Finally, Ponter himself had come up with a suitable test. His implant, he said, contained complete maps of the nickel mine that was supposedly located near here in his version of Earth; after all, this had been the site of the facility where he worked, too. Of course, most of the major ore bodies had been found by both his people and the Inco staff, but, by comparing the Companions maps to detailed ones on the Inco web site, Ponters implant identified a spot it said contained a rich copper deposit that had eluded Incos detection. If true, it was precisely the sort of information that only someone from a parallel universe might have.
So now Ponter Bodditthey had learned his full nameLouise Benoit, Bonnie Jean Mah, Reuben Montego, and a woman Louise was meeting for the first time, a geneticist named Mary Vaughan, were all standing in the middle of dense woods precisely 372 meters away from the SNO surface building. With them were two Inco geologists, who were operating a core-sampling drill. One of them insisted Ponter could not be right about there being copper at this spot.
They drilled down 9.3 meters, just as Hak had said they should, and the sampling tube was drawn back up. Louise was relieved when the diamond-tipped drill finally shut off; the grinding sound had given her a headache.
The group took the wrapped core back to the parking lot, everyone holding on to it at some point along its length. And there, where there was room to do so, the geologists removed its opaque outer membrane. At the cores top, of course, was humus, and, beneath that, a glacial till of clay, sand, gravel, and pebbles. Below that, said one of the geologists, was Precambrian norite rock.
And beneath that, at precisely the depth Hak had said it would be found at, was
Louise clapped her hands together in excitement. Reuben Montego was grinning from ear to ear. The doubting geologist was muttering to himself. Professor Mah was shaking her head slowly back and forth in astonishment. And the geneticist, Dr. Vaughan, was staring at Ponter with wide eyes.
It was there, precisely where he said it would be: native copper, twisted and bulbous, dull but clearly metallic.
Louise smiled at Ponter as she thought about the verdant, unspoiled world he had described to her the night before. Pennies from heaven, she said softly.
Professor Mah came over to Ponter and took his giant hand in hers, shaking it firmly. I wouldnt have believed it, she said, but welcome to our version of Earth.
Chapter 21
Everyone except the geologists adjourned to a conference room at the Creighton Mine: Mary Vaughan, the geneticist whod come up from Toronto; Reuben Montego, the Inco doctor; Louise Benoit, the SNO postdoc who had been on hand when the detector had been destroyed; Bonnie Jean Mah, director of the SNO project; and, most important of all, Ponter Boddit, physicist from a parallel world, the only living Neanderthal to be seen on this Earth since at least 27,000 years ago.
Mary had chosen to sit beside Bonnie Jean Mah, the only woman in the room whod had an empty chair next to her. Holding forth, standing at the front of the room, was Reuben Montego. Question, he said in that Jamaican accent Mary found delightful. Why is there a mining operation on this site?
Mary herself had no clue, and none of those who obviously did know looked inclined to play games, but at last Bonnie Jean Mah replied. Because 1.8 billion years ago, she said, an asteroid hit here, resulting in huge deposits of nickel.
Exactly, said Reuben. An event that happened long before there was any multicellular life on Earth, an event both Ponters world and ours share in their common pasts. He looked from face to face, coming at last to Marys own. One has little choice in where mines will be built, Reuben said. You put them where the ores are. But what about SNO? Why was it built here?
Because, said Mah, the two kilometers of rock over top of the mine provide an excellent shield against cosmic rays, making it an ideal location for a neutrino detector.
But its not just that, is it, maam? said Reuben, who, Mary assumed, had become quite the expert thanks to the help of Louise. There are deep mines elsewhere on the planet. But this mine also has very low background radiation, right? In fact, this site is uniquely qualified for housing instruments that would be adversely affected by natural radiation.
This sounded reasonable to Mary, and she noted that Professor Mah nodded once. But then Mah added, So?
So, said Reuben, in Ponters universe a deep mine was also built on this very spot, to excavate the same nickel deposits. And eventually he himself recognized the value of the site and convinced his government to set up a physics facility underground here.
So he would have us believe that theres a neutrino detector at the same place in the other universe? asked Mah.
Reuben shook his head. No, he said. No, there isnt. Remember, the choice of using this facility for a neutrino observatory also had to do with a historical accident: that Canadas nuclear reactors, unlike those of the U.S. or the U.K. or Japan or Russia, happen to use heavy water as a moderator. That set of circumstances isnt duplicated in Ponters worldin fact, they dont seem to use nuclear power. But this underground facility is equally good for another very delicate kind of instrument. He paused and looked from face to face, then he said, Ponter, where do you work?
Ponter replied, Dusble korbul to kalbtadu. And the implant, using its male voice, provided the translation: In a quantum-computing facility.
Quantum computing? repeated Mary, but feeling uncomfortable doing so; she wasnt used to being the most ignorant one in the room.
Thats right, said Reuben, grinning. Dr. Benoit?
Louise got up and nodded at the M.D. Quantum computing is something were just starting to play with ourselves, she said, pushing hair out of her eyes. A regular computer can determine the factors of a given number by trying one possible factor to see if it works, then another, then another, then another: brute-force calculation. But if you used a conventional computer to factor a big numbersay, one with 512 digits, like those used to encrypt credit-card transactions on the World Wide Webit would take countless centuries to try all the possible factors one at a time.
She, too, looked from face to face, making sure she hadnt lost her audience. But a quantum computer uses superposition of quantum states to check multiple possible factors simultaneously, said Louise. That is, in essence, new short-lived duplicate universes are spun off specifically to do the quantum calculation, and, once the factoring is completewhich would be virtually instantaneouslyall those universes collapse back down into one again, since, except for the candidate number they tested to see if it was a factor, theyre otherwise identical. And so, in the time it takes to try just one factor, you actually get them all tried simultaneously, and you solve a previously intractable problem. She paused. At least, until now, thats how weve believed quantum computing worksrelying on the momentary superposition of quantum states effectively creating different universes.
Mary nodded, trying to follow along.
But suppose that isnt how it really happens, said Louise. Suppose that rather than creating temporary universes for a fraction of a second, a quantum computer instead accesses already existing parallel universesother versions of reality in which the quantum computer also exists.
Theres no theoretical basis for believing that, said Bonnie Jean, sounding annoyed. And, besides, theres no quantum computer at this location, in the only universe that we know does exist.
Exactly! said Louise. What I propose is this: Dr. Boddit and his colleague were trying to factor a number so large that to check every possible factor of it required more versions of the quantum computer than there were in separate already existing long-term universes. Do you see? It reached into thousandsmillions!of existing ones. And in each of those parallel universes, the quantum computer found a duplicate of itself, and that duplicate tried a different potential factor. Right? But what if you were factoring a huge number, a gigantic number, a number with more possible factors than there are parallel universes in which the quantum-computing facility already exists? What then? Well, I think thats what happened here: Dr. Boddit and his partner were factoring a gigantic number, the quantum computer found its siblings in allevery single oneof the parallel universes in which it already existed, but it still needed more copies of itself, and so it went looking in other parallel universes, including ones in which the quantum-computing facility had never been builtsuch as our universe. And when it reached one of those, it was like hitting a wall, causing the factoring experiment to abort. And that crash caused a large part of Ponters computing facility to be transferred into this universe.