5
When Helen arrived at the restaurant, the next day, David was already sitting at a table.
He had the strangest looking tray of food Helen had seen him assemble yet.
There was a green jelly, into which David had stuck three straws. There was a bowl of soup, a bread roll, a can of coke and several napkins – which reminded Helen of yesterday. Helen made a note to get herself at least a couple of napkins. There was a large bowl of mashed potato and three empty plates. Unusually, for David, there was also a large ripe looking orange.
Helen was surprised that there was only one dessert on the tray but decided that it was more a product of space (no room on the tray) than a new prudence on David’s part.
Helen selected a chicken salad, a clear plastic cup, a bottle of water, an apple, enough cutlery for herself and David and two napkins before paying and joining David at his table.
She sat, arranged her tray and reached for her bottle.
Even before Helen had twisted the top on her water bottle David was pointing at the straw nearest to her urging her to look down it and asking her “what can you see down the straw Helen?”
“Hello Helen, how are you today?” said Helen a little edgily.
“Hi. Look, what can you see down the straw?”
Helen poured herself half a glass of water before taking a sip. Slowly she leaned forward as David became increasingly excited. He couldn’t have displayed more anticipatory excitement if he’d been ten years old and had rigged the jelly to explode showering Helen with green gunge.
Helen looked, considered and said “green jelly.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, David all I can see is green jelly.”
“How do you know its green jelly, though?” “David, the straw is stuck into a pile of green jelly that is on the plate. Naturally I can see green jelly.” “No, what I mean is that YOU only know its jelly because you can see the straw stuck in the jelly. But if you were inside that straw and just happened to find that your straw universe had changed at one end – turned green – you wouldn’t know, from inside the straw, that it was a green jelly. Remember, all you can tell from within the straw universe is what is immediately in front or immediately behind. You have no concept of up, down, left or right so you can’t see a jelly.”
Helen considered yesterday’s discussion and, remembering the can of coke, checked that she had some paper towels. “Okay”, she said, “so what you’re saying is that I reached the conclusion that I was seeing jelly only because I was looking from outside of the straw, yes?” “Exactly.” enthused David.
David reached over and manipulated the other two straws. One he carefully lined up so that it passed the first straw at a point close to the first straws jelly soaked open end. The other he placed near to but not touching the first straw.
“Ok”, he said, “look down the first straw again.” “Which one?” “The one you looked down just now. What can you see?”
Helen looked and saw the other straw. “I can see the other str….” “Gotcha again,” said David “don’t tell me what you think you can see. Tell me exactly what your eye sees.” “We-ell, all I can see then, is that there is something white in the jelly.” “Exactly. So do you agree that from within a one-dimensional universe – the straw universe – it is not possible to see what the bigger picture is? It is only possible to interpret what is ‘visible’ from within your very limited universe.”
Helen nodded.
“And what about the third straw?” said David. “What third straw?” said Helen. David smiled and reached for the soup spoon on Helen’s tray.
For several moments David excavated soup from his bowl. Finally he mopped up the last remnants of liquid with his bread roll.
“If I’m not mistaken then, the same logic can be applied to the two dimensions between the menus view you showed to me yesterday.” “Too right it can,” said David. “Imagine that a straw had speared through the two menus. On its way through, all that would have been discernable from between the menus would have been that something had appeared – stayed a while and left. The idea that it was something long passing through would be untenable because that would depend on being able to detect what was happening above the top menu and below the bottom one.”
“But,” said Helen “if the straw was passing through, its entire length visible between the menus, then it would be possible to explore it properly, true?” “True.”
“I get it now,” said Helen. “And all of this interaction between the straw universes and the menu universes would be visible – IS visible – from the bigger three dimensional environment.” “Exactly like you and me watching the whole thing at this table,” finished David.
David dived into his dessert next using his soup spoon. Not as sticky as yesterday, he showed considerable restraint, waiting until the whole course was finished before starting again, although it must be said that the soup spoon danced to a non-existent tune even as he was chewing.
“If you think about it,” he mused, “from within each of the universes it would be possible to think that you had a good grasp of everything that is going on. It is probably the same if you scale everything down to a single ball shaped universe.” Reaching for the orange David held it between them, turning it with his hands alternately cradling it in his fingers and allowing it to rest within the palms of his hands. He rolled it from hand to hand and as he did so asked Helen “If this were a complete universe contained within this orange, what do you think they would think was going on out here?”
“Based on what you’ve demonstrated so far they would have no perception of out here and so would not know that anything was happening to the orange at all.” Agreed Helen as they both nodded together. “And yet,” said David, inside the orange they have an up, a down, a forward, a backward, a left and a right.”
David smacked the orange down into the big bowl of mashed potatoes, most of which stayed in the dish, and took a straw from the jelly. “In fact,” he said “if this straw were to be pushed into this orange there would be no way of knowing how why or from where the straw had appeared. If it were pushed in and then pulled out again it could no more be explained than say,” after a long pause he continued, “a ghost.”
It was it this moment that a chair was noisily shoved backwards, its rear two legs kicking at the tiled floor of the restaurant and creating a harsh staccato that made people cringe and turn. “Why are you playing with your food? Get it down your neck you great buffoon!”
Ordinarily David would not have noticed even this direct a challenge when on full stream but with a surge he twisted and rose in his seat. In one smooth – somewhat surprising movement - he went from hunched forward in concentrated discussion to grizzly bear. Brian, the source of the verbal attack, was able to avoid being toppled but suffered a jab into the gut and a poke in the ribs as his plastic bottle bounced from his tray and rolled across a nearby table.
Helen hugged the contents of her tray protectively as David let loose a roar of delight and moved in for the hug. “Where the hell did you spring from?”