Ball Lightning

His question caught Lin Yun by surprise, since at Zhang Bin’s request, nothing had been put on the stone but his name and his dates, since he felt that there was nothing worth saying about his life. Lin Yun came over for a closer look, and then froze in shock. In addition to the large inscription, the face of the marker was densely covered with small carved letters. Lettering was on the top and sides of the stone, too, along with formulas and calculations. It was as if the gravestone had been dipped in a liquid made of formulas.

“Oh, they’re fading. They’re disappearing!” Lin Yun shouted.

Ding Yi roughly pushed her away. “Turn around! With one less observer they’ll collapse more slowly.”

Lin Yun turned around and wrung her hands anxiously. Ding Yi leaned on the stone and began reading the text line by line. “What is it? Can you see anything?” she asked.

“Keep quiet!” he said loudly, still focused on reading.

Lin Yun rummaged in her pockets. “Should I go back to the car for a pencil and paper?”

“There’s no time. Don’t bother me!” he said, reading the text with astonishing speed. His eyes were locked fiercely on the stone, as if trying to pierce through it.

Now the last bit of light in the west painted the gravestones an eerie blue, and the surrounding woodland was immersed in a sea of darkness. The few gleaming stars that had emerged hung unblinkingly in the sky. From time to time there was the faint whisper of leaves rustling in the gentle breeze, which soon stopped, as if some unknown power was holding its breath. Stillness enveloped everything, like the whole world was focusing its attention along with Ding Yi on the quantum inscription.

Ten minutes later, Ding Yi had finished reading the front of the gravestone, and, after a quick scan of the top and sides, began reading the back. It was completely dark now, so he took out a lighter and read rapidly in the light of its weak flame.

“I’ll get a flashlight!” Lin Yun said, running off along the path between the ranks of gravestones to the car. When she returned with a flashlight in hand, the lighter flame had gone out. She found Ding Yi sitting with his back against the gravestone and his legs stretched out in front of him, looking at the stars.

On the gravestone, the inscription had vanished without a trace. The smooth marble surface reflected the flashlight beam like a mirror.

At the light from the flashlight, Ding Yi regained his senses like a man waking from a dream. He reached out, pulled Lin Yun around to the back of the gravestone, and pointed to its base. “Look at that. There’s one line left. It’s not in a quantum state, and it’s the only line of the inscription in Chinese.” Lin Yun crouched down and read the elegantly carved text:

Bin, inciting F requires a speed of just 426.831 meters per second. I’m very afraid.

“I know that handwriting!” Lin Yun said, staring at the words. On more than one occasion, she had read Zhang Bin’s notebook, its alternating pages burned by ball lightning.

“Yes. It’s Zheng Min.”

“What did she carve?”

“A mathematical model. A complete description of macro-atoms.”

Lin Yun sighed. “We really should have brought a digital camera.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got it all in my head.”

“You do? All of it?”

“Most of it I’d derived already. But my theoretical system was stuck on a few points that she cleared up.”

“It must be a very important breakthrough!”

“Not just that. Lin Yun, we can find macro-nuclei!”

“The nuclei of macro-atoms?”

“Yes. By observing the movement of a macro-electron in space, we can use this model to precisely determine the exact location of the macro-atom it belongs to.”

“But how can we detect those macro-nuclei?”

“The same as with macro-electrons, and just as surprisingly simple: we can see them with the naked eye.”

“Wow… what do they look like? I remember you said that the shape of macro-nuclei would be completely different from the shape of macro-electrons.”

“Strings.”

“Strings?”

“Yes, strings. They look like a length of string.”

“How long? How thick?”

“They’re in basically the same class as macro-electrons. They’re about one to two meters long, depending on the atom. And they’re infinitely thin. Every point is a dimensionless singularity.”

“How can we see an infinitely thin string with the naked eye?”

“Because light bends in its vicinity.”

“So what does it look like?”

Ding Yi half closed his eyes, like someone who has just woken up attempting to recall a dream. “It’ll look like… a transparent crystalline snake. Or a hanging-proof rope.”

“That second one’s a strange analogy.”

“That’s because the string is the smallest building block of macro-matter. It’s impossible for it to be cut.”