Equation 37 E-Book

Geoffrey Van Hecke

• Herausgeber: Weyrich
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 250

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Where are they?


When the astrophysicist Gabriel Evora looks at the countless amount of stars that amaze us, this is the only question that fills his mind. Convinced that life overflows all around us, he does not hesitate using futuristic technologies to prove it…. at the risks of not being able to control his own research. Lost in the middle of a perpetually moving cosmos, with its own rules, is the human brain truly able to pinpoint its tools at the right place, at the right time? 



When he was reunited with his grandmother in astonishing circumstances, Thomas Eton managed to tame our curious understanding of time. Without knowing it, he probably has the key to what every world hunter seeks. But how can he set limits to somethings that has none. 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Fascinated by space conquest, Geoffrey Van Hecke mike genres to popularize the hunt of exoplanets. This unusual spy novel required more than a year of research, the support from outstanding collaborators from the European Space Agency and from the Astrophysics Institute of Liege. More than anything, the author tried to present to us a new perspective to our short lives. 

Leseprobe

• It seems so simple…

• It is simple! Which is why it is inevitable.

Battle of Austerlitz, 1805Napoleon Bonaparte

I

A futuristic vision

Amsterdam

Life is short, so short. And time flies by without caring about us. Just as this Chinese torture which consists in fastening you right underneath a stalactite. Drop after drop, the skin in between your two eyes shatters under the pressure of the elements, under the control of time dimension. Until madness. Albert Einstein once said: “Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” And when we realize that more than a third of our lifetime is dedicated to our bio-vital needs, as regeneration through sleep and the search for energy through food, we tell ourselves that working for our quality of life must be our absolute priority. We have had the chance to be the consequence of many countless causes that intertwined to form a viable sphere. Earth, our planet, is unique and could have ended up not looking like that at all. The giant impact that allowed the creation of the Moon, having become as well essential to our protection, contributed to it enormously. Nowadays, our satellite acts mostly as a stabilizer to the rotary axis and as a shield against Near-Earth Objects (NEO). During the Big Bang, the chances of obtaining a celestial body as ours were smaller than lining up in a row a hundred straight flushes during a Poker game. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. A human being lives in average 80 years. Whether it is on a temporal or a physical point of view, we do not represent anything in comparison to the immensity of the Universe. Maximizing our hours spent here is a difficult task and realizing it is not always obvious. Humans are dust particles, consequence of passing time which creates the world. They endure. Their powerful brains will one day, have the capacity to switch roles. Transhumanists and other astrophysicists dream about it. One day, our species will change from being the consequence to being the base. The source of the fourth dimension. To those who doubt, I like reminding Napoleon’s fabulous response in Murat which confessed his skepticism regarding the suggested strategy. It is simple! Which is why it is inevitable. History knows that the emperor of the French won on that day a crushing victory. He printed books in his name. Sweet dreamers like myself like simple things, things straight to the goal. Many believe that some things are impossible. Every new day proves the opposite, examples can be counted in billions. My favorite remains nonetheless the cloak of invisibility. Seen only in Harry Potter, searches brought it out of the fiction thanks to quantum technology and optical fiber. In fact, there are no problems, only solutions. The Universe and nature are extremely well done. They are regulated by very precise as well as unbelievably efficient, physical, biological, and chemical laws. It is the beauty of science. By understanding “the game’s rules”, everything is possible. I am convinced that one day we will travel at the speed of light, that each one of us will have a second life, that time travelling will no longer be Michael J. Fox’s monopoly. Nothing starts from emptiness; each thing has its explanation. We start from an observation, from a problem to be solved. Basing ourselves on our knowledge, we try different possibilities which sooner or later will be successful and go forward to the next stage.

