The Particle

George received a letter in the mail inviting him to be a part of a crew aboard a new model of spaceship. The letter was rather vague, but informed George that there were far too many details to explain sufficiently on paper and informed him to visit this lab nearby to attend a small presentation regarding the journey. George was young and excited to try anything new. He hadn’t developed that sense of discernment that isn’t commonly found in young people. His naivety, coupled with his youthful excitedness, threw caution to the wind and eagerly attended the presentation.

The presentation went on for about five hours, much longer than George had anticipated. In short, however, this was going to be the first trip in a ship traveling at the speed of light. The process for how this was going to be done was far beyond George’s understanding, but he understood it had something to do with attaching the ship’s engine to light particles via magnetism, propelling the ship forward at light speed. The presenter mentioned something about particles and waves that George not only didn’t understand, but had completely zoned out for. George didn’t know it, but this was the most crucial part of the presentation; this was information he critically needed to know before making his final decision to join the crew.

After the presentation, George was presented with a series of agreements and other papers that he had to sign. He signed them quickly and willingly, not bothering to read the information written out. As far as George was aware, at this point, he had a free ticket to space and was going to be a part of a historic trip through the universe flying at the speed of light. What George was not aware of was the risks and effects of traveling at the speed of light. Risks that were clearly articulated to him, but he refused.

Three weeks later, the day came for liftoff. George had gone through a series of trainings at a space center in Texas and felt well-equipped for the voyage. They took many vital readings of each of the crew members – which totaled three. The three crew members were: George, Dave, and Peter. Each of the three men were around the same age, all coming from university, but with completely different backgrounds and fields of study. Dave studied English, and Peter studied communications and marketing.

The three reported to the launch pad where they boarded the ship. The ship was much smaller than any of them had anticipated. There was enough room for sitting down during the launch, of course, enough room for three beds, a table with three chairs, a small desk, and, what appeared to be a small table with a small screen on it. Above them was a clock with bright neon-red numbers reading: ‘120:0:0:0’.

George felt as though he were on a rollercoaster, nearing the top of the big drop. He wasn’t sure when they were going to launch, how fast they would be moving, what it would feel like, how long it would take to get into space. The three weren’t afraid of the trip ahead, but rather anxious to see what it all felt like. The tension in the cabin was high among the three men.

Suddenly, the three men heard a countdown in their earpieces:

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, initialize takeoff,”

Suddenly, they all heard a loud explosion from behind them and the entire ship began to shake violently. After a few seconds, the clouds began to creep closer to them, slowly, at first, then all at once, zipping past them. Eventually, the bright, blue sky became dark. Then darker, and darker still until it was all black. George looked out among the stars. He had never seen anything like this. The stars went on as far as they were able to see, in every direction. Even below them.

About an hour after they had gotten into space and started traveling outside the Earth’s gravitational pull, a voice came up into their earpieces again, “Gentlemen, welcome to space. Before we start our main journey, we will need a volunteer to be the first particle-watcher to start the journey. I’ll give you all about fifteen minutes to talk it over. Thank you for your service.”

“What does he mean, ‘particle-watcher’?” George asked, confused.

“It’s that main job they talked about during that presentation. Don’t you remember?” Dave responded, confused.

“Uh… no. I don’t remember that,” George said reluctantly.

“How could you forget? This job is crucial to the mission. It is the mission,” Peter chimed in, frustrated.

“Sorry, okay! Just tell me what it is. I can do it first if you just tell me what I need to do,” George said defensively.

“Well,” Dave began, taking a deep breath, “the particle-watcher sits at the desk back there and has to watch the particle we’re attached to. The particle that is pulling us at the speed of light.”

“Just watch it?” George responded cautiously.

“No! You’re not just watching it,” Peter shouted, turning red, “Do you understand how crucial this job is? This job is life and death, you don’t just watch it. You’re keeping us all alive. The second, the second,” he repeated, shouting, “you take your eyes off of that particle, we all turn to vapor. Dead!” he shouted, smoke pillowing out his ears.

“Okay! Okay!” George said back, raising his voice, putting his hands up in front of him to defend himself.

“Something you need to understand, George,” Dave began, “is that this particle isn’t just pulling us along. The thing about light particles is that they aren’t just particles. They can also be waves. Do you understand?”

“What do you mean? What difference does it make if they’re just waves?” George responded, more confused than before. Peter rolled his eyes and put his face in his hands, trying to keep himself calm.

