The Spot Writers – “The Quantum Sandwich” by Chiara De Giorgi

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is ‘heat wave’.

This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara is an Italian author and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. She writes fiction, with a focus on children’s literature and science fiction.

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The Quantum Sandwich

by Chiara De Giorgi

It was a hot summer day in the town of Borgarvogur. The hottest on record, as a matter of fact. The town was gripped by a heat wave that made it difficult even to breathe, the hot air felt almost solid, and people could barely function. The air conditioners were on full blast everywhere, but most people still could do nothing but nap.

This was not the case at the International Borgarvogur Centre for Quantum Research, where four workaholic scientists could not stop discussing the equation around which their next study would focus. The purpose of their research was not very clear, to tell the truth, yet they were optimistic. Quantum research usually worked and did not work at the same time until the very last moment, but that was precisely why they were paid. 

Ensconced in the basement laboratory, the air conditioner turned up to the highest setting and the refrigerator filled with containers of radioactive materials and energy drinks, they argued animatedly.

“…therefore, if we insert the indistinguishable particles in the eigenvalue equation, the angular momentum will be—uhm… Σ plus the pseudovector B, plus, hem… “

“No, no, no, that’s not how it works! Where did you leave the adiabatic approximation?”

“You mean the anti-symmetrization.”

“You’re all wrong! We need to apply a modified version of the no-cloning theorem for a quantization of the wave-particle—”

“But why bring up the eigenvalue equation in the first place? It’s an unnecessary complication, and—”

“My highly respected colleagues!” Jon’s voice drowned out the others’. Despite the blaring A/C, he was sweating profusely under a ten-week-beard and ten-month-hair. “We’ve been discussing, calculating, equalizing, and quantizing for six hours straight. I say, let’s take a break, eat a sandwich, make small talk, watch the geese scene in The Aristocats, drink coffee and start again. Who’s with me?”

Grumbling, mumbling, and sighing, Ruth, Ken, and Svetlana put the cap on their markers and retrieved their sandwiches. 

The four scientists cleared some space on the table, moving books, folders, the plates for the double split experiment, stickers with the center’s logo, and so on, and sat down. Each of them had their sandwich in front of them. It was their tradition to take the first bite together at the same time—a kind of superstition based on the quantum question of whether the sandwich was bitten and not bitten at the same time. Every day, they diligently proved that the sandwich was bitten.

But on that very hot summer day, something happened just a moment before the four scientists could grab their sandwiches. There was a power cut. Suddenly, the air conditioner stopped humming, the old refrigerator stopped squeaking, the quantum computers stopped vibrating, and the lamps stopped providing light. Silence and darkness fell in the basement.

“Oh no. My laptop was charging… And now we can’t watch The Aristocats!”

“I am more concerned that we will die from the heat with no A/C.”

“I have a fan in my backpack! Of course, I would need to locate it first—Do any of you have your phones with you? To turn on the flashlight. Mine has zero battery; I haven’t charged it for two days.”

“Same.”

“Same. Wait… How long have we been down here, exactly?”

“No idea.”

“Hey, do we still have those radium bars in the fridge? We can use them and have some light until they start the emergency generator.”

“Why would we have radium bars in the fridge?”

“What do I know, maybe to keep them out of the way so we don’t trip over them?”

“I think I saw a radium bar yesterday when I took an expired yogurt out of the fridge.”

“Expired yogurt? What flavor?”

“Strawberry, I believe. But it was a little hard to decipher the flavor. And it was a weird shade of green.”

As suddenly as it had gone out, the power was back on. The laboratory filled with the usual noises and buzzing and lights.

A surprise—or a mystery—awaited the four scientists. The sandwich in front of Jon had been bitten.

“Hmpf, you just couldn’t wait, could you?”

“But it wasn’t me! Someone bit my sandwich!”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Sure, now the sandwich ate itself.”

“Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. We should set up an experiment to check.”

“Seems elaborate. And it’s unbearably hot.”

“Oh, listen guys, who cares. We can’t spend the day like this, after a sandwich. Let’s split what we have so that we can all eat the same amount of sandwich.”

Everyone liked the idea and rulers, compasses, and calculators promptly appeared. The three whole sandwiches plus the one with the bitten piece were dissected with pinpoint accuracy, and they finally started to eat.

Thus satiated, they drank a coffee laughing together with Amelia and Abigail, the geese of the Aristocats, and finally went back to discussing entanglement, entropy, qubit, and so on.

After an unsuccessful X-basis measurement, they estimated that the workday could be said to be over. They did not have a single working watch between the four of them, but they were scientists and agreed that their sense of time was very good, refined by years of experiments. They were all wrong, but they didn’t know.

When they stepped outside, the air was still scorching hot, and they each hurried to their car to drive home and take a cold shower.

