Shadow Dancing

SHADOW DANCING

D. STEVEN BURNS

The most recent JURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS had helped the professor's meal pass pleasantly before he heard the footsteps. That would be the waiter with accrued damages he assumed. It was not. Hector judged the young man to be about twenty eight, almost exactly half his own age. He was also only half the academic's acquired girth. “Yes,” he responded, “I am professor Valeria.”

“God Hector, how you've changed since grad-school,” he said, seating himself.

“People do that.” It was frustrating that no name sprang to mind for the, admittedly, familiar face. “What's on your mind?”He asked

“Oh just more of that stuff,” the fellow tapped the journal with quick staccato strokes. “The same thing we always discussed as roommates. I remember how we'd postulate endlessly on the nature of time. What exactly it was, how it worked. and when and why it emerged after the big bang. The man sat back smiling broadly. “Now we can add how it explains our obvious age discrepancies; at, or more aptly, in this time.”

Hector narrowed his eyes. Damn! He thought. Yes! this guy does look just like Boris Andropov at Cal Tech. Well with a couple more facial lines and pounds on him. The outrageous implication was that the he had time traveled from the past to now. Was he delusional or just some inept fraud?. “Young man, no one can travel in time! Now if one got outside of time and space, meaning our known universe, to reenter at the desired quantum address, It might work.” Boris had always hated the concept of quantum address. This was a test.

“So you're still pushing that pipe dream are you?” the younger man challenged. “Aside from the problem of never defining your hypothetical quantum address; there is no time outside of space-time! Ergo zero opportunity for any action including reentry.”

“Exactly right!” the Professor exclaimed pointing a fork accusingly. “And yet you are claiming to be Boris Andropov who beat me out for the Finemen award twenty two years ago, still young by virtue of that very impossibility.” Hector's resentment was palpable.

“Hector Valeria can't you trust your own eyes?” The man framed his face with both hands.

The older man shock his head. “If I believe my eyes I must dispute the laws of physics that you just succinctly represented. You apparently have a good enough mind to have apprehended that conundrum. Don't waste it trying to con me”

The younger man sat back clearly perplexed. “Forgive me old friend. I didn't preempt time travel only the dead end approach you offhandedly referenced. We killed that fallacy with hours of argument in the dorm, at bars, and finally, I thought, on our double date with the Chapel twins”

Angry now, Hector's fists crashed powerfully onto the table rattling silver, glassware, and nearby diners. “I don't find this amusing!” he challenged, “Your resemblance to Andropov is not license to usurp my, history and friendship.” The older man glowered. After a few seconds he began to chuckle. "Those girls were sincerely pissed about being ignored.” Both men laughed. “My god man, that memory

hasn't been dusted off in years.” Hector leaned back in his chair studying the remarkable impostor. “Under more realistic circumstances I can imagine actually liking you but a strong resemblance and an obscure college memory won't overcome the impossibility of your claim”

“Would my drivers license help?“ he was reaching for his wallet.

Hector shook his head. “Don't bother. It would take a plausible theory on the mechanics of Time travel and even then, without a practical demonstration, I'd remain unconvinced that you are or could conceivably be Boris ”

“Sorry, I can't do a demonstrations today but just remember that time is not a physical reality. It doesn't change states in different temperatures or bloody your nose with sudden contact. It is also not a force like electromagnetism, gravity or even dark energy. It causes nothing but is effected by all of those plus relativistic velocity. So time only exists as an effect of ones relationship to various states of matter. Like a shadow exists only incidentally because light and obstacles do.”

Hector seemed to release the breath he'd been holding. “That is incomplete as an explanation but is a novel even startling approach. However it implies that space and time exist merely coincidentally rather than being the intrinsic amalgam that modern theory suggests.” The impostor was nodding agreement. “Even, given that, it fails to explain time travel?”

“Time and space are clearly disassociated. Speeding through space you should encounter more time with more space but the opposite is true. You don't want to argue that time can't find you whey you're in motion; Do you? Besides objects do cast more than one shadow with more than one photon stream. Different shadows are analogues to different times!”

Professor Hector Valeria was both smiling and shaking his head as he rose summoning the waiter to him. ”Impostor or not you provide an interesting line of inquiry for me. So, to you, time travel is dancing from one shadow to another” he chuckled and motioned to the waiter “ check please”

“Oh professor your colleague took care of that earlier today.” He glanced at the Andropov impostor. “He told us what you would order and allowed a good tip.” The waiter turned to the hail of an other customer.

Hector looked down at the Boris pretender. “How could you know what I would order?”

The younger man smiled slyly. “Actually Heck old boy I hadn't the slightest idea until I sat down.”

“Then How in the word?”

“Well, it seems that later on I'll be getting here sooner and since I know now.....” He let the sentence trail off and shrugged as awe spread across the older physicist's face. Stunned now, Hector crumpled back into his seat with a blank expression. Boris smiled “Hector, old friend, I guess you could say I truly enjoy a bet of Shadow dancing!”