“Well,” Dave continued, darting his eyes at Peter then back to George, “when light turns to a wave, it no longer gives us anything to latch on to. It spreads out and disperses rather than continuing in a straight line. Have you ever heard of the double slit experiment?” Dave asked.

“No I haven’t. What is it?” George responded.

“Well, to make it quick: scientists shone light through a sheet with two slits in it, and on the other side, on another sheet on the back wall, there were many lines of light that came up, not just two. This wasn’t an issue, this was just light showing properties of a wave, which is what was expected. Now, here’s where it gets strange. They shot individual electrons at the two slits, expecting them to come through the other side in two slits. Sort of like if you shot at the two slits with a paintball gun, or poured sand over top of them. You’d expect to see only two slits of paint, or two piles of sand, right? Well, that’s not what they saw. They saw the same many lines on the other side. So the particles that they shot through the slits showed properties of waves like before. It was as if they had gone through both slits and then organized themselves in patterns of lines on the other side.

“So, to figure out what the particles were doing, the scientists set up a sort of detector on the other side. This detector would beep or signal in some way if a particle went through the top slit. If it beeped, a particle passed through the top slit; if it did not beep, it passed through the bottom slit, understand? When they did this, the result was two lines on the back wall instead of many like before. When observed, the particle showed properties of a particle, not a wave, and they picked one of the two slits, not both. When the detector was turned off, the particles went through both slits and exhibited signs of a wave, leaving many lines on the back wall again.

“So the particle-watcher needs to constantly be observing the particle to ensure it remains a particle and exhibits properties of such. If we were to not watch it or look away, it would begin to observe properties of a wave. If that happens… well, it would be a disaster.”

George had a hard time believing this. But he now understood what he had to do. The man came back on their earpieces and asked who they had chosen. George volunteered as he had agreed to. The man on the earpiece chimed back in, “Okay, George. It’s imperative that you are constantly watching the particle, okay?”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” George said, now feeling apprehensive about his assignment.

“Okay, great. The headpiece should be on the desk for you. You may need one of the other guys to help you get it on, but once it’s on, you won’t even notice it!” the man said confidently and excitedly, “Good luck, boys. Take lots of notes and the future is excited to see what data you collect when you return. Godspeed.”

The man disconnected and a light click was heard in the earpiece.

“What headpiece? What does he mean?” George asked them, standing up slowly from his seat.

“You can’t blink,” Peter said coldly.

“The headpiece keeps you from blinking so you are constantly watching the particle,” Dave explained further.

George’s eyes widened. Dave walked back to the table with him and helped him into the headpiece. There were thick, cushioned leather straps that wrapped around his head like a headband. Like the arms of a wire-framed pair of glasses, two small arms came from each temple towards his eyes where two small cups held his eyelids open. Embedded into one of the cups was a tiny spray nozzle that kept one’s eyes moistened, avoiding the need to blink.

“Okay, George,” Dave said, “you just need to hit this button when you’re ready. When you do, the particle will suddenly appear on the screen and we will be launched at light speed. Good luck. If you need anything, just shout. Remember, you can’t look away.”

“When do we change shifts?” George asked, trembling with anxiety.

“We change shifts every eighteen hours,” Dave said in a warm voice, trying to soothe George’s nerves.

“Okay… Well, here goes nothing…”

He stared at the blue button on the table, glowing. He pushed it with a satisfying snap. Instantly, an odd looking, glowing orb appeared on the screen. It was at this moment that George realized the mistake he had made accepting the invitation for this trip.

An hour went by and George was only now beginning to calm down. Left with nothing except his thoughts, George remembered something terrifying.

“Uh… hey Dave!” George shouted, keeping his eyes pasted on the particle, “Dave!”

“Yeah? What’s up George? Everything okay?”

“Uhm… Dave? What did he mean when he said ‘the future is excited…’? How long is this voyage, exactly?”

“Well… see the clock over there,” he pointed towards the clock near the main cabin, it read 119:22:51:18, “Well, I guess you can’t see it, huh?” he read the time to him, “That’s how much of our own time we have left. One hundred and twenty days. For Earth, on the ground, we may be gone for many years. That clock, however, is our time, or ship time as we call it. According to Earth time, however, we will effectively have never left,” he paused and waited for a response from George. He received nothing. “I’m not sure how long we’ll actually be away, though. For us, it’ll be one hundred and twenty days, I can tell you that much.”

