MOAB

Chapter 5i^2

Chapter 5i^2

He forgot to even fire up the laser. He just stared at the ceiling and doubted himself. Maybe he was wrong all along, maybe it wasn’t possible to make a lattice of light without leakage. Light is weird, light is… a wave and a particle, light is the speed limit of the universe. Sure you can make it do weird stuff, like bend around a gravity-well or force it to turn into a pseudocrystal for a while, but you can’t really contain it.

It spills out, like milk from an upturned bottle. And there is no use crying over spilt milk.

He looked back at Matlab. Nothing new. One more day closer to the funding review. One more day closer to the age of thirty.

He might as well spend the time with his son.

He went downstairs and found Georgie playing with a toy screwdriver. Yanni sat down on the floor and played with his son, showing him how to hammer plastic rivets and how to turn plastic screws. Georgie enjoyed it all very much, giggling and having the time of his life. Yanni felt great too, seeing his son’s first advances in mechanics. “Maybe one day he will create something new and I will be bursting with pride,” Yanni thought. “This is how we all start, turning a plastic screw. And then in no time we are building skyscrapers.”

His phone rang. It was Toma, a French guy from the Demokritos administration. “Yasou Yanni,” he said with his foreign accent, but still trying too hard to honor the local customs. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“What is it?” Yanni asked, forcing down his impatience.

“You know the new administrator, he is under orders to make some serious budget cuts. He isn’t the only one who gets to vote, but I heard him gunning against your funding.”

“What does that mean? Can he simply take it away?” asked Yanni, running his hand over his head.

“Ohi, ohi. It’s still a vote. But he is sure to vote against you. I’m just calling to let you know, so you’ll be ready to face him. I’m sure when you present some promising results the other members will vote for you,” Tomas said.

“Yes, thank you Tomas. Honestly, merci. I just have to show them promising results,” Yanni said, forcing a smile and hung up.

He sat there and thought of what this meant. He hadn’t grasped the implications of failing the review up until now, with Georgie next to him wanting to play with plastic tools. Their life would change so much, he was so used to receiving the funding all these years and working on his apodeixis that he had forgotten what it’s like without it.

Yeah, teaching wasn’t so bad. Getting up every morning, showing up at the amphitheatre, educating brilliant young minds. Just like he did, when he was slightly younger. Back then when he came up with his idea of using light knots to contain digital information. Back then when he thought he could actually do it.

He looked at Georgie’s face. Maybe that’s what Moira had decided, him to come up with the idea, work on it a few years and then pass it on to a younger mind, a promising student who would look up to him and carry on his work. And maybe, just maybe, come up with a proof that works.

That kind of proof could win the Nobel Prize. Yanni just had to hope that the student would be willing to share credit for it.