all but dried up. Although the government has slashed budgets, there's still funding out there for the odd project or study that gains attention of the right people. Rick hopes his proposal will get the attention it deserves.
His office door, blocked by a stack of science journals, opens just enough to allow the head of a thin, scraggly bearded teaching assistant to poke through. "Professor Heinrich won't be in today. He wants you to take the three-p.m. lecture."
"OK," says Munday, still looking at his computer screen as if he expects news of his grant to appear.
"The professor said stick with the syllabus and the assigned subject matter, or you will never give a lecture at this institution again! His words, not mine. I like your lectures, fascinating shit." The door closes.
"Oh yeah, thanks," Munday says to the closed office door.
Rick touches his Smart-Band to call his wife. "Hey, hon, the three-p.m. lecture just got dumped on me. I'll be home later than expected."
"Doesn't that professor ever teach a class?" asks his wife, Courtney.
"He must be at some luncheon cozying up to alumni donors. I don't mind, the department needs funding and the lectures give me a chance to hash out my theories. It's different when you hear yourself say things out loud," says Rick.
"You'll still make it to the picnic dinner, won't you?" asks Courtney.
"Wouldn't miss it."
"Uncle Rob called. He's coming with us."
"Great. He needs to get out of that old house more often. I feel bad. I haven't visited him for months."
Rick Munday loves his wife and family. It's the type of love rarely seen between a husband and wife. He focuses on his family, doing his best to make it to every dinner, soccer practice and baseball game. While he's succeeded in family life, his career has suffered.
Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, Dr. Rick Munday struggles to get papers published and grants funded. Without grants Rick lives on a meager assistant professor's salary. Grant approval would mean more money for himself and the funds to hire a team of astrophysicists to conduct research and publish the results, which leads to additional funding. Providing for his family has been a challenge.
Rick checks his Smart-Band: 2:30 p.m. He'd better get going or he'll be late for the lecture. If he's late, Dr. Heinrich will be mad. Rick checks the department's cloud server and locates the lecture presentation and notes. He puts a copy in his personal folder. Seconds later, his band beeps, acknowledging the file transfer.
The lecture notes and slides for The Evolving Universe, a class designed for freshmen students covering basic astronomy. They are the same notes and slides Dr. Heinrich has used for the past decade, with few changes even though science has advanced. It's one of the many things that frustrates Rick about working for Dr. Heinrich.
Rick pulls his computer monitor out of its cradle, rolls up the flexible monitor, and pushes it into a fabric tube on the side of his backpack. He pulls the office door open enough to slide out and walks to the auditorium.
A second monitor in Rick's office runs a screen saver displaying the old arcade game, Asteroids. A black screen fills with odd-shaped blocks representing asteroids floating around the screen. The asteroids crash into one another, breaking into smaller rocks. A small triangular spaceship appears on the screen beeping, shooting, and blowing up asteroids, making space for the little spaceship to survive.
The TV volume is loud, competing with the noise of the construction project in the kitchen. The reality series, Doomsday Daredevils, is playing. This episode features a man in Nebraska building a personal submarine because he is sure God told him to do so. The host of the show asks the Nebraska fellow why God told him to build a submarine, and the man says he doesn't know. He's just supposed to do it. The interviewer asks, "Did God say it's because of climate change? Does he expect melting polar ice caps to raise sea levels enough to put the state of Nebraska in the middle of a new ocean?" The man says God doesn't need to give a reason. The man continues to work on his oddly shaped submarine.
"Crackpot," an old man yells at the TV, waving a power drill in the air. "Everyone knows the Arctic ice cap is floating on the ocean, so if it melts, big deal. Did your glass of Coke overflow when the ice melted? They'll put any idiot on TV these days." The old man grabs a wrench and tightens a bolt.
He barely hears the phone ring over the sound of the TV. The phone doesn't ring much unless it's a political party calling under the premise of a survey but is soliciting donations, telemarketers selling home fuel cell generators or, on a rare occasion, a call from his nephew, Rick.
