Quantum. Tom Grace

years ago, my God. This guy’s grasp of the subtle nature of potential and probability is amazing. Las Vegas would hate a guy like this.’

      ‘Shall I read another?’ Kelsey asked as she carefully placed the first back in its folder.

      ‘Absolutely,’ Sandstrom replied eagerly.

      Four hours and five letters later, Sandstrom was ready to get out of bed and go back to work. While Nolan was impressed with the author’s ability to describe incredibly complex phenomena lucidly, for Kelsey and Sandstrom the experience was something akin to an epiphany.

      ‘Raphaele was right,’ Sandstrom declared, ‘this guy’s thinking was decades ahead of his time.’

      Kelsey nodded her head in agreement. ‘I’m just surprised that we’ve never heard of him.’

      ‘Me, too,’ Nolan said as he put the last few folders back in the pile. ‘Especially since he was here at Michigan when he wrote these letters.’

      ‘His comments on some of the senior faculty in our physics department sound like they could have been written today. Just change the names,’ kidded Kelsey.

      ‘Bureaucracies are eternal,’ quipped Nolan.

      Still reclining in his hospital bed, Sandstrom stared in wonder at this gift from his mentor. ‘It’s like Wolff was doing stuff in his head that we’re just starting to figure out now using supercomputers. Based on what he showed Raphaele, I think Wolff was working toward a theory of everything.’

      ‘A theory of everything?’ Nolan asked. ‘Sounds like a Monty Python movie.’

      ‘For physicists,’ Sandstrom replied, ‘a workable theory of everything is the Holy Grail.’

      ‘I’ll bite then. What is it?’

      ‘You want to field this one, Kelsey?’ Sandstrom asked.

      ‘Sure. The short version goes something like this. Four basic forces are known to be at work in the universe – forces that determine the behavior of everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the universe itself. Current theory predicts that if we were to wind the clock back in time to less than a hundredth of a second after the Big Bang, we should find these four apparently separate forces merging into a single unified force.’

      Nolan nodded. ‘I’m with you so far. Gravity, which keeps us from falling off the earth and affects all the big stuff in the universe is theoretically related to the forces that hold atoms and all the subatomic bits together.’

      ‘Exactly. A theory of everything, or TOE, describes the linkage between all the forces. If we can ever develop one that can survive experimental testing, we’ll have a much clearer understanding of how the universe began, how it works, and where it’s going. Now, trying to tie all four forces together in one shot is incredibly difficult. Einstein spent the later years of his life on his unified field theory and came up empty. Taking it one step at a time, we’ve managed to tie two of the forces – electro-magnetism and the weak nuclear force – together. Currently physicists are trying to tie these two forces with the strong nuclear force – the one that holds protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei. A theory describing the union of the three nongravitational forces is known in the trade as a GUT, which stands for grand unification theory. The next step after a working GUT is developed is a working TOE.’

      ‘So, based on Wolff’s letters, you think he was piecing together a theory of everything?’