Distress

exceptional? How many could be unique? I had no wish to see Violet Mosala portrayed as no different from the most mediocre of her colleagues… but all the laudatory cliches conveyed nothing. They just rendered themselves meaningless.

Mosala walked to the podium, trying to look graceful under hyperbole; a section of the audience applauded wildly, and several people rose to their feet. I made a mental note to ask Indrani Lee for her thoughts as to when and why these strange adulatory rituals—observed almost universally with actors and musicians—had begun to be followed for a handful of celebrity scientists. I suspected it was all down to the Ignorance Cults; they'd struggled so hard to raise popular interest in their cause that it would have been surprising if they hadn't ended up generating some equally vehement opposing passions. And there were plenty of social strata where the cults were pure establishment, and there could be no greater act of rebellion than idolizing a physicist.

Mosala waited for the noise to die down. 'Thank you, Marian. And thank you all for attending this session. I should just briefly explain what I'm doing here. I'll be on a number of panels taking questions on technical matters, throughout the conference. And, of course, I'll be happy to discuss the issues raised by the paper I'm giving on the eighteenth, after I've presented it. But time is always short on those occasions, and we like to keep the questions tightly focused—which, I know, often frustrates journalists who'd like to cover a broader range of topics.

'So, the organizing committee have persuaded a number of speakers to hold media sessions where those restrictions won't apply. This morning it's my turn. So if you have anything you'd like to ask me which you're afraid might be ruled out as irrelevant at later sessions… this is your chance.'

Mosala came across as relaxed and unassuming; she'd been visibly nervous in the footage I'd seen of earlier appearances—the Nobel ceremony, especially—but if she wasn't yet a seasoned veteran, she was definitely more at ease. She had a deep, vibrant voice—which might have been electrifying if she ever took to making speeches—but her tone was conversational, not oratorial. All of which boded well for Violet Mosala. The awkward truth was, some people just didn't belong on a living room screen for most of fifty minutes. They didn't fit—and they emerged distorted, like a sound too loud or too soft to record. Mosala, I was sure now, would survive the limitations of the medium. So long as I didn't screw up completely, myself.

The first few questions came from the science correspondents of the non-specialist news services… who diligently resurrected all the old non sequiturs: Will a Theory of Everything mean an end to science? Will a TOE render the future totally predictable? Will a TOE unlock all the unsolved problems of physics and chemistry, biology and medicine… ethics and religion?

Mosala dealt with all of this patiently and concisely. 'A Theory of Everything is just the simplest mathematical formulation we can find which encapsulates all the underlying order in the universe. Over time, if a candidate TOE survives sustained theoretical scrutiny and experimental testing, we should gradually become confident that it represents a kind of kernel of understanding… from which—in principle, in the most idealized sense—everything around us could be explained.

'But that won't make anything 'totally predictable.' The universe is full of systems which we understand completely—systems as simple as two planets orbiting a star—where the mathematics is chaotic, or intractable, and long term predictions will always be impossible to compute.

'And it doesn't mean 'an end to science.' Science is much more than the search for a TOE; it's the elucidation of the relationships between order in the universe at every level. Reaching the foundations doesn't mean hitting the ceiling. There are dozens of problems in fluid dynamics—let alone neurobiology—which need new approaches, or better approximations, not the ultimate, precise description of matter on a subatomic scale.'

I pictured Gina at her workstation. And I pictured her in her new home, recounting all her problems and small triumphs to her new lover. I felt unsteady for a moment, but it passed.

'Lowell Parker, Atlantica. Professor Mosala, you say a TOE is the 'simplest mathematical formulation of the underlying order in the universe.' But aren't all these concepts culturally determined? 'Simplicity'? 'Order'? Even the range of formulations available to contemporary mathematics?' Parker was an earnest young man with a Boston accent; Atlantica was a highculture netzine, produced mainly by part-time academics from east coast universities.

Mosala replied, 'Certainly. And the equations we choose to call a TOE won't be unique. They'll be like… say, Maxwell's Equations for electromagnetism. There are half a dozen equally valid ways Maxwell's Equations can be written—constants can be shuffled around, different variables used… they can even be expressed in either three or four dimensions. Physicists and engineers still can't agree as to which formulation is the simplest— because that really depends on what you want to use them for: designing a radar antenna, calculating the behavior of the solar wind, or describing the history of the unification of electrostatics and magnetism. But they all give identical results in any particular calculation—because they all describe the same thing: electromagnetism itself.'

Parker said, 'That's often been said about the world's religions, hasn't it? They all express the same basic, universal truths—merely in a different manner, to suit different times and places. Would you concede that what you're doing is essentially just a part of the same tradition?'

'No. I don't believe that's true.'

'But you've admitted that cultural factors will determine the TOE we accept. So how can you claim that what you're doing is any more 'objective' than religion?'

Mosala hesitated, then said carefully, 'Suppose every human being was wiped off the face of the planet tomorrow, and we waited a few million years for the next species with a set of religious and scientific cultures to arise. What do you think the new religions would have in common with the old ones—the ones from our time? I suspect the only common ground would be certain ethical principles which could be traced to shared biological influences: sexual reproduction, child rearing, the advantages of altruism, the awareness of death. And if the biology was very different, there might be no overlap at all.

'But if we waited for the new scientific culture to come up with their idea of a TOE, then I believe that— however different it looked 'on paper'—it would be something which either culture would be able to show was mathematically equivalent in every respect to our TOE… just as any physics undergraduate can prove that all the forms of Maxwell's Equations describe exactly the same thing.

'That's the difference. Scientists may start off disagreeing wildly—but they converge on a consensus, regardless of their culture. There are physicists at this conference from over a hundred different countries. Their ancestors three thousand years ago might have had twenty or thirty mutually contradictory explanations between them for any phenomenon you care to think of in the natural world. And yet there are only three conflicting candidate TOEs being presented here. And in twenty years' time, if not sooner, I'd bet there'll only be one.'

Parker appeared dissatisfied with this reply, but he took his seat.

'Lisbeth Weller, GninWeisheit. It seems to me that your whole approach to these issues reflects a male, Western, reductionist, left-brained mode of thought.' Weller was a tall, sober-looking woman, who sounded genuinely saddened and perplexed. 'How can you possibly reconcile this with your struggle as an African woman against cultural imperialism?'

Mosala said evenly, 'I have no interest in surrendering the most powerful intellectual tools I possess, because of some quaint misconception that they're the property of any particular group of people: male, Western, or otherwise. As I said, the history of science is one of convergence toward a shared understanding of the universe—and I'm not willing to be excluded from that convergence for any reason. And as for 'left-brained modes of thought,' I'm afraid that's a rather dated—and reductionist—concept. Personally, I use the whole organ.'

There was loud applause from the fans, but it sounded plaintive as it died out. The atmosphere in the room was changing: becoming strained, polarized. Weller, I knew, was a proud member of Mystical Renaissance—and although most journalists here would have no cult affiliation, the minority with strong anti-science sentiments could still make their presence felt.

'William Savimbi, Proteus Information. You speak approvingly of a convergence of ideas which has no respect for ancestral cultures—as if your own heritage were of no importance to you at all. Is it true that you received death threats from the Pan-African Cultural Defense Front, after you publicly stated that you didn't consider yourself to be an African woman?' Proteus was the South African branch of a large Canadian family company; Savimbi was a solid, gray-haired man, who spoke with casual familiarity, as if he'd been covering Mosala for some time.

Mosala struggled visibly to contain her anger. She reached into a pocket and took out her notepad, and