The old man picks up the phone. "I don't vote. I don't donate money, and I already have a fuel cell generator. So, you better state your case pronto or I'll hang up faster than you can say, there's life on Mars."
"There's life on Mars. Beat you," says the voice on the other side of the call.
"Ricky-boy, is that you?"
"Yes, it's me Uncle Rob. Turn down the TV. I only have time for a quick call."
"Oh, hold on." Uncle Rob reaches for the remote to mute the TV. The doomsday show is now featuring a man building a Gatling gun. "Idiot!"
"What?" asks Rick.
"Not you, Ricky-boy. The other idiot on the TV."
"Courtney said you'll join us for the picnic dinner."
"She said you're going to Mount Wilson. I haven't been up there in years."
"I'm glad you're coming. I've loved it up there, ever since you first took me."
"There's a new meteor shower. It's supposed to be a good one. Looks like it will be a clear night for viewing the skies." Uncle Rob puts down the wrench, pausing for a moment. "And hey, Ricky-boy, there's something I'd like to discuss with you about the—" Rick cuts him off.
"Sure, OK. We'll be at your place early this evening. I'm about to give a lecture. See you in a few hours."
"Oh, giving a lecture, are you? When I taught at the community college, I didn't cut those kids any slack just because it was a community college."
"Uncle Rob, Sorry. I've got to go."
Uncle Rob starts a familiar rant, not realizing the call has already ended. "It's not my fault the establishment at those institutions wouldn't accept my new ideas. Rick? Ricky-boy? You there? Uh, must have lost the signal." Rob says as he shakes the phone, then the TV once again captures his attention.
The doomsday builder with the Gatling gun is test firing. His targets are four mannequins in a various state of undress, propped against a four-by-eight-foot slab of plywood. The Gatling gun rips the dummies apart; arms and legs flying in the air, cutting the plywood in half with a torrent of bullets. Uncle Rob picks up his wrench and shakes it at the TV. "Idiot."
Rob is a tall, grumpy, potbellied seventy-year-old who wears thick glasses and has a healthy shock of unkempt white hair, giving him the look of a mad scientist. In a way, he is a mad scientist. He's been mad for forty years. Mad because as a young researcher at Penn State, a younger misunderstood Robert Munday was shunned for pushing new ideas in astrophysics. His department head had refused to publish his research.
Rob had criticized the institution. They had implied that one succeeds only if you promote the ideas ascribed by the scientific establishment. If you don't agree to take their line of thought, you get pushed out. In the academic world, if you don't have support from your department head and you don't publish, you perish.
Rob had fought the system for a few years, but the realities of life and the need to make a living won out. He soon found himself teaching astronomy and physics at Pasadena City College.
Rick stands behind a podium on a stage at the front of the auditorium. Many freshmen classes meet in large auditoriums, where hundreds of students at a time are indoctrinated into the collegiate mindset.
Rick brings his band close to his mouth and speaks, "Cloud, broadcast, The Evolving Universe, lecture three." The projector then beams a presentation entitled The Evolving Universe (Ay 1), Lecture Three on the screen behind Rick. Students stream in, filling the seats.
There's a type of brainwashing conducted in the halls of higher learning; professors tell students they will have better opportunities and will benefit from the knowledge imparted to them; they are the elite of society. It happens even in classes as mundane as, The Evolving Universe. Heinrich has scripts, such as these, written into the lecture notes that Rick reviews on the presenter's screen built into the podium. "What bullshit," he says to himself as he scrolls through the slides.
Students are entering the lecture hall. Four young female students and one male student take seats in the front row.
Three o'clock. Rick steps in front of the podium. Although in his mid-thirties Rick is still handsome. He is tall and fit with a runner's build and a healthy head of dirty blond hair. Rick looks out at the auditorium. Two of the young women in the front row smile at him. Another tilts her head looking up at Rick running her hand through her hair. The male student grins, staring up at Rick adoringly. He starts the lecture even though students are still finding their seats.