The next morning, they met in front of the lab door as usual. They always entered together, to test the quantum assumption that they were all four in and all four out of the lab at the same time. Which, given that it was exactly what they did, was usually confirmed. 

Another surprise awaited them. Another mystery, rather.

In the middle of the table, was the missing piece from Jon’s sandwich. 

***

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/

The Spot Writers – “Hot and Cold” by Phil Yeats

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is “heat wave.”

Phil Yeats wrote this week’s story.

In April, 2024, he published The Body on Karli’s Beach, the third book in his Barrettsport Mysteries, a series of soft-boiled mysteries set in a fictional South Shore Nova Scotia town. For information about these books, and The Road to Environmental Armageddon, his trilogy about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change, visit his website: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

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Hot and Cold

by Phil Yeats

Heat domes, atmospheric rivers, ice storms, what crazy names will they come up with next? He didn’t know what an atmospheric river might be, but, as he trudged home with his weekly supply of groceries in unseasonably hot spring weather, the idea of ice storms and heat domes was easy enough to understand.

The sweltering day reminded him of a day during a period of boiling weather fifty years earlier, when he was a student at the University of British Columbia. They called it a heatwave rather than a heat dome, but the effect was the same. The heat, even in the early morning, made struggling up the Point Grey escarpment on his bicycle into a greater challenge than usual.

He watched as an idiot in a car roared past rather close to him, then swung wide, almost off the pavement onto the shoulder on the next curve. He heard, more than saw, another cyclist shout before crashing into the roadside bushes.

After several minutes of peddling furiously, he reached what he assumed was a crash site. He found a young woman, obviously another student, struggling to extract her bike from a thorny-looking bush. He glided to a stop, lept from his bike, and rushed to help her. “Didn’t the asshole in the car stop?”

She shook her head as she slumped to the ground. “He was so close he caused me to veer onto the shoulder. Look at the drop. I lost control and ended up in the bushes, but he didn’t hit me.”

He extracted her bike and spun her front wheel. It wobbled. “Not good. You won’t be riding this,” he said.

She stood and watched the wheel’s unsymmetrical gyrations. “Oh, dear. What should I do?”

“There’s a little bike shop off University Avenue. Old guy who runs it has helped me in the past. If you’re feeling okay, we could walk there. He should be able to sort this out.”

“But you’ll miss your classes.”

“No worry. Nothing until 10:30 and it’s not everyday I get to help a maiden in distress.”

She looked down and mumbled something he didn’t catch.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to sound pushy, but the guy’s old and mostly retired. His shop looks like a shed in his back garden. You might miss it.”

They walked, pushing their bikes up the hill and along a street that bordered the UBC campus. He learned she liked folk music.

That seemed like a good omen because he was also into folk music, and Joan Baez had a concert scheduled at the Pacific Coliseum for one evening later that week. He mentioned buying two tickets outside the repair shop. She agreed without hesitation and passed him a scrap from her notebook with her name and phone number.

She entered the shop, and he rushed to the place where he could safely leave his bike and then to the Student Union Building, where he could buy the tickets. Tickets in hand, he charged to his class, paying no heed to the oppressive heat. He made it just after the buzzer sounded.

The Joan Baez concert became a rather complicated affair. The tickets were inexpensive, but they were all rush seating. Rush seating in the 20,000-seat coliseum meant leaving early with food and drink on a long bus across the city. After the concert, they faced another bus ride before dessert in their neighbourhood White Spot. Two simpler dates followed.

Then on Sunday afternoon, almost three weeks after they met during that early autumn heat wave, she told him it must end.

“It’s me, not you,” she said when he stared slack-jawed. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of our time together, but it just can’t be. I’m leaving now, and please, don’t contact me.”

She walked away, and he let her go. His heart had turned to ice, but he didn’t know what he could do.

Now, fifty years later, every heat wave revives fond memories of those few days together. The cold that followed is forgotten.

***

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/

The Spot Writers – “A River of Deadly Gas” by Phil Yeats

Welcome to The Spot Writers.

The task this month is to write a story where something yellow is important.

This week’s story is written by Phil Yeats. Last fall, he published The Souring Seas, the first volume in a precautionary tale about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change. The second volume, Building Houses of Cards, appeared last month. For information about these books, visit his website–https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

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“A River of Deadly Gas” by Phil Yeats

On Tuesday morning, in the middle of a major heat wave, I noticed the yellow tape as I walked to work. It reminded me of crime scene tape in police dramas, but this stuff was there for pedestrian traffic control. The tape stretching across the sidewalk between pylons said, ‘Caution. Sidewalk closed. Use opposite side.’ in stark black letters.

