Charmed Particles (16 page)

“Soon, you may find that you have developed body odor.”

Here, an image of young women, their faces marked with elaborate patterns of cuts and tattoos, a caption reading,
Tribal marks deform their not-unpleasing faces
.

“Your breasts will begin to develop, and at first, they may be tender.”

There were almost no instances in which the individuals in the photos were identified by their names, Meena noticed. Rather, they were stand-ins, “a Kalabit” or “a Dayak,” each group represented by a single photo and informative caption.

“These changes are caused by hormones,” Ms Lessing continued.

To Meena's right, Lily was carefully taking notes, but Meena was transfixed by the picture before her, a young woman ornamented in an elaborate feathered headdress:
This striking personage, upon whom you will find all the young men's eyes, is among her tribeswomen, considered to be a rare beauty
.

“For boys, the shoulders will grow broader.”

These girls do most of the work in the fields, while men pursue or evade vendettas
.

“Your voices may become deeper.”

Here, an image of bare-bottomed men with bows and arrows.

“Both boys and girls will develop hair under their arms and in their pubic areas.”

Naked, dark-skinned women stood together staring out of the photograph and, it seemed to Meena, right at her, their bodies painted, breasts hanging flat against their chests.

Tom Hebert, in the seat behind her, tapped her on the shoulder. “What are you looking at?” he whispered.

“Shut up,” she hissed, whipping around to glare at him, her long braid catching him across the face as she turned back around.

“Girls will develop a regular menstrual period.”

The next page showed a group of women, their skirts pulled up, legs spread wide around the washbasins at which they worked.

“You will begin to feel strong emotions, and you may find yourself becoming frustrated, angry, or sad more easily.”

A woman standing in front of a hut, her nakedness hidden by cleverly arranged beadwork.

For Meena, it was as though two mysteries of the adult world were being revealed simultaneously to her—one by the book and one by the shocking news Ms Lessing was breaking to them all.

“Shall we talk about our questions, our concerns?”

Ms Lessing removed her eyes from the book and regarded the classroom full of students, their faces turned up toward her. Normally, the Free Learning Zone students were avid, if overenthusiastic, participants in class discussion, but now the classroom was weighted with a thick, awkward silence. Ms Lessing blinked out at the gifted and talented students for a moment as though trying to summon patience or courage or a little of both.

“Well then, let's continue.” She plodded steadily forward through the overheads. “Now we will discuss sexually transmitted diseases,” she explained, placing on the overhead a particularly alarming image. “This is a chancre.” The students looked away, letting out an audible groan, almost in unison.

At the conclusion of the lecture, the class sat quietly in a kind of stunned silence. The lecture on their developing bodies had shocked both Lily and Meena, neither of whom had yet registered the possibility that this might happen to them.

For Lily, the careful notes she penned had been an academic exercise in keeping her anxiety at bay. Meena, closing her textbook and tucking
The Secret Museum
into her backpack, felt she had only just barely survived an arduous and terrifying initiation into near-adulthood.

CHAPTER 11

Atom Smasher

In the end, physics is an empirical science. It needs clever experiments; and such experiments need nifty devices. Without them, many beautiful theories would be merely that—beautiful. It is only thanks to tinkerers … that some of them also turn out to be true
.

—O
BITUARY:
S
IMON
VAN
DER
M
EER,
T
HE
E
CONOMIST,
M
ARCH
19, 2011

Physicists don't like the expression “atom smasher.” It makes them think of what (for example) a watch smasher would do. Out of the collisions of watches and clocks, you would expect to find the components of watches and clocks: hands, springs, cogwheels, and frames. You would not expect to find from such collisions additional clocks, and certainly not clock towers. Incredibly, this is just what sometimes happens when two energetic subatomic particles are smashed together. New and more exotic particles emerge from the collisions
.

—T
HE
C
HARM OF
S
TRANGE
Q
UARKS:
M
YSTERIES AND
R
EVOLUTIONS OF
P
ARTICLE
P
HYSICS

F
OR
SOME
TIME,
NEARLY
ALL OF
THE
PARTICLE
PHYSICS
CONFERENCES
Abhijat attended had been dominated by discussion of the need to conduct experiments at higher energy levels, and there had been rumblings, unconfirmed, of course, that it might be the National Accelerator Research Lab that would be chosen as the site for such an instrument.

The accelerator currently housed on the campus of the Lab was four miles in circumference, but it had become clear that in order to chase after the new questions that were emerging, to test many of the most recent and most fascinating theories, a new accelerator would be required, something much, much larger than anything that currently existed.