"I'm Assistant Professor Munday. Today is lecture three. I hope to impart to you the knowledge and wisdom learned over the millennia by men who invested their lives studying the great beyond. Through study of our solar system, our galaxy, and the universe, we hope to learn how and why we exist. Because you are attending this university, you have the privilege to learn what others never will. Your career may not end up being in astronomy or astrophysics, like mine, but you will gain knowledge most people will never be exposed to, you will..." Rick pauses, scanning the lecture notes. Half under his breath he utters, "OK, enough bullshit. Let's get to the lecture." Ricks comment is met with hoots, howls, and whistles from the students.
"Lecture Three," Rick says, as he swipes his hand over the presenter's screen. The projector beams an image of our solar system. "In previous lectures, we learned the solar system comprises the sun, with eight planets in orbit around the sun. You should know the planet names from your lecture notes. The orbits of the planets are elliptical, like stretched out circles, in a nearly flat disc, called the ecliptic plane. However, there are more objects in our solar system than the sun and these eight planets."
Rick swipes his hand to load the next slide. "In this slide, we see the asteroid belt lies in the area or space—ha, ha—between Mars and Jupiter," Rick read.
He almost laughs out loud. The bad jokes, even the "ha, ha" are in the lecture notes. Rick's patience is wearing thin.
Trying his best to be a good assistant professor, Rick continues reading the lecture notes. "Beyond Neptune there is an area, or disc of asteroids, called the Kuiper Belt. Some of these objects are in strange, unstable orbits and can get bumped out of orbit; thus, the Kuiper Belt is believed to be the source of comets." Rick stops. He looks out at the students. The ones who aren't reading on their VUEs or sleeping look bored.
Rick claps his hands. No reaction from the students. Rick hates seeing bored students. How can they learn anything if they're bored or sleeping?
Rick jumps ahead in the lecture swiping to a new slide in the presentation. It displays an animation of the solar system in motion on the large screen behind him.
"Hey, class! Hey, wake up... Look up here!" Many students shift in their seats. "Watch the animation behind me. Does this look correct? Hold up your hand if you believe this is how our solar system is moving in space," Rick says, putting additional emphasis on the word space.
A few hands shoot up. Slowly, hands rise. One young lady lifts her hand only halfway up. Maybe she's hoping to be only half wrong.
"All right, most of you believe what we are seeing is correct. What else should I expect? This is what they taught you to believe. You can put your hands down. And young lady—yes, you on the right—you can put it all the way down. I will give fifty extra credit points to anyone who can tell me what's wrong with this animation."
Rick pauses, looking out at the students. He shades his eyes from the stage lights, so he can see the dark upper rows of the auditorium. "No one? No brave soul? Nobody with an original thought?" He waits a moment longer, but none of the students move. "It's not a trick. You won't lose fifty points if your answer is wrong. Anyone?" No hands are raised, not even halfway.
Rick lifts his band to a few inches from his mouth. The band's display illuminates. Rick speaks. "Cloud, broadcast heliocentric model." The projector beams a new animation that shows the solar system not sitting still in space with the planets rotating around the sun, but the sun and planets, the entire solar system, moving through space with the planets rotating in their imperfect orbits around and behind the sun, with the heliosphere at the leading edge looking like a force field for the solar system as it moves through space.
"Wow! Whoa, cool!" The student's express excitement.
Rick's energy soars. It's always more interesting to teach when students are engaged or at least awake. Now, he has their attention. Maybe he can teach them something. Screw the lecture notes.
"The solar system is not just a bundle of spinning planets sitting at some stationary place in the Milky Way galaxy. No, not at all. Our solar system is moving through space at a speed of four hundred eighty-six thousand miles per hour traveling in an orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our home galaxy. Even though we are ripping through space at almost five hundred thousand miles per hour, it takes our solar system over two hundred thirty million years to complete a galactic orbit. The last time the sun was at this exact spot in its galactic orbit, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. I don't want to scare any of you, but for that same fifty extra credit points, does anyone know what wiped out the dinosaurs?"
