"Burstein, Michael A - Broken Symmetry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burstein Michael A)

Stratton glared at him. "I still need to call in some people. Scientists."
Kingsley shook his head and smiled. "Call in your scientists if you want, Mr.
Stratton, but I'm going to call in mine. Probably just as good."
"Yours?" Stratton asked, with the slightest hint of a sneer.
"Yep, mine. I'm going to call in the guy who knows all there is to know about
this accelerator. Got to know him a little over ten years ago, when he first
came to direct the project. He's back at Harvard now. If anyone knows what
caused this thing to start burping over the past month, he would." Kingsley
turned to his deputies, and in an even voice, said, "Get me Roy Schwitters."
#


1. Spin Up
The Superconducting Supercollider had been up and running for over a year now,
and Ray Shwartz still couldn't figure out why they weren't able to get any data.
He squatted in an underground access corridor, next to the main ring, and
inspected the wall separating the two. The fluorescent light and white walls
made it easy to see, and what Ray found annoyed him. There was nothing wrong
with the wall. It was completely whole.
Footsteps echoed from behind and interrupted him. He stood up, pulled down the
knot of his tie and mopped his bald head with a handkerchief; despite the air
conditioning system and its infernal hum, Ray still felt hot from the Texas
climate. He was more used to the climate of Boston, or Seattle. "Yes?" he asked,
turning around.
Dr. Julia Kristin Anderson came around the corner. "Hello, Professor Shwartz --
I mean, Ray," she said, and smiled.
Ray smiled back at her. Kristin had her Ph.D. for a year now; they were more
colleagues than teacher and student. And yet she still couldn't break her old
habits of calling him "Professor."
"It's OK, Kristin. At least you didn't call me 'Director.' What's up?"
She squatted down next to the wall that Ray had just examined, and checked it
herself. "Completely intact."
"I thought we might have had a resurgence of the fire ants," Ray said, "but I
doubt even they could chew through that." They laughed for a moment as Kristin
stood up, and then Ray continued. "So what news do you have for me? It's
obviously not a problem with the ring."
Kristin's face settled into a more somber expression. "I wanted to tell you this
personally." She paused.
"Yes?"
"Apparently, there's nothing wrong with either the scintillators or the
computers. The particle detectors should be working perfectly."
Ray closed his eyes and sighed. "Damn. That's what I was afraid of. How many
beams have we run since the collider became operational? Almost a hundred,
right?"
"Ninety-three, if we include the beams at the beginning that did yield data."
"It wasn't enough." Ray pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. "Damn it,
Kristin, I wish I could figure this out. The SSC was my major goal in life. I
know this may sound silly, but it was to be the grand culmination of the years I
had spent doing physics. By now, we were supposed to have found the Higgs boson
and verified the theory of Grand Unification. Instead, we're getting nothing."