Photons do not lie

© 2006 Nature Publishing Group

FUTURES NATURE|Vol 439|9 February 2006

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Photons do not lieThe true value of history.

Euan Nisbet

The camera sweeps down the majesticgarden approach, the marvellous avenueof intertwined rose-chrysanthemum trees.Cranes flock above. Skittering impalasgraze amid bamboo-gums, in whichkoalas and lumbering pandas loll underthe warm sun. Onwards we glide to thepalace and into the grand throne room,thronged with a vast crowd,the notables of Earth. Theyrise. In Reykjavik, the Nobelceremony has begun. Enter-ing in state to the ancientimperial anthem, RockAround the Clock, is HerMajesty, Queen Hillary IV.

The laureates are led in.What paragons they are!There had been criticismthat the biology prize shouldbe discontinued, as biology is so unchallenging. Thatwas surely correct for stamp-collecting physics, but whocannot applaud this year’sbiology winner, recreator of the rabbit-sized, slipper-and-iPub-fetching house-trained woolly mammoth? No mathsprize, after that laureate’s affair with thePrince Consort. How dare she! Of course,the discovery of the soul led to calls forreinstatement, but the Gödel–Isho’dad ofMerv–Epimenides theory shows that,although detectable, that ’brane cannot beinvestigated, frangible yet intangible. Thequest is abandoned.

The heavyweight prizewinners comeon. Geology — for the discovery of thetenth inhabited planet, this one orbitingAldebaran. The inhabitants are aggressiveant-like beings in the throes of nuclearwar, but no doubt they will see reasonwhen we pacify them. Such a pity that wehad to sterilize all the humanoids of theeighth planet: the peace prize goes to theAdmiral of that expedition, for those elo-quent words of consolation, after the ritualwelcoming dance offered by the inhabi-tants accidentally unveiled one of theAdmiral’s men. The strong reaction was ofcourse fully justified.

Next is the economics prize. As is cus-tomary, this goes to the ranking associateprofessor at Lunar Chicago University,whose ‘great idea’ was the reinvention ofcrime. It is now proven that economic sys-tems are unstable unless criminals flourish.Old fogies decry this, but the huge ‘Make

Crime Real’ demo outside the palace hasmuch sympathy. Several provinces nowselect lucky teenagers for training, provid-ing necessities such as body piercings,drugs and ‘attitude’.

A hum of excitement pervades theroom. It is time for the Sacred Reminder.The prime minister rises to recount thesaving of humanity. Suddenly, rudely,there is a slight buzz. A masculinist suf-

frager has managed to enter. He is quicklyejected, burka fluttering. The prime min-ister dryly observes that the formula limit-ing men to 10% of academic posts isalready over-generous.

The Reminder begins: the sterilizationof Earth in 2020 by the week-long GreatSolar Flare. She recounts the wondrouschance that the US president was on lunardarkside, in Lunar City to celebrate theclose of her third term, accompanied bythe Chinese president, the British CrownPrince and the Crown Princess of Japan.The presidents’ energy and constitutionalwisdom inspired extraordinary efforts tomake the colony viable, and then rebuild.Then came the romance between Princeand Princess, and the final emotional abdi-cation of the Dual Presidency, with consti-tutional dispensation of our Empire ofLuna and Three Planets, into the hands oftheir beloved adopted heirs.

Since then, what progress there hasbeen under the Rose and Chrysanthe-mum! From bones and buried seeds we have recovered the biosphere, evenraising Earth’s population to more than amillion. Mirrored Venus was terraformed;Mars warmed by chlorofluorocarbons,and methane from polar peat bogs. Theend of physics came with the discovery of CUTE, the canonic universal theory of everything, bringing instantaneous

travel to anywhere in the cosmos.Last comes the greatest prize. What is

more valuable than history, recovery of ourlost past? The flare frizzled the databases,leaving only tiny fragments of our culturein the personal oddments of scientists inLunar City: the deficient aesthetic of Bach,Mozart, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats — JaneAusten, for goodness’ sake. But now weunearth a marvellous treasure trove. Of

course even the geeks lovedElvis and Abba, but only nowdo we fully realize just howlimited was their vision, theywho did not even value thegreat Sinatran song of cre-ation: “Do BE! Do BE! DO!”

Now we are recovering thetrue genius of the Golden Age.Here is our history prizewin-ner now, rising to deliver herlecture. She recounts the longhours spent cruising roundthe wavefront, laboriouslyintegrating photon after pho-ton on the sphere 200 lightyears out, as she collected the

radio broadcasts of the twentieth century. What diamonds she has found! One is

the 00.48 a.m. BBC shipping forecast, amysterious sacred compline into the deadof night, with its great unsung hymn of‘Sailing by’ into the afterlife. From Ameri-can radio, the account by Orson Welles ofthe 1938 martian attack on Earth is previ-ously known only in a corrupt fake pur-porting to have been written by a Mr H. G.Wells. Already major funding supportsarchaeologists searching Mars for theextinct civilizations under our new oceans.

Finally comes the climax of her Nobellecture. Technically, it is far easier torecover radio than TV. But now, a visualrevelation — proof that twentieth centuryhumanity was in touch with alien life else-where in the Universe! Praise be: thesealiens, delegated to each nation butunknown to us moderns, are fullyhumanoid, female of course, possessingunearthly beauty and uttering truly sub-lime speeches for World Peace. Here is thehighest glory of the Age of Gold. Herefrom civilization’s ancient heartland —Perth, Western Australia — gentlemenand noble ladies, I give you the Miss Uni-verse competition, 1979! ■

Euan Nisbet puzzles over Archaean rocksand monitors atmospheric greenhouse gasesat Royal Holloway, University of London,Egham, UK.

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