"Hands? Any hands? Come on." Rick tries to encourage participation. The young lady who lifted her hand halfway up earlier fully extends her arm. "Yes, young lady on my right," Rick points into the auditorium.
The young student shouts, "A huge asteroid hit Earth. Dust clouds blocked the sun, and the dinosaurs died off. They became extinct."
"Ding, ding, ding. Fifty bonus points for the young lady in the fourth row. Excellent yes, that is the prevailing theory. I believe it could have been more than one huge asteroid. It might have been several."
The animation continues playing on the large screen showing the solar system on its path around the center of the Milky Way.
"Unfortunately, your text-books are based on science twenty to thirty years old. Things have been tough for the advancement of science because of the wars and budget cuts. The government has shut down most of the space observatories for lack of funds. However, just a few years ago we had access to amazing telescopes and space probes. We have discovered many things about our universe that haven't made it into your textbooks. But I guess I'd better get back to the lecture as written or you'll all flunk the test!" A young man in the second row raises his hand. "Question from the front. Shoot."
"If our solar system is in the same area when the dinosaurs went extinct, couldn't the same thing happen to us?" asks the student.
Rick raises his arm to shade his eyes, so he can see the young. Rick's band illuminates. "That is one of the worst-case scenarios that experts have kicked around. But the dinosaurs lived for over 160 million years and existed until 65 million years ago, so we aren't in the bombardment location."
Rick's Smart-Band displays Worst-Case Scenarios. The animation on the auditorium's large screen changes without Rick noticing.
"OK, let's get back to the subject or Dr. Heinrich will cause my extinction." Rick again reads from the lecture notes. "The largest objects in the asteroid belt are Ceres and Vesta." The students are all paying rapt attention. Their eyes are glued to the screen. Rick believes he's making an impact.
The first scenario shows volcanoes erupting all over the planet, in Hawaii, South America, Indonesia, Iceland, and Italy causing horrific destruction as they blast volcanic ash high into the atmosphere. Then the massive caldera, that is Yellowstone National Park explodes in a super-eruption hurling millions of pounds of ash into the upper atmosphere, blotting out the sun and causing a volcanic winter. Earth temperatures plunge, killing off most plant, animal, and human life.
The next scenario shows the solar system on its orbit around the galaxy encountering a dense cloud. Hidden in the cloud is an area crowded with asteroids and enormous ice balls. The solar system gets bombarded by asteroids and comets. The planets look like they are in a pinball machine, being hit repeatedly by space rocks. A series of asteroids impact the surface of Mars causing some boys to shout "Whoa" or "Yes," excited to see Mars' demise. Rocks pummel the Earth and moon with a multitude of bombardments. Asteroids crush the moon to bits and Earth breaks into large fiery chunks spinning through space.
The final scenario entitled; Likely Someday displays a not-too-distant yet massive star collapsing into a supernova, sending an intense gamma-ray burst at Earth. Earth roasts as if it were inside a microwave oven. The atmosphere slowly burns away. There is a worldwide drought. Crops fail. Animals die. The screen displays starving children eating handfuls of maggots from the carcass of a dead cow.
Girls in the front row gag. The boy acts like he's about to vomit and runs out of the auditorium and the girls chase after him. Other students take this as an excuse to leave class and move for the exits. Rick turns to look at the screen behind him, as Earth's oceans boil. The video cuts to emaciated animals dying on barren cracked dirt. "Oh shit. Cloud stop broadcasting," Rick shouts to his band. "Stop, stop, stop!"
He turns to the students leaving the auditorium. "Come back! Nothing will happen!" Then he says to himself, "Well, there is a low probability," then louder, "But not likely!"
Rick tries once more to stop the students "Class isn't over," he yells, as he packs his things and the last students leave the auditorium. He mumbles to himself, "This will not go over well with Dr. Heinrich."
The teaching assistant who notified Rick of the lecture walks up to the podium. "Like I said, I love your lectures. So cool." The teaching assistant goes out a side door.
Rick looks out on an empty auditorium. "I'm gonna need that grant."