The Big Rip

I

Dr. Jerry Gower looked at his mail with surprise. He had a letter from Henry Knack, the senior physicist at CERN in Switzerland. A quizzical expression crossed the professor's face.

"Now why would Henry be writing to me?" Jerry asked himself.

Indeed, the two men had not spoken in several years, much less corresponded with each other - quite a change from when they were roommates in college. Their falling out had started several years after each got his doctorate. They were both were being interviewed for a position with the University of Chicago's Kavli Institute. Of course, at that time Jerry had a much stronger background in astronomy than Henry did so he was easily selected for the position. To this day, Jerry was still at the university.

Henry Knack never forgot the smallest slight - even unintended ones. Jerry's selection for the position Henry wanted caused a rift between them that only widened through the years. Of course, when the pair were forced to share the Nobel in physics five years ago, that was the end of any civility on Henry's part.

The physics community at this level of talent is quite small, perhaps a few hundred at best. Soon word came back to Jerry about all that Henry was saying about him. Dr. Knack called Jerry a phony and a cheat. He said that Jerry's contributions to the field of supersymmetry were stolen from others. And even if they were his, Henry called Jerry's work so trivial that it didn't merit an A in grad school, much less a Nobel Prize. In the world of physics, Henry's hatred of Jerry became legendary and grew every year - especially when Jerry won a second Nobel for his work on the Big Rip. Only John Bardeen and Madame Curie had achieved a double that included at least one Nobel in physics.

Jerry held his tongue in public, but privately he was deeply angry at Henry. So much so, in fact, that Jerry refused to attend a reception at the university honoring Henry upon his selection to lead the work in Geneva with the Large Hadron Collider. The absence of such a prominent physicist was even reported in the news later. Jerry knew at the time that his boycott was a risky move considering Henry's penchant for striking back at those who angered him.

The professor shook off his thoughts and focused once again on the envelope. It had real stamps on it and was hand-written. Very unusual.

Tearing it open, Jerry found a short note in it. His eyebrows rose with each sentence.

"Dear Jerry," it read, "I am coming to the states in a few weeks and I would like to get together with you. I have encountered a phenomenon that could be the greatest discovery in all physics. I need your expertise to help examine it. If this is amenable to you, please meet me at the Sip & Savor Coffee House on May 16th at 10 AM. I have a long stop-over at O'Hare and could meet you there. Of course, please keep this correspondence secret. I would hate for us to lose out on the discovery to someone else."

Dr. Gower, reread the letter several more times. It was so completely uncharacteristic of Henry that Jerry didn't know what to do. It took several days and a great deal of musing before Jerry finally decided to meet Henry.

The next week was spent with growing anticipation on Jerry's part. He and Henry had been great friends in school - Henry had even been his best man. Jerry, whom Henry chided as being too trusting and optimistic, wondered if perhaps his old roommate was trying to find a way to bury the hatchet.

II

Jerry arrived at the coffee house 15 minutes early. It was less than a mile from the university, but he didn't want to take any chances on being late. At precisely 10 AM, Dr. Henry Knack walked in. He wore his usual tweed jacket and looked much as Jerry remembered him. His eyes were still just as penetrating and his very presence seemed to change the atmosphere about him.

Henry smiled broadly and reached his hand out to Jerry.

"It's good to see you!" he said, sitting down. "I am really glad you were able to get together!"

Jerry noticed the lack of any acknowledgement of their strained relationship, but decided to go along.

"This must be pretty important for you to come all the way out here to see me."

"It is!" Henry responded excitedly. "This is the greatest thing any scientist will ever see in our generation!"

Jerry looked at Henry skeptically.

"What is it?"

Henry looked around the room and leaned in. Speaking softly, he said, "I have found a tear in the universe."

"A what?"

"A tear in the universe. It's a small one, granted, but it may be the evidence necessary to conclusively prove the Big Rip. It is most certainly a great opportunity for research."

"What galaxy is the tear in? Did you find it using computer models or observations?"

Henry replied with great excitement and agitation, "That's the amazing part! It's not something distant or computer derived. It's a tear in the universe that we can see and examine."

Jerry shook his head. "You're not making a lot of sense, Henry."

"I know. I know. Let me start again. . . You remember how I love doing genealogy research as a hobby?"

Jerry nodded.

"Well," Henry began, "I discovered a few years ago that I'm a distant relation of Alexander Shepherd. He was prominent in Washington, D.C. in the 1870's, but eventually moved to Batopilas, Mexico, where he grew quite wealthy running silver mines."

"A few months ago, I went on vacation to Mexico and decided to take a side trip to Batopilas and see what the place was like. What I found was a beautiful canyon land with lots of steep chasms. I spent a few days there, poking around my ancestor's old mansion. It lays in ruins now, but it was still fascinating."