My name is Thomas Eton. And I owe my celebrity to someone else. I managed to build a comfortable situation for my family thanks to the ready-to-wear High-Tech company. Refined lines, an in-depth reflection on the human body and marketing concept coming right out of Star Trek opened me the doors to wealth and prosperity. This, however, is not what matters. More than my own daughter, I admired and loved without any worthy comparison my grandmother. She put me on track, on this path scattered with traps swept away with a disconcerting ease. Someone truly good, smart, wise. A marvelous person. Granny, as I used to call her has poured a huge concrete screed for me. All I needed to do was to start building on it, to touch the sky and see the stars. The almost armless little soldier has become the general of a vast neuron army ready to conquer the world. More than anything else, she shared with me her awakened spirit, if not her soul. I am clearly proud that her blood is running down my veins. Yes, I am proud to be Marie-José Janssens’ grandson, who did not get the acknowledgment she deserved. One happy day, she came back from the dead. Stronger than death itself, she appeared to me as a mirage, as a dream come true. Everyone thought it was a scam, called me mad, told me it was impossible, that no-one comes back from the afterlife. But I did not doubt it for even a second. It was her, crystal clear. Different secret services and the FBI detective Julian McDonnell, with whom I created a special bond, proved me right after all. My grandmother was the first successful decryogenic human that came back to life after a mysterious cryogenic suspension. The transhumanistic Revolution had begun. We call it equation 37. The concept of coming back from the dead, frozen in liquid nitrogen at -196°. Until 37°, the perfect temperature to cover our charnel envelope. I did not know a thing about it and yet I believed in it. Granny is back among us for years now and the world has changed. More than the scientific stakes, ethical, legal, economical, demographic barriers seemed unconquerable.

This new chapter in my life started on a rainy October day in front of the Rijksmuseum’s stairs in Amsterdam, where I was giving my first press conference. Rachel, my daughter, did not stop showing her skepticism, if not her disgust towards this surprising political engagement. My grandmother though, always by my side, acted less surprised. Staying silent was impossible for her, and even more so was to endure bad decisions. Jump into such a short life, not to be the actor of my own existence was unthinkable. I am the master of my own destiny; I am the captain of my soul. Until now, I have never had problems with anyone, exposing myself in the front line would attract without any doubt fierce opponents, if not enemies, including people initially on my side. However, … my message differed radically from traditional left-right cleavages. Transhumanists had given fabulous tools, including genetic, to realize miracles. They allowed us to fight with fair arms against old age, cancer, AIDS, neurodegenerative diseases. More than the joy to live longer and in better conditions, we had to add a higher purpose to all of that. An endless goal, which would allow our civilization to be kept busy for eternity. The Belgian astrophysicist Julien de Wit explained that coming across life somewhere else was inevitable. But when? It only depended on us. A little less than a century was needed between the man on the Moon and the one on Mars. An absurd time laps when you know that Mars is next door, inseparable from Earth on the gigantic map of the Universe. We are however not alone. I like relistening to President Kennedy’s wonderful speech, given by him at the Houston’s Rice Stadium in Texas.

We choose to go to the moon.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

