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“Ideas are good,” Lachlan replied, leading him, looking for more.

Jason wondered if he was going to regret what he said next, but he couldn’t help himself. He had such respect for the professor. He desperately wanted to hear his thoughts on these calculations.

Lachlan seemed to sense his angst, saying, “Crazy ideas can be some of the best ideas.”

“OK,” Jason replied. “This is speculative, but speculation is the heart of innovation. You’ve got to think laterally, right?”

Lachlan nodded.

Jason continued.

“There are eleven dimensions in M-Theory.”

With a slight tilt of his head, the professor agreed.

“We’ve got our regular three spatial dimensions, plus time, and then seven minuscule dimensions looped over each other like the coils of a snake.”

The professor listened intently.

“But by our own admission, we’re dealing with space-time, yet all we ever talk about is space. Time is taboo. We have all of these extra spacial dimensions, but not a single, extra chronological dimension.”

The professor held up a finger as though he were asking for permission to speak, which surprised Jason a little. Jason paused, letting him talk.

“But we can’t have more than one dimension in time,” Lachlan said. “That would be contradictory, chaotic. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Ah,” Jason continued, “but perhaps that’s the point. We look at time and wonder why it’s not only linear, but ruthlessly sequential, with one second always leading to the next. Cause always precedes effect, but the math works both ways. On paper, time is bidirectional, but in practice, time marches on relentlessly, and yet no other dimension works this way? What’s more, we know time dilates just as lengths contract. Everything about time screams that it is a dimension as plastic and malleable as any other, and yet we treat time with kid gloves, as though it were made of glass and might shatter if we squeeze our theories too hard.

“Why is there an arrow of time? Why is time a one-way street? Maybe it’s because time is not a single dimension at all, but instead it’s a clash between two or more chronological dimensions, and so time is propelled forward like an ever tightening ratchet.”

As Jason spoke, Lachlan continued looking over the young man’s notes.

“Interesting,” the professor said, not giving anything away in his tone of voice.

“Think about gravity,” Jason continued. “For centuries, people ignored gravity, taking it for granted. No one questioned why the Moon didn’t fall from the sky, because that seemed silly. Of course the Moon doesn’t fall from the sky—it floats!”

Lachlan grinned. Jason could see the professor knew what he was getting at. He continued, saying, “It took Newton to rethink the notion and realize that the Moon was falling just like an apple from a tree. The only difference was, the Moon missed! Newton’s apple fell and hit the earth, but the Moon kept on missing. It was an extraordinary insight!”

“Yes,” Lachlan said. “Yes it was.”

Jason could see the knowing smile on Lachlan’s face. None of this was news to him, but like all scientists, he never tired of hearing it re-couched by an inquiring mind.

“In the same way, think about dark energy,” Jason added. “We don’t know what dark energy is, but we know it drives the expansion of the universe. The problem is, we’re again looking at space as though it were a cohesive element in itself. It’s not. There’s no such thing as space, there’s only space-time. You cannot separate space from time. Dark energy is driving the expansion of space-time. The Big Rip affects not only space but time as well.

“What if dark energy is the impeller, the impetus for the arrow of time? What if dark energy is what drives time in a single direction within our hidden quantum dimensions? Sending it forwards instead of backwards.”

Professor Lachlan leaned forward on his knees, holding Jason’s paper before him, his eyes locked on the hastily scribbled equations.

Jason wasn’t finished. He loved how the professor heard him out rather than shooting him down in flames. He appreciated Lachlan’s willingness to provide him with the latitude to think broadly. He was probably wrong, and he knew it, but even just having the chance to think out loud helped to solidify more ideas.

“What would you say if I said I could propel a mass the size of Earth to 99% of the speed of light?”

That got the professor to look up from the paper.

“I’d be seriously impressed,” the professor admitted. “But the amount of energy required would be astronomical.”

“Exactly,” Jason replied. “And that’s my point, as Earth is already traveling through space at 99% of the speed of light due largely to dark energy.”

Lachlan raised an eyebrow, but he let Jason keep speaking.

“We’re orbiting the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour. That’s like traveling from New York to LA in three minutes.

“And the Sun is orbiting the center of the Milky Way, and our galaxy as a whole is spinning at the dizzying speed of almost half a million miles an hour. That’s what? A flight-time of twenty seconds to get to LA?