"Henry, you've lost me," said Jerry.

Henry sighed. "Stay with me! It will all make sense. Batopilas is beautiful, but run-down. It has been over-run by drug cartels in the past few years so all outsiders are viewed with great suspicion. I had a number of people ask me who I was and what I was doing there. Very few people in town were even slightly friendly to me."

"Of course, what they wanted to know was whether I was connected in any way to the police. I told them honestly, no. And once they learned that I was a Nobel Prize winning physicist, people's attitude changed."

Jerry groaned inwardly.

"But then the most curious thing happened. A man named Miguel came up to me one morning at breakfast. He slipped into the restaurant and sat down at my table. Then, he glanced around and told me that he knew the real reason I was here."

"Well, I just looked blankly at him and Miguel told me that if I would not report him to the police he would take me to the place I was looking for. As you can imagine, I didn't know what to say. I was very intrigued by Miguel, so I asked him what gave me away. The man smiled and said it was the Nobel Prize. Only a Nobel Prize winner would know to come here to look for it."

Henry took a sip of coffee and looked intently at Jerry.

"I still didn't know what 'it' was, but now my curiosity was really piqued. So I played along. Finally, Miguel agreed to take me to it for $500 and a promise not to tell the police. Now, I know what you're thinking, $500 is a lot of money to go see something when you don't even know what it is you're paying to go see. But, this was an adventure and I was frankly bored with abandoned silver mines."

"So this guy led you to a tear in the universe in some drug-infested canyon in Mexico?"

"Shhhh! Not so loud!"

Jerry let his skepticism creep onto his face.

"I know it is hard to believe, but Miguel took me to it. We rode in a beat-up old jeep about ten miles out of town into a desolate canyon. For a few minutes there, I thought I was going to be robbed and killed. Instead, Miguel took me on foot about a quarter mile further up the canyon to a craggy spot that frankly looked no different than any place else in the canyon."

Batopilas

"Once we got there, he pointed to a spot along the base of a rock. At first I didn't see anything. But then I noticed a thin dark line stretching about four feet along the ground at the base of the rock. As I bent over to look at it, Miguel got more excited. 'You see it, too!' he exclaimed to me."

"I told Miguel that I did and asked him to explain it to me. He said that he didn't understand it, and that's why he had brought me here. So I told him to tell me what he knew. So Miguel told me how one day he was going up this canyon when he sat down and leaned against this rock to rest. As he sat there, Miguel placed his hands on the ground at the base of the rock and one of his hands slipped under the rock."

"You see, that dark line was not a line at all, but a gap of some sort. Miguel pulled his fingers out and then tried again. This time, his whole hand slid into the gap. It seemed to open as large as it needed to in order to fit whatever came in. None of the rocks or ground were disturbed in any way."

"Well Miguel kept his discovery quiet and told no one. That is, until I came along."

"Why didn't he tell anyone?"

Henry shook his head. "Here's the difficult part. Miguel works for one of the drug cartels as a disposer. He takes dead bodies and gets rid of them. That day, he was looking in the canyon for a new burial place. Once he found the tear in the universe, he kept quiet so that he could use it to dispose of bodies. He told me he must have put ten or fifteen corpses in there."

Jerry looked at Henry in shock. "You're pulling my leg! This is some big joke!"

Henry grew very serious. "No, it's not a joke. It's the greatest discovery in science!"

"Then why are you telling me about it?"

"I've been following your work on the Big Rip for years now. It seems to me that if anyone is going to be able to make sense of this thing, it will need to be someone with your expertise. I've seen the rip. Miguel and I stuck a bunch of tree branches into it. The rip just seemed to swallow whatever got pushed into it. I know it's there. But the only way I can credibly prove it is to have someone like you join me."

"Me?"

"Sure," replied Henry. "Your have a lot of expertise. Also, everyone knows that you have no reason to support me in announcing a find like this unless it was absolutely true. In spite of our differences in the past, you're the perfect person to join me in this discovery!"

Henry continued, "So, what I want to do is go back to Batipolas with you and let you examine the rip for yourself. I'll pay for the whole trip. Then, once you're satisfied with the evidence, we can present our findings together at whatever conference or in whatever journal you choose!"

III

There are moments in life that feel so surreal that one has to struggle to make sense of them. For Jerry, this meeting with Henry was just such an event. He spent many hours over the next few weeks replaying their conversation, trying to understand it all. Henry's friendliness was so out of character that it troubled Jerry. The idea of a tear in the universe in Mexico seemed beyond his wildest dreams.