History will remember Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon after approximately three days of journey. Kennedy honored his promise, even in Paradise. An amount of time that back then seemed insuperable, but today appears only ridiculous when compared to the 830.000 years needed to join the Trappist-1 system and its exoplanets which strangely look similar to ours. Then everything stopped due to the lack of funds, of motivation, and arguments acceptable for the human condition and its daily problems, each more important than the previous one. I like pioneers, rugby players who know how to transform their trials. I like dreamers who annihilate the boundaries between the mind and reality. Elon Musk is without any doubt among those people who can change the world to dust off visions that had fallen into forgetfulness. In 2002, disappointed by NASA’s lack of ambition, he founded Space X. Coming next was the contesting Boeing, it is while facing rivals that men are the most creative. In 2017, Ben Tippett mathematically proved that time travel is possible. In 2018, President Trump demonstrated his will to rule over space, the Moon and Mars. In 2019 the 5th anniversary of the man on the Moon was celebrated and the Noble Prize of Physics was given to James Peebles for his theoretical discovery in physic cosmology, to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995. 51 Pegasi b. Since then, 4000 exoplanets have been discovered… out of the billion possible exoplanets in the Milky Way, our galaxy, also lost in the billion galaxies that are part of our Universe. And some develop theories on parallel Universes. Moving on, to say that we are alone would equal today to say that fire does not burn. The journey leading people to live on the Moon has been placed by NASA on its to do list for 2020 and the one to live on Mars for 2030. So did Exit the legendary Baïkanour’s site as it only lived in launch base for decades. Never before, did so many countries race for space. Clearly, in a time with climate change and uncontrolled demographic explosion, memories that suddenly seemed so old and dream-like pictures sent to us by our probed and telescopes, something in our mind changed. A sense of obvious imposed itself. Even though an exoplanet is far from being a synonym to life, many of them were found to be in hospitable zones, meaning where water could be found in liquid state. Many other settings have to be verified such as radiation, the power of reflection, distance, the greenhouse effect and many more. I dream to face someone who is not of our world, the soul in turmoil. Many do not understand the interest of placing their money and energy in a quest for a civilization that we will probably never see during our lifetime. And even more so when it is the money of taxpayers supposed to ensure the functioning of health, educational, security, mobility services and more. Things of our daily lives that tie in our bio-vital needs. However, I consider that it is the ultimate stage of opening our minds, and even maybe one day of our own survival if we continue to exhaust our resources in such a frantic and irresponsible way. World hunters search in order to understand the reality that surrounds us, our place in the Universe and more simply wonder. Journalists and sympathizers sitting in front of me did not expect that really. When would I start talking about taxation? About jobs? Education and health? Probably never. I was exposing myself to my co-citizens with a vision. The futuristic vision.

“If we have assembled ourselves in this day, it is to change our lifestyles and our view on the world as well as the people surrounding us. I do not want to do politics; I want to think politics. We select people by universal suffrage supposed to represent us and improve our life quality. Our day-to-day. Of course, to reduce crime rates or increase the quality of our educational system is important. And in four years others will present themselves to you with miraculous new solutions. I have for way too long the impression of my nose being stuck on a mirror reflecting void. In reality we are ants satisfied of the existence of ants … even though we have human brains, i.e., the most advanced intelligence on our planet. Our planet which has a multitude of species that we exploit, sources that we drain, and which is regulated by emotions rather than rationality. And even more so by selfishness and irresponsibility to such an extent that it gives goosebumps. I want to rebuild and find back our intelligence. We are the guards of an exceptional star that we will probably never leave completely, not to take care of it would be madness, so would be not to enjoy life of a certain quality. not to develop our mind and not to excite our curiosity. When you have dirty dishes, you do not go eat at your neighbor’s house on the next day. You wash what you have made dirty in order to reuse it. This is called sustainable development. And since we have become again respectable humans thirsty for neural riches rather than physical ones, we will fight to live better and longer, we will fight to increase our performance and our resistance to time. This is called transhumanism. And now that we have evolved in the good way much faster than what Darwin would have guessed, we will intermingle our intelligence with the one of others to create a super intelligence able to control every dimension that directs our existence. This is called the conquest of space. In unlimited mode. Dear friends, I ask for your help to find back our pride, our identity, our instincts as conquerors. For the first time, not a conquest among us but the conquest of life and eternity. At the end of our journey, everything would have become possible.”

A heavy silence filled the space. A hand slowly rose. Then two, three, then many. My first goal was achieved, I had woken the press’ curiosity. As well as my grandmother’s dear smile.

Atacam Desert, Chili

We call it the desert that listens to the stars. And it is for me the most beautiful place on our planet. There, where Earth and the sky combine, there where man can dream and feel free. My name is Gabriel Evora, born in Madrid from unknown parents. Without any attachment or money, without blood links and love, I quickly turned my attention towards what cannot be bought, the universe. Since men did not want me, rather than to hate them, I looked for other souls that could offer me what until then I did not know existed. At the orphanage, a local celebrity came for a visit, his arms full of presents. I received a telescope which never left me since. After my master, I gained a scholarship to write my doctoral thesis at the Oukaïmeden observatory in Morocco, globally known since the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system in 2015. And from those seven exoplanets, three being potentially livable, something never seen before. Placed in the Atlas chain, 2750 meters high, the telescope TRAPPIST-North is the TRAPPIST-South’ twin situated at La Silla’s observatory in Chili. Together, they revolutionized the research on life elsewhere. Since life out there, is present, I am certain. None of my nights were spent without focusing my attention on the Aquarius constellation and those who I would love to meet. My professors had qualified me as a sweet dreamer. Nice analysis dredged with disproportional optimism. Bored of Madrid, my diploma in the pocket, I flew to Paris for my first job interview. At the ESA, ( Agence Spatiale Europénne), the European space agency. The conversation with the enrolling agent proceeded as such:

— We are looking for someone able to make good coffee without any stains, he said in a serious manner.