It was a hunt that had stretched out over the entirety of Abhijat's career—each time the physics community thought they'd found the smallest, most elementary particle, something still smaller, still more mystifying emerged.

For some physicists, it seemed like a frustrating chase that might never end, each time the prize moving just beyond their reach. But Abhijat believed that this was an illustration of the supreme beauty of the universe. If there was a god, he had once told Sarala, then he must surely be a mathematician.

Anderson Hall was the Research Tower's large lecture hall, reserved for the Lab's cultural activities—plays, lecture series, performances by orchestras—and the occasional all-staff announcements made by the Lab's director. One Monday, on a bright spring morning, the Lab staff were summoned to Anderson Hall, where Dr. Palmer, the Lab director, announced that the Department of Energy was, in fact, considering building a new, much larger accelerator, and that the Lab was, in fact, the facility under consideration to house it. If built, it would be the largest particle accelerator in the world.

For a moment, Abhijat's breath caught in his throat. This was it, he realized. This was his chance at establishing his legacy. His chance at accomplishing what he had always hoped for, always worked toward—his chance to grasp, finally, what he had begun to fear might remain frustratingly just out of reach.

The excitement in the Lab cafeteria following the announcement was palpable. At each table, physicists chatted animatedly, wondering what might be revealed by collisions at such high energy. Would it expose gaps in the Standard Model of particle physics? Would they be able to find the Higgs boson, a particle hypothesized but never yet observed, whose existence was essential if the Standard Model was to work? Would it allow for the discovery of a Grand Unified Theory? Was it possible that additional families of quarks and leptons existed?

Abhijat sat quietly among his colleagues at lunch, but beneath his calm exterior was more excitement than anyone would have suspected. This new machine meant that he might no longer languish in the murky middle of good physicists who had failed to be great. With this increased size came increased power, and with that, the possibility of finally testing the theories he'd been working on for years. His mind raced, a series of possibilities—theories tested, confirmed, and then, perhaps a prize. But—he caught himself—he should not allow himself to get carried away.

He had counted the hours, the minutes until he would return home for dinner and share the news with Sarala and Meena. In his office, he could hardly focus, playing his announcement out ahead of time.

“But with such a large circumference, where will they build it?” Sarala, seated beside him at the dinner table, had asked, after he shared the news. Watching him talk, she had thought of how she hadn't seen him this animated in years.

“Part of it on the Lab's campus—the accelerator, the particle detector, the experiment halls—and part of it stretching out,” he answered.

“Stretching out—to where?” Sarala asked, catching Meena's eye, who, Sarala could tell, was wondering the same thing.

“Through Nicolet,” he answered. “Or rather, under it.”

“Yes, but under where, exactly?” Sarala asked.

Abhijat would later come to think of this moment—Sarala's question, the concern in her voice—as the first moment he glimpsed the way this might sound to the rest of the community. “Well.” He found himself proceeding cautiously. “That is still under consideration.”
But it's unimportant
, he'd wanted to tell her, hoping to redirect her attention instead to where his own lay: to the possibilities this opened for his work, his reputation.

In the cafeteria that afternoon, following the announcement, he and his fellow colleagues had been so focused on the changes this would mean for the field, so excited by what this would mean for each of their careers, that it hadn't occurred to them how such a proposal would be perceived in the community.

“I'm not sure this is going to go over well in town,” Sarala said gently, hating to put out the light of excitement in Abhijat's eyes, but certain that ahead lay troubled times.

Sarala had been right. By the following morning, news of the proposed collider appeared on the front page of the
Chicago Tribune
and the
Nicolet Herald-Gleaner
, along with a proposed path for the collider ring superimposed over a map of Nicolet, showing the collider's tunnels running under the town's subdivisions, schools, and what the newspaper identified as “prime farmland.” ATOM SMASHER, the headline read in all caps.

Reporters have learned that the National Accelerator Research Lab is in discussions with the Department of Energy to build a large collider ring, called the “Superconducting Super Collider,” in an underground tunnel that will encircle the town of Nicolet, running under homes, schools, and farmland.

Sarala presented the paper to Abhijat as he took his seat at the table for breakfast.

“Abhijat, this map,” she said softly, after he had taken a moment to skim the front page. “It would go right under our neighborhood, under Meena's school, under Heritage Village.”

“But this is only a proposed path,” he assured her. “It's far from certain.”

“But,” Sarala continued, “I don't understand why the Lab can't build this on the property they already have.”