Let's Whip Up Some Doom in an Autoclave!Oops, there goes the planetby Ian Shoales The fabled Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab has hit hard times, according to Wired ("The Lab That Fell to Earth," May 2003). Once the joint was jumping with gadgets and ideas: " ... the MPEG digital compression standard, Lego's 'programmable bricks,' chip-studded vests, and smart refrigerators." But that playground of innovation occurred during the heady Internet boom, when companies flocked to fund the Lab, hoping that some idea, notion, or even whim might transform itself into a business model. Scientific ToysTimes have changed. Corporate coffers are now disinclined to open, not even for talking soap bubbles, cuddly robots, or self-adjusting shoes. A hard science wing of the Lab, the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), is threatening to break off into its own unit. CBA head Neil Gershenfeld explains, "It's too much of a stretch to hope for a single academic program that easily encompasses molecular biologists and graphic designers." Toying with ScienceAnother lab, Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, however, is thriving. According to the San Francisco Chronicle ("Saving the Universe by Restricting Research," April 14, 2003), "Physicists there have used a particle accelerator to try to create a 'quark-gluon plasma,' — a soup of extremely hot, dense subatomic particles that mimic conditions of the 'Big Bang' ..." Speaking as a dedicated scientist — which I'm not by the way — that sounds more rewarding than programming smart dishwashers or inventing an oven that emails you when the pot roast is done. The CBA could easily find a new home at Brookhaven. But there's a downside. According to the Chronicle, a new book by Britain's astronomer royal, Martin J. Rees, Our Final Hour (Basic Books, 2003), makes the case: "Some experiments could conceivably threaten the entire Earth." Imploding the UniverseThis quark-gluon soup, for instance, could create a black hole, sucking up our blue watery orb and the universe with it. It could create a "strangelet," a compressed object smaller than an atom, that might "infect" the planet, turning us into an "inert hyperdense sphere about 100 meters across." Or the planet could undergo a "phase transition," (like water turning into ice) that could "rip the fabric of space itself." All on Long Island! One's mind boggles. Maybe the CBA should stay where it is, and be grateful that bits and atoms even have a center in this uncertain universe. In many cities, even youths and seniors have trouble maintaining a center. But Bits and Atoms could be deluding themselves. In April, Paul Davies published a little essay for The New York Times, "A Brief History of the Multiverse." Scientists responded to the riddle, "Why is nature ... friendly to life?" and divulged the theory that our universe is only a "small component within a vast assemblage of other universes." Imploring the UniverseProfessor Davies rejected this theory because there's no way to test it. It means, "accepting that virtual worlds are more numerous than 'real' ones." Further, "There is no reason to expect our world ... to be real as opposed to a simulation." Still, if we're just a simulated smudge in a multiverse, being reduced to cosmic goo by a bunch of overzealous physicists on Long Island loses some of its sting. Besides, if we're just a simulation, we don't even need labs any more. All we have to do is find those multiverse environments in which black holes are cuddly pets, programmable Legos grow on trees, and inert hyperdense spheres are a dime a dozen, then buy them and bring them back here. Think of the multiverse as a Big Mall. We are merely shoppers. Ian Shoales lives in San Francisco, where black holes go for around $1,500 a month, no garage.
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