— And? I asked surprised.

— Are you this person that we are desperately looking for?

— Is this a joke?

— Not at all! How can someone understand space if they are unable to do such a simplistic task?

After hesitating for a while, I affirmed having a great talent in this task and ironically my complete lack of interest in the cosmos. I was hired. I only learnt it later, but that man knew my file perfectly… as well as my desires. The ESA had fixed ten goals for European space. The navigation satellites, facilitated space flights, miniature satellites, a part of the market, the control over climate, cosmic impacts, delicate tasks, original matters, and space energy, robotization, staying ahead. The agency counts its successes as the Ariane program and its civil space projectiles, Meteosat which indicates us the weather in Europe as well as in Africa, the climate surveillance, the study of the sun and comets, the establishment of the sky’s cartography from space and the exploration of the universe in infrared light and X rays, the contribution to the ISS, the International Space Station, the space telescope Hubble, Galileo … In short, the organization is first dedicated to everything that touches our well-being on Earth and the knowledge of our solar system. But there are exceptions to the rule. The headhunter knew it, all my focus was on CHEOPS. The characterization satellite of exoplanets that is part of the Cosmic Vidion program. Rather small, its job is to measure the size, the mass, and the characterization of the atmosphere of already identified exoplanets, flying in orbit around shining stars situated near the solar system. Its photometric precision allows it to determine with exact precision the exoplanet’s ray. CHEOPS plays a complementary role compared to more expensive missions set to discover new exoplanets, such as Kepler for NASA and CoRoT for the ESA, as well as PLATO. These use detection methods (radial velocity) which do not provide the planet’s dimensions, an essential data to determine the density and thus the structure of the star. The observation’s quality made by CHEOPS’ instrument makes it possible to measure the transit of planets whose diameter is between the diameter of Earth and six times more than this number, in the measurement where they fly in orbit around stars shinning and close enough to the Solar System. Michel Mayor remains sure that we will end up discovering life on an exoplanet. Ironically, I was sent back from Canada to Madrid, more precisely to Villanueva, ESAC’ chair, the European space astronomy Centre. Set to pilot the scientific operations of all space astronomy missions and the study of ESA’s planets, it also acts as the archive center. The beginning of a long adventure in the infinitely big.

After such a long journey, I like to remind myself how I started. The calm swimming pool of the Eso Hotel is the perfect place for this. Protected from the dryness of the fabulous desert Atacama, near the Cerro Paranal observatory, this residence, commonly known as the oasis of astronauts, is truly a unique place on Earth. No other site allows to see so many stars with a bare eye. During the day, you would thing to be on Mars, during the night, on the Moon. Except for one scientific panel (of high rank), only James Bond was able to go there, during the filming of Quantum of Solace. The building, looking straight from a science-fiction story, presents a futuristic architecture decorated with large windows looking over the horizon. A red Martian rectangle in the middle of nowhere, submerged in 350 white nights per year. The observatory clearly said, exploited by the European Southern observatory and placed higher than 2600m, allows the study of stars in the length of the waves starting from the ultraviolet to the infrared. The celestial objects observed are situated at such distance, that only waves are able to allow us to distinguish an “image”. The telescope VISTA particularly surprises for being the biggest telescope in the world of probing. Its camera has 67 million pixels. To avoid the slightest infrared ray coming from space to be covered up by the thermal ambient sound, the camera is frozen at -200 degrees Celsius and is sealed in a transparent box allowing the infrared ray to reach it. As for the VLT, it is the most evolved astronomical observatory in visible light in the world. My walks among these majestic white towers never bored me. Ending each time by looking at the sky, as if my eyes were lovers linked to the unknown and darkness.

