“But not all the numbers in the pyramid are primes,” Katrina said.
“That’s the beauty of the thing,” Greene continued. “But they work to make primes. Any two numbers next to each other on any row add up to a prime. Perfection itself. So perfect, it’s found in nature.”
“How so?” she wondered.
“Many. My favorite example are the cicadas.”
“The what?”
“Oh, right, you’re British. They’re bugs that are pretty much indigenous to North America, much less so in England. They have a life cycle where they emerge every thirteen years or seventeen years. In between, nada. Then, and only then, on that schedule, those noisy little buggers take over. Thirteen and seventeen are both indivisible and that very fact gives cicadas a leg up on their predators which might appear in six year cycles. They win mathematically.”
“Incredible.” McCauley was impressed.
“Incredible when you consider they cracked an evolutionary code that must go back millions of years. They evolved through primes. It became their key to survival.”
“So back to the prime pyramid. Who put it there?” McCauley said.
“I have no idea. But let me give you something else to think about.”
Quinn and Katrina were completely engaged.
Greene turned to his computer and typed in Arecibo. Dozens of references came up. Greene clicked on the radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
“Now I can really talk more authoritatively about this.” He began to explain, concluding with an astonishing experiment. “They’re sending messages to other galaxies from here. How are they doing it?” Greene asked rhetorically.
“Prime numbers?”
“Precisely, Dr. McCauley. Radioing primes that, if and when received, may be arranged in a vertical column to create a picture. Like the rudimentary computer images on those Nano Pets that were the rage with kids years ago.”
Greene clicked on the actual image of the Arecibo transmission. It depicted the atomic numbers of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorous, the basic constructs of life on Earth. It included DNA information, a block image of a human with the approximate height, a layout of our solar system and most importantly the position of Earth. “It’s the human race in prime numbers for all the universe to see. The announcement of here we are.”
“Here we are,” McCauley repeated.
“Yes,” Greene said. “Here we are. Now how about I share some pretty wacked stories with you?”
"About prime numbers?” Dr. Alpert asked.
“Put that question aside for now.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll find them on my website. Clearly, you don’t have to believe all of it or, for that matter, any of it. But too often we assume we know everything there is to know.”
“I don’t necessarily agree,” Katrina said. She smiled at McCauley. He understood.
“Well good, because it would be pretty small-minded if we did. Every day science invents new tools and then discovers old stuff that’s been around since the dawn of time. We just didn’t have the means to see it. Forwards and backwards. It doesn’t matter which direction we look. There’s always the unknown.”
Greene had their attention. “Let’s look at your work. You only explore what is, in fact, an infinitesimal part of the earth; a virtually microscopic section within the fifth of the planet that isn’t water. And simply because you find Barney and a few of his friends from year to year, does that mean you’ve struck the mother lode? Given the great ancient continental shift, can you even imagine what there is to discover in the world’s seas?”
It was a staggering thought. Greene was correct, in the field of paleontology, the ground beneath the oceans was quite literally untapped.
“And look up,” Greene continued. “Our ancestors viewed the stars forever; with dread and wonder, giving flight to dreams. But it wasn’t until Galileo set his telescope to true focal points and challenged prevailing dogma that we began to think the unthinkable or imagine the unimaginable. Galileo, doctors. And, Dr. McCauley, because I’ve heard podcasts of your radio interviews — yes, I found them — I know you recognize that on earth’s evolutionary clock, that was barely a fraction of a second ago.”
Thirty-two
Father Maculano was opining about something in his chambers. Or maybe he was building up to another holier than thou bluster. Either way, Galileo wasn’t listening. He was living his life in chapters he never wrote.
His childhood in Pisa. His itchy first-growth beard. His father’s insistence that he go to the university. His mother reading to him from the Bible. The ideas he wrote down on whatever was in reach: school notebooks, the back of used envelopes, condensation on early morning windows, even dirt.
The purest of pleasures for Galileo was expanding on a notion, proving a supposition or developing the means to explore it further.
He remembered his friends growing up, who tried to keep pace with him intellectually, and his colleagues who followed such safe, conservative paths. His thoughts went to his children and the hard lives they were leading, and on to his wife and the strain his controversial research had brought her.
Most of all, Galileo recalled his temporal victories over the church and his undeniable belief that time was the thing he least understood for reasons stated and unstated.
“And so it will be,” Maculano concluded.
The priest’s icy tone brought Galileo back into the conversation.
“And there are no words that will appeal to you, your eminence? I have been a good man. I’ve lived a pious life. My daughters are in a convent.”
“You bore them out of wedlock. Who would marry Galileo’s bastards? Their prayer remains their only salvation. It surely won’t be yours.”
“My son has been legitimized and is married.”
“Perhaps he shall somehow escape the sins of the father who committed his blasphemy to print.”
“They were observations. Postulates. I was paid in tribute for the work.”
“Yes, by Pope Paul V. Paul, who introduced you to Cardinal Francesco Mari del Monte. Another who showered you with accolades. What did he say, ‘If we were still living under the ancient Republic of Rome, I verily believe that there would be a column on the Capital erected in Galileo’s honor.’ You shall never hear such things again.”
Maculano walked to his desk and picked up a book. “You acted as if there were no boundaries to the privileges granted you,” he said. “Your words are swords that strike the heart of His Holiness.”
“This Pope,” Galileo argued, “Urban.”
“And as cardinal he favored you. He extolled your virtues. Didn’t he describe you as a great man, ‘whose fame shines in the heavens and…’ ”
Galileo helped him with the quote. “ ‘…goes on earth far and wide.’ Yes, he was a friend. As was Pope Paul V.”
“Pity that you didn’t hold your tongue. Urban simply suggested you take an approach that would have allowed you to privately hold your Copernican views without precisely claiming them as truth. A proposal as it were. It would have been easy, but the Galileo Galilei ego said no to a compromise on any terms. The Pope sought a reframing of your position. You fail to do so even in these private conversations.
“You denied Urban a solution that would have most of all benefited you.” Maculano’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared. “You betrayed an ally who has risen to greatness. And in greatness, he will see to it that you shrink and shrivel into a speck of cosmic dust that the finest glass in your telescope will not see. He will never forgive you, Galileo. Never.”