Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

“No, that won’t be necessary. We heard everything you said to Song Cheng earlier. Just continue where you left off.”

Bai Bing was momentarily at a loss for words, unable to remember where he’d stopped.

“Atomic-level model of the entire universe,” the Senior Official reminded him, but seeing that Bai Bing still couldn’t figure out how to start talking again, he added his own input. “Young man, I don’t think your idea is feasible. Superstring computers have ultimate capacity, yes, providing the hardware basis for running this sort of simulation. But have you considered the problem of the initial state? To make a digital mirror of the universe, you must start the simulation from some initial state—in other words, to construct a model that represents the universe on an atomic level, for the instant the model starts at, you’ll have to input the status at that instant of every atom in the universe into the computer, one by one. Is this possible? It wouldn’t be possible with the egg you mentioned, let alone the universe. The number of atoms in that egg outnumber the number of eggs ever laid since the beginning of time by orders of magnitude. It wouldn’t even be possible with a bacterium, which still contains an astonishing number of atoms. Taking a step back, even if we put forth the near unimaginable manpower and computing power needed to find the initial state of a small object like the bacterium or the egg on an atomic level, what about the boundary conditions for when the model runs? For example, the outside temperature, humidity, and so on needed for a chicken egg to hatch. Taken on the atomic level, these boundary conditions will require unimaginable quantities of data too, perhaps even more than the modeled object itself.”

“You’ve laid out the technical problems beautifully. I admire that,” Bai Bing said sincerely.

“The Senior Official was once a star student in the field of high-energy physics. After Deng Xiaoping’s reforms restored university degrees, his was one of the first classes to receive master’s degrees in physics in China,” said Lu Wenming.

Bai Bing nodded in Lu Wenming’s direction, then turned toward the Senior Official. “But you forget, there’s a moment in time in which the universe was extremely simple, even simpler than eggs and bacteria, simpler than anything in existence today. The number of atoms in it at the time was zero, see. It had no size and no composition.”

“The big bang singularity?” the Senior Official said immediately, almost no delay between Bai Bing’s words and his. It was a glimpse at the quick, agile mind beneath his slow and steady exterior.

“Yes, the big bang singularity. Superstring theory has already established a perfect model of the singularity. We just need to represent the model digitally and run it on the computer.”

“That’s right, young man. That really is the case.” The Senior Official stood and walked to Bai Bing’s side to pat his shoulder, revealing rare excitement. Chen Xufeng and Lu Wenming, who hadn’t understood the exchange that had just taken place, looked at them with puzzled expressions.

“Is this the superstring computer you brought out of the research center?” the Senior Official asked, pointing at the briefcase.

“Stole,” said Bai Bing.

“Ha, no matter. The software for the digital mirror of the big bang is on it, I expect?”

“Yes.”

“Run it for us.”

CREATION GAME

Bai Bing nodded, hauled the briefcase onto the desk, and opened it. Beside the display equipment, the briefcase also contained a cylindrical vessel. The superstring computer’s processor was in fact only the size of a pack of cigarettes, but the atomic circuitry required ultralow temperatures to operate, so the processor had to be kept submerged in the insulated vessel of liquid nitrogen. Bai Bing set the LCD screen upright and moved the mouse, and the superstring computer awoke from sleep mode. The screen brightened, like a dozing eye blinking open, displaying a simple interface composed of just a drop-down text box and a header reading:

Please Select Parameters to Initiate Creation of the Universe

Bai Bing clicked the arrow beside the drop-down text box. Row upon row of data sets, each composed of a sizable number of elements, appeared below. Each row seemed to differ considerably from the others. “The properties of the singularity are determined by eighteen parameters. Technically, there’s an infinite number of possible parameter combinations, but we can determine from superstring theory that the number of parameter combinations that could have resulted in the big bang is finite, although their exact number is still a mystery. Here we have a small selection of them. Let’s select one at random.”

Bai Bing selected a group of parameters, and the screen immediately went white. Two big buttons appeared in striking contrast at the center of the screen.

Initiate Cancel

Bai Bing clicked Initiate. Now only the white background was left. “The white represents nothingness. Space doesn’t exist at this time, and time itself hasn’t begun. There really is nothing.”

A red number “0” appeared in the lower left corner of the screen.

“This number indicates how long the universe has been evolving. The zero appearing means that the singularity has been generated. Its size is undefined, so we can’t see it.”

The red number began to increment rapidly.

“Notice, the big bang has begun.”

A small blue dot appeared in the middle of the screen, quickly growing into a sphere emitting brilliant blue light. The sphere rapidly expanded, filling the entire screen. The software zoomed out, and the sphere once again shrank into a distant dot, but the ballooning universe quickly filled the screen once more. The cycle repeated again and again in rapid frequency, as if marking the beats to some swelling symphony.

“The universe is currently in the inflationary epoch. It’s expanding at a rate far exceeding the speed of light.”

As the sphere slowed in its growth, the field of view began to zoom out less frequently, too. With the decrease in energy density, the sphere turned from blue to yellow, then red, before the color of the universe stabilized at red and began to darken. The field of view no longer zoomed out, and the now-black sphere expanded very slowly now on the screen.

“Okay, it’s ten billion years after the big bang. At this point, this universe is in a stable stage of evolution. Let’s take a closer look.” Bai Bing moved the mouse, and the sphere rushed forward, filling the whole screen with black. “Right, we’re in this universe’s outer space.”

“There’s nothing here?” said Lu Wenming.

“Let’s see….” As Bai Bing spoke, he right-clicked and pulled up a complicated window. A script began to calculate the total matter present in the universe. “Ha, there are only eleven fundamental particles in this universe.” He pulled up another massive data report and read it carefully. “Ten of the particles are arranged in five mutually orbiting pairs. However, in each pair, the two particles are tens of millions of light-years apart. They take millions of years to move one millimeter with respect to each other. The last particle is free.”

“Eleven fundamental particles? But after all that talk, there’s still nothing here,” said Lu Wenming.

“There’s space, nearly a hundred billion light-years in diameter! And time, ten billion years of it! Time and space are the true measures of existence! This particular universe is actually one of the more successful ones. In a lot of the universes I created before, even the dimensions of space quickly disappeared, leaving only time.”

“Dull,” harrumphed Chen Xufeng, turning away from the screen.