Amsterdam

Religions, created in my opinion by people and for people, have the tendency to annihilate the rational side of our thoughts. By objectively analyzing the subject, religions exist since the beginning of times and succeeded each other over the different civilizations. Whether they are polytheistic or monotheistic, in any time period, they answer to the fear of death and more importantly, to the displeasing feeling of loneliness. Humans have and will always need a shoulder to rest on, to live with hope. Hell, it is others, according to Sartre. And apparently, a necessary evil. Instead of providing feedback for our co-citizens, we preferred to have a judge able to manipulate masses and a lot less intrusive. Changeable at our wish, able to justify anything and its opposite, these deities are present all the time, as soon as we need them, even in the afterlife of such a short life. When they do not please us anymore, we change them or make them disappear. Easy way to flee responsibilities and mistakes. But who are we to tell people that our revelation was the correct one? Without even being able to hear it, touch it, or see it. Worse, to tell this to inhabitants of another planet? Even God has his limits. Science also asked itself these questions but with a success a lot more obvious to the eye, even though I respect the freedom of thoughts. To those who felt lonely, world hunters showed exoplanets. To those who feared death, transhumanists gave human cryonics. Believing and having faith are the consequences of perfectly human fears and feelings. If Georges Lemaître, famous theologist of the Big Bang as well as Jesuit father, were still among us today, would he question the existence of a higher spirit? The question remains open, illustrating a curious paradox.

The demographic explosion has always been my biggest worry, partially due to the conservative mindset of religions. And more globally due to the fruit of a taboo subject. It takes strength to admit that our planet is over boarding. Fundamental value, the freedom of action should not be negotiated at any price. Grow endlessly on a planet that does not grow of even a centimeter is physically impossible and irresponsible. Resources stay very limited even with the precious help of renewable energy and the drop of all kinds of consumption. Even more than breeding, natality is from far the most destructive aspect when it comes to carbon footprint. Someone sensitive to the environment, will inevitably produce more greenhouse gas than someone …who does not exist. Simple mathematical logic. Human beings are biological pebbles in extremely disproportionate needs compared to other living beings on Earth. Some believe the seriousness of the situation is relative, that we have a plan B. There is no place for failure. To colonize the other end of the galaxy will require an enormous amount of time and money. Only available in thousands of years if not more when it will be too late. Alexander Astier, initiator of the conference and a passionate of astronomy, regardless of his great interest in faraway worlds, holds the same opinion. He reminds us that our species was created specifically for our planet.

Regardless of their proximity, not the Moon neither Mars will be easy to tame. Our house is burning, and we look elsewhere. Who watches its house burn down without doing anything about it? Do we want to go conquer space by emptying each and every planet before abandoning it? The fight for our own survival demands a deep work on education. The habit is unequivocal, the highest rate of birth is linked to the least favored social groups. This realization is serious, people not having enough food, still procreating without thinking about the consequences. Accelerating by cause to effect hunger, deforestation, desertification, and soon wars. My strong position on demographic regulation had obviously caused me many enemies. The painful memory of Chinese politics regarding one child per family, remained anchored in our mind. However, in a country with more than a billion inhabitants, of which a part lives in insecurity, the idea was not necessarily absurd. The form was obviously indefensible.

A nation was getting closer to the futuristic vision, to excellency. The state-city of Singapore. From the beginning, this new civilization, very evolved in sustainable development, was built on a state-of-the-art educational system and strict rules, including on the aspects of natality, neatness, and security. There were lied rocks, a dragon was born fortified by a strong economic liberalism and a dreamlike geographical position. However, the freedom of speech is restrained, man’s rights are barely respected and religion influences society. The founding government has nonetheless hurried to maintain religious tolerance and harmony among ethnicities. History will remember that their promise had been fulfilled. More than anything, Lee Kuan Yew, who we can qualify as an enlightened despot, understood the big importance of education. And did not commit the mistake that many others did, oppress the intellectuals to establish his power. In less than a generation, Singapore has changed from being a country stated as under-developed and corrupted to an international economical giant, regardless of its small population restricting space and lacking natural resources, with the least corrupted government on the whole planet. “We are not the many, that is why we need to be the most educated.” Bet paid, everything is said.