I’d been seconded to our environmental engineering firm’s regional office. We were cleaning up an industrial site near a small city on the Canadian prairie. Mosquitos and horse flies in a cow town where everyone drives overpowered pickup trucks was not my idea of a dream assignment, but such was life. My job was well paid, but it took me to industrial cesspools, not pristine beaches. And I wasn’t the world’s best traveller. I focused on getting back to the comforts of home rather than searching for interesting new experiences.

“Bloody nuisance,” I muttered as I watched the traffic barrelling down Main Street at something approaching highway speed. I could retreat two blocks to the nearest traffic light, or challenge the cowboys in their pickups.

Miracle of miracles, a gap like the Dead Sea parting appeared, and I dashed across.

I wondered, as I hurried along the busy street, why two downtown blocks, and the side street separating them, were cordoned off.

That evening on the way to my temporary digs, I diverted when I reached the cordoned off area. It now extended another block north along Main Street and two blocks east along the side street between Main and the river. I walked to the river, then south along the riverfront. I couldn’t easily return to Main because the structure for a bridge across the river separated the cordoned-off northern sidewalk from the southern one. I strode under the bridge approach and back to Main without having a good view of the six-block area isolated by the yellow warning tape.

During my perusal, I noticed two things. First, I saw very little activity inside the cordon. Second, workers were constructing a more substantial barrier along the outside edge of the sidewalk at the northeast corner.

At home, I searched the town website, the local news outlets, and social media for insights, but found nothing. I went to bed annoyed that I hadn’t learned more, but couldn’t pursue it. I was leaving the next day for a three-day trip to review sampling protocols at our active remediation sites.

Friday afternoon, as I drove the company SUV along Main Street, I noticed the changes at the construction site. The entire site appeared to be surrounded by a bright yellow wall. I parked on the next block and strode back to investigate.

The bright yellow wall was three metres high. Its colour reminded me of elemental sulphur, and when I got as close as I could to it, I thought I could detect the odour emitted by impure samples of natural sulphur. The wall was fifty centimetres from the edge of the sidewalk and cantilevered outward at the top. A vertical metal screen that extended from the top to the ground protected its outer surface.

Seconds after I approached the wall, a security guard accosted me. He refused to explain anything and insisted I move along if I wanted to avoid arrest. I abandoned my investigation and returned to my vehicle.

In our regional office, I was swept into the pandemonium that too often accompanies serious crises. I joined a lively discussion led by the company CEO. He apparently arrived from headquarters earlier that day. As the conversation jumped from one topic to another, I pieced together the story.

Extreme heat in the tundra released toxic heavier-than-air gas that was flowing south. We were in the path of the river-like flow. Animals and a few humans succumbed to the river of gas in the remote regions it traversed. It was now approaching more populated areas. The barricade around several downtown blocks was an attempt by the local civic authorities to provide a sandbag-like barrier that would protect the city core.

“And the coating of sulphur on the outer wall?” I asked.

“Not clear,” our CEO replied. “A concoction of elemental sulphur and ground pyrite.”

“What!” someone exclaimed.

The CEO cracked a smile. “The city acted without informing provincial officials or consulting federal partners. No explanation of what they’re doing or why.”

“Utter chaos,” the intervener added. “Where do we stand?”

“Part of a joint federal provincial task force. They need our expertise in remediation and clean-up.” The CEO paused, gazing around the room. “Time to shift from the general discussion and to our specific tasks.”

Three hours later, I headed home. My responsibilities were clear and my work schedule for the next weeks was laid out. We faced a month-long effort that would start in the morning at 8 a.m. I stopped at a pub for a late supper and a chance to think.

We faced a mountain of unknowns starting with the nature of the colourless dense gases comprising the flow. Increasing release of methane from melting permafrost was a well-known global warming problem. We’d also expect lower concentration releases of ethane and other alkanes. Methane and ethane were lighter than air, so they’d escape to the upper atmosphere. Propane and butane were not. They could be responsible for the ground level flow.

Someone suggested release of noble gases could be part of the problem. Helium from the melting permafrost was inevitable, but it was so light it would escape to outer space. Neon was also lighter than air, so it would escape to the upper atmosphere. Argon was the most common noble gas. It comprises one percent of the air we breathed. It’s denser than oxygen and nitrogen, but not dense enough to form a separate ground-hugging layer. Krypton and xenon were dense enough, but their global concentrations are far too small.

Nope, I thought as the server arrived with my dinner. Propane and butane are the only likely candidates. I couldn’t understand why their role wasn’t already established, but I put that question aside. Next problem. How could we trap a near-ground flow of pentane and butane? It should be simple, but the gas was thinly spread over a large area. And why did they plaster bright yellow sulphur on the outside of the barricades? I had no answer for that one.

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/