Track and Field Theory

Track and Field Theory

           At the 3.14159265359 mile mark of my run, I began to limp and had to stop. I thought I must have a foreign particle in my shoe, so I stopped and leaned on an electromagnetic post. I removed my right shoe, touching the toe of my sock-covered foot to the pavement. I inspected the sole and the shoe's inside; nothing was detectable.

     Then I heard a big bang.

The theoretical physicist Lisa Randall tapped me on the shoulder. Her long, blonde hair framed her face, the mass on the right side weightier than the left. She had a serious look about her and a pleasantness I couldn't put my finger on.

           At first, I didn't want to give her the time of day, as I noticed she wasn't wearing running shoes. "Um, I think I can help you," she said. She spoke quickly, as though words were going through her mind faster than they could come out of her mouth. I reluctantly handed her my shoe.

           She reached into her overcoat and took out an instrument. It was a long, narrow tube with an eyepiece on one end, like a miniature telescope. It had NASA written all over it.

           "Do you see anything?

           "Just a moment, please," she replied. I stared off into space, feeling myself getting Bohred. "I've discovered your problem," she said. "You have extra gluons on your shoe."

           "What?" I replied.

           "Gluons. Do you need me to define them for you?"

           "Of course not." I heliopaused for a moment before saying, "Well if you must. I know absolute zero about physics."

           "A gluon is an elementary particle that acts as a gauge boson for the strong force between quarks."

           "And that's a problem?"

           "Not normally, but it would seem you have too many gluons to continue running properly."

           "What is the solution?"

           "We'll have to get to a particle accelerator."

           "Does this matter?" I asked.

           We found the nearest Higgs cab and sped off. We were soon in a neighborhood I didn't recognize. We turned onto Copernicus Road. Then we drove past the Celestial Brewing Company, Cosmic Ray's Music store, and the Perahelion Balloon Factory, a suspicious-looking place where the vehicles appeared to float in the parking lot. The Higgs radio emitted a strange static, a cosmic background noise. I had never felt so weighed down by life.

Lisa looked through the windows at the gathering clouds and said, "We'd better move quickly. It looks like some Oort clouds are forming." To pass the time, she told me more about bosons, vector, spin, and polarization. "Wait," I said. "You lost me. Are you telling me I was limping because of this invisible particle called a gluon?"

           "Yes. Well, sort of. It's difficult to conceptualize. But yes."

           I continued to stare at the horizon in the event I needed to escape. Cars were whizzing past us like particles in an accelerator. We pulled up to an ivory tower surrounded by razor wire. A pale physicist in a beige overcoat approached our vehicle. He said to Lisa, "Got another one, huh?" He handed her a visitor's badge with my name on the back, as though he was expecting us, as though all of time was happening simultaneously. The front of the badge read: Lisa Randall Particle Accelerator. Enter at your own risk. We drove through the gate.

           "Yup," said Lisa. The man barely looked at me.

           I stepped out of the car onto the gravel. Lisa continued to cradle my shoe.

           We were escorted down a long road to a brick building with the letters M.I.T. carved at the top. In very fine cursive print, underneath the letters were the words, Moments in time.

` "Any chance I can have my shoe now?" I asked.

           "Not now," Lisa said. "Once I have taken possession of stray gluons, they become the property of the accelerator.

           We had entered the hermetically sealed elevator by then and descended thirty stories. The doors opened, revealing the largest machine I'd ever seen. "This shouldn't take long," said Lisa. "Once the accelerator heats up, which takes the longest amount of time. We'll have results in a couple of days."

           "A couple of days? I can't wait a couple of days to get my running shoe back."

           "You won't be getting your running shoe back. It will be destroyed in the collision."

           "Oh, no. You can't destroy my shoe. There's only 75 miles on it."

           "It will soon be traveling close to the speed of light. I don't think you'll need to worry about miles."

           Lisa handed my shoe to a stern-looking fellow whose nametag read Newton. He wore blue velvet pantaloons and was sporting a long, curly wig. Newton disappeared with my shoe as though a distant force were pulling at him.

           "What's he going to do with my shoe? I asked."

           "As I stated earlier, we will send your running shoe through the accelerator at close to the speed of light. Another shoe will travel through the accelerator in the opposite direction. When the two shoes are at an adequate speed, we will smash them together to see which particles are revealed. The extra gluons on your shoe will be statistically observable. Of course, we may see some evidence of extra dimensions."

           "Is that necessary?"

           "It's absolutely necessary. You want to get back to running, don't you?" The gravity of the matter began to weigh on me.

           I could hear the accelerator starting up, but I couldn't stand to watch the collision. I sat in the waiting room until it was over, glancing through an extra copy of the Spacetime Dimensions newsletter. There was no publication date. On the cover was a distraught-looking man wearing only one shoe. The man looked suspiciously like me.

Just then, Lisa appeared. "The experiment is over," she said.

           "What'd you find?"

           "That data is classified."

           "Classified? It was my shoe," I said.

           "Not technically. Technically speaking, gluons don't belong to anyone. They belong to the universe."

           Then she handed me a gift certificate for a new pair of running shoes. The name of the store was The Cosmic Sole.

           "How can I be sure a new pair of shoes won't have extra gluons?" I asked.

           "You won't know definitively," she said. "You have to check with a particle physicist to find out." She handed me her business card. "Happy running," she said.