“And another detail you probably didn’t know,” Peter shouted from the cabin, walking towards the two, “is that we have no communication with Earth. Since radio waves moves at light speed as well, if they tried to contact us, the signal would never reach us. We’ll always be ahead and the radio signal will never catch up.”

Terrified now, George realized what he had agreed to. He regretted his decision to come. If he had known, he would never have signed those papers. Still keeping his eyes on the particle, George asked, “What do you mean that it would be as though we never left, according to Earth time?”

“Well,” Dave began, “the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time moves. When you’re at the speed of light, like us…”

“Time ceases. It stops,” Peter interrupted vexedly.

“Yes. The time that exists in the universe does not exist within our ship. And the time that’s going on here within our ship only exists within the frozen time of the universe,” Dave further explained. He continued, “Here’s something to help you understand: imagine if a ball is thrown at ten miles per hours, okay? If you were on a platform that also moved at ten miles an hour, the ball would appear to not be moving at all. To the passerby, you both would be moving at the same speed. Now, if, on that platform moving at ten miles an hour, you were to throw another ball at ten miles an hour, to you, it would clearly appear to be moving at that speed – at ten miles an hour. To the passerby, however, the ball would be moving at twenty miles an hour. It’s the same concept here.”

George was petrified, turning to cold stone. If they ever make it back home, what would be waiting for him? The horror struck him. He realized now why this mission was so risky.

As time passed, George realized at some point that it felt like days had passed by. He called Dave over and asked how long he had been there and how much time he had left.

“It’s only been about an hour and a half, George. I know it’s hard, but you’re doing great. I’ll let you know when we’re switching shifts.”

George was at the mercy of Dave to inform him of how much time he had left as he was unable to see the clock.

“How long has it been?” George asked himself, “How long have I been sitting here now? Days? Weeks? I’ve had to have been here for at least a week. When are they going to switch shifts?”

George called Dave back over and asked how much longer he was there. He said it had only been about two hours. “Two hours?” George thought, “There’s no way. They’re lying to me.”

There was no way he had only been there for two hours, no way. He had felt like he was there for days, weeks now. He felt time speed up in his mind like a record. The record, however, was skipping. George was stuck in his own time. Time felt like it went on and on, but outside of the chair, outside of the headpiece, time moved much slower. George was a prisoner of time, stuck.

It would be 1512 hours that George would sit in this chair waiting for the shift change. Time had split within the ship. They had lost control of the particle and lost control of time. The one observing the particle would be stuck for 63 days before receiving relief.

Time passed. George sat, tortured by time. When he tried to explain it to the others, they did not understand. They could look up and clearly see that only a few hours had passed. Dave and Peter waited out the eighteen hours, which couldn’t have gone by quicker. The sights outside the ship were incredible and they both basked in its beauty, ignorant to the torture George was enduring.

Time passed. Dave approached George and informed him that it was time for a shift change and that he would be taking over. With an abundance of caution, Dave stared at the particle and quickly mounted the headpiece on, just in time before his dry eyes were going to force him to blink. George said nothing of the suffering Dave was about to endure. He watched him as he sat, ignorant. George took a deep breath and felt free once again, as if he had just been let out of prison.

Dave kept asking for the time. Over and over. He asked and asked. George kept silent about what was happening. Eventually, Dave was freed from his imprisonment. He switched seats with Peter and said nothing either. He stared at George in horror, anger.

“What is happening?” he whispered to George.

“I… don’t know,”

Dave was in shock. He couldn’t breathe.

“Once Peter is done, he’ll know about what’s happening,” Dave said.

“I know,”

“No… you don’t understand. Once he knows, who’s going to agree to watch the particle?” Dave said panicking.

“Wh- what do you suggest, then?” George said, realizing the incredible situation they were in.

“There’s only one thing we can do. Don’t you see it?” Dave said. He had completely lost his mind in the time prison. He was scarred by the agony of time. He was panicking, unable to catch his breath. It felt like he had, not been freed, like what George felt, but he felt more imprisoned than in the chair.

“We have to leave him there. We can’t relieve him.” Dave said quietly.

To leave Peter meant to leave him, suffering in time, unable to move an inch for 238,896 hours. Over 27 years. And there he sat. Yelling, screaming, begging for relief. George and Dave remained silent for the remainder of the voyage. Fifteen days later, however, after Peter had sat for three and a half years, there was a flash of light that blinded the two. They pushed their hands on their eyes, screaming in pain. The room got so hot it was unbearable. A loud screaming rang out. Then there was nothing.