A man with an impeccable look, dressed in my brand, came to me two days after my speech. With him as it appeared a precise and seducing goal.

— Good afternoon mister Eton. Firstly, I wanted to share my biggest admiration and a touch of jealousy. You are very lucky to be again near your grandmother. I miss mine very much.

— I understand. Nowadays, science can finally respond to extremely painful feelings and void, I answered with a compassionate smile.

The individual took back a serious face.

— Mister Eton, my identity does not matter. You can call me Simon.

— As Simon Templar? I asked to soften the atmosphere.

— Yes, good reference, he replied surprised.

The man paused, annoyed.

— I represent a rather… discreet organization. We have been following you for a while now and believe that you are the right man to form an alliance with. The means available to achieve our goals can reveal themselves as being particularly efficient. Your election to a very highly placed position is considered.

— Are you from the secret services? I start to be used to this, I replied less tenderly.

— Hum… no. I belong to a dissident branch of the association that gave back your grand-mother’s life.

To these words, I started nervously fidgeting my fingers, not truly interested in listening what was coming. But did I have such a choice?

— You are a transhumanist?

— No, that’s the point. Or at least… not exactly. Transhumanists desire to give more power to men. But, what have they done? The need to replace them has become obvious if we do not want to embed ourselves totally into the wall. Do not worry, I am not an exterminator. However, I consider that it is our duty to control this invasive and cruel species, responsible for all the problems of this planet, to the point of having become a threat to itself. This proves its lack of intelligence. Speaking of intelligence, since ours is under-used, we suggest building one a lot more powerful and responsible.

— Ok, so we are going to talk about AI, I sighed.

He looked at me for a long time before starting again.

— We often associate artificial intelligence with cognitive sciences, to computational neurology, mathematical logic, to computing, let’s make it short, it researches methods of solution towards extremely complex problems. Here is a proof: an IA destroyed the chess champion Kasparov many times.

— I suppose you are going to talk to me about research lead by Google, Nasa, Apple and more. Quantum computers, enabling artificial intelligence to increase their automatic learning. Deep learning…

The man was surprised and for the first time smiled.

— You are our guy mister Eton. I will make it short. I would like to offer you the possibility to work with Oscar, he said proudly.

— Oscar, is that your cat or your hamster? I asked skeptically.

— Very funny. Oscar is you, it’s me, it’s the surveillance camera in the main hall, it’s the stars, it is everything! It is God…

— I am starting not to understand everything.

— Oscar is an artificial intelligence launched last year into orbit. It travels around the world multiple times per day, is linked to anything it wants to and most importantly experiences the power of calculation never achieved previously. It warns us about crimes, models hazard, makes you meet the woman of your life or even makes you the owner of Wall Street. And constantly improves itself since it is gifted with a quantum super calculator thousands of times superior to your computer.

I had already heard about these things. The British have for a long time now thrown themselves in the abolition of crimes thanks to artificial intelligence. Basing themselves from large data bases on criminals and from an automatic learning solution, an AI warns the crimes and the recurrence. Better, it can connect itself to the underground’s cameras and send the police to the location of the crime not yet committed, just by a probability calculation. Economists, forming new investment strategies, succeeding to model hazard. I was skeptical but weirdly I wanted to believe my interlocutor.

— What do you expect from me?

— We could enable you to be in the right place at the right moment. After your election, our friend will help you to change the world and enforce your vision.

— And then will come the time when Oscar will decide about everything instead of us, I sighed.

— Many fear the day when AI will outdo men. If we believe the facts, it is already the case and it is a good thing. Men are not able to control themselves.

— A dangerous observation since an AI does not have feelings. It is therefore impossible to consider things in their contexts.

— Novelty has always scared people. I will let you think about it Mr. Eton, your destiny belongs to you, he suddenly answered.