Finally, though, Jerry realized that he could not pass up even the slight chance that such a tear existed. A quick email to Henry set things in motion and the trip was scheduled for the first part of summer. Of course, Henry was utterly paranoid that someone else would discover their plans (some things hadn't changed), so the travel arrangements were made quietly and Jerry didn't tell his colleagues where he was headed.

Just six weeks, later, though, Dr. Gower found himself flying into the General Roberto Fierro Villalobos International Airport in Chuhuahua, Mexico. From there, it was a bumpy, two-day car ride to the Copper Canyon region and the town of Batopilas. When Jerry arrived, Henry met him at the hotel and treated him to what he said was the best dinner in town, which was not saying much.

"You must be really tired," Henry said. "I know the trip from Chuhuahua to here is exhausting. Let's plan on a later breakfast tomorrow, say about 9, and then I'll take out to the site."

That sounded like a great idea to Jerry, who was indeed very drained from the drive.

By the next morning, though, a good sleep, coffee and the idea of seeing a rip in the universe were enough to give Jerry plenty of energy. At 10 AM, Miguel pulled up outside the hotel in his battered jeep. He was polite and friendly, not quite the drug cartel killer that Jerry had imagined him to be. Once in the car, though, Jerry imagined that every little stain on the inside must be blood from one of Miguel's victims.

Still, Jerry's mood wasn't dampered. Even Henry and Miguel seemed especially jovial as the jeep bounced down the dirt road to the small canyon. After half an hour, Miguel lurched to a stop and declared that they had arrived. By now, the sun was hot and Jerry was thankful for the bottled water Henry offered.

The hike up the canyon was not as difficult as Henry had described. Jerry marveled at the steep sides, beautiful colors in the rocks and the fact that there were any plants at all growing there. "I must learn more botany," Jerry thought to himself as he gazed at yet another unidentifiable species.

Soon, the little party stopped in a nondescript spot. It looked no different than anywhere else, except that it was perhaps a bit wider and had some shade caused by a large rock on the side of the path. That shade must have been what caused Miguel to take a rest here the first time.

Miguel and Henry looked expectantly at Jerry.

The two-time Nobel winner glanced down at the base of the rock. Even knowing where to look, it took him several seconds to spot the thin black line at the juncture of the rock and the dirt floor of the canyon. It was a slightly jagged line, not entirely smooth, but not really rough either. And although it was very thin, the line stood out among its surroundings once a person had spotted it - enough so that Jerry even commented about it to the others.

"I know!" replied Henry enthusiastically. "Miguel says that the things he puts in the tear seem to get pulled in. I wonder if the line is so dark because no light is able to escape from the other side."

"Miguel! Grab a branch!" Henry ordered.

The one man without a Nobel Prize to his name walked over to a nearby bush and broke off a branch. The trio watched as Henry took the branch and fed it into the dark line. Jerry marveled as the line seemed to grow around the exact shape of the branch and shrink back to its original size as the branch was consumed.

"How long has this been happening?"

"It seems two years," Miguel replied in his broken, but functional English.

"How big an object have you put in it?"

"200 pounds."

Jerry whistled. "And nothing has ever come out?"

"No, Señor."

"Where does it go?"

"We don't know," answered Henry. "I don't even know if we can call where it goes a real place or not."

"Have you ever looked inside?"

"No. Miguel and I have both put our hands in, but that's as far as we've gone. Even just a hand in the tear can be a bit hard to extract because the tear seems to suck in more and more mass as you reach in. Besides, I wanted to wait until you were here before doing anything more."

Jerry knelt down in front of the line and looked at it more closely. It was no more than a millimeter wide although it appeared to be wider when looking from a distance. He grabbed a small branch off the ground and pushed one end into the tear. The blackness opened up for the branch and it disappeared.

Jerry stood up.

"Wow. That's amazing!"

"Isn't it?" Henry agreed. "Just think, such a tear like this could open up fascinating research opportunities! It will give us a far better understanding of dark energy and how the entire universe is structured!"

Jerry simply stood, staring at the tear. Everything he had researched and studied seemed to have led up to this moment. He knelt down at the tear again and fed it another branch. It, too, was quickly absorbed by the tear.

"This is amazing," he repeated.

After staring at the line for several more minutes, Jerry turned his head to Henry.

"You say that you and Miguel have both put your hands in there?"

"Yes. Well, I put in two fingers. But Miguel says he has gotten his whole hand inside before."

"With no adverse reactions?"

"None at all."

Jerry looked back at the line.

"This is so amazing," he said once again quietly.

Cautiously, the physicist leaned forward, reached out his hand and gently pushed the tips of his fingers into the tear. At once, he could feel the gentle pull from the other side. It also felt cold inside the tear, but not dangerously so. Of course, those were secondary sensations. What Jerry felt most strongly was the pressure on his back as two men pushed him forward.

(c) 2016, Kevin H. Grenier