Chapter 33

***Year 2006

"What is the meaning of this?" Jane asked her father's friend as well as her teacher as she slammed the documents on his chair.

"What?" Professor Selvig picked up the documents as she took a seat.

"I said that I needed an assistant if it can be arranged and you gave me a partner instead? Is this your way of punishing me for that equipment that I destroyed?" Jane rubbed her head in frustration.

"What? No jane. How can you think like that?" He passed her a glass of water before continuing," Why do you seem so upset about this? I presume you didn't read it the documents completely?"

"Obviously I didn't and I don't need to figure out that I got another obstacle to the path of success now."

"Erik, I already have way less freedom than I need to work on my research and if you add someone with equal authority to my own in my project, it will only steal more freedom from me."

Erik sighed as he shook his head," Jane, do you know what your father used to say to me when we worked together?"

He stood up and walked up to the cabinet where a joined photograph of their old days was sitting," He used to say that do not judge something without completely studying all the information you have or you could gather of said object."

"You might think that it's a common theme that everyone follows while studying science but your father applied it to common day-to-day things too. He believed that we should not create assumptions without any basis for things because it creates a bias and a scientist must always be unbiased no matter the subject."

"You didn't even read it completely before deciding that it's bad. That's not a good thing, Jane." He picked up the file before passing it to her.

"Karl is a very promising young man, One of the best minds I have seen in recent years I must add. One of his advantages is that he has a different attitude while looking at things. He could help you in providing different and unique views during research."

"Plus, he is being endorsed by the C.E.O. of El enterprise. If he becomes part of your team, you will get funds from the enterprise itself."

"The El enterprise?" Jane asked as she carefully studied the file.

"Yes, Serena is known for her love of endorsing young promising people so after graduation the first place that comes to their minds would be El enterprise. A remarkable and capable person." Selvig said as he leaned back on his chair.

"Indeed, I admire her a lot. To raise a small company to such heights in just a few years is almost unbelievable. While most of the people were busy fuelling a war after 9/11 and getting tons of profit selling weapons, she choose the path of general prosperity by focusing on increasing the comfort level of the population and at the same time finding ways to protect nature." Jane said in a respectful tone.

"Indeed, I guess it's because she's a scientist by nature like us. Nobody is caring about climate change except scientists right now since only we understand the true consequences of it going out of control." Erik remarked before standing up.

"C'mon, I think he should be here by now. Let's meet with Karl before you take your decision on this. "

**** Auditorium

"...such a way we can ensure that no one suffers from the solar flare." The narrator finished the speech and he received a barrage of claps.

He looked behind the audience to find professor Selvig and miss foster entering the debate venue. He was about to announce their presence to his fellow students but someone in the audience raised his hand.

He nodded to the young gentleman to encourage him to speak his inquiry, "Please ask."

The young gentleman clearly was an outsider and likely waiting for someone.

"Hello, I'm Karl. I was listening to your hypothesis that you presented in this event and I must say it certainly presents a unique outlook on this problem that you all are debating on."

He nodded gratefully at Karl's praise before speaking," Thank you, man. Do you have any questions about my proposed solution since you raised your hand?"

"Strictly speaking, it's more of a doubt than an inquiry. I think your calculation is not correct." Many of the students in the audience raised eyebrows at Karl's statement because the calculation looked fine to them.

"Can you please point out where do you think it's wrong?" The narrator asked Karl as he stepped aside so the whole backboard could be visible to the audience.

"The speed of light," Karl said like it's common sense.

"Yeah, what about it?" Narrator asked confused. "299 792 458 m / s. I'm sure I remember the speed of light correctly."

"We haven't found the speed of light yet," Karl replied to which many started to laugh.

"One of the best minds you met in recent times, huh?" Jane mocked Selvig.

Instead of bickering with Jane, Selvig spoke aloud, " Can you elaborate on that, Karl?"

Kar-el turned around once Erik spoke," You are here finally. I was waiting for half an hour for you. Didn't expect you of all people to be not punctual."

As Karl (kar-el) walked toward them, Erik remarked, " Something important came up that required my presence. Anyways, can you elaborate on what you were saying just now? I am curious to hear what you were getting at."

"Many of us do." At first, he didn't want to hear it but since he knew the professor, he likely know what he was talking about, the narrator thought.

"Sure, The thing is that while we study a lot about the formulas and the outcomes that come out of an experiment, we often ignore the process of the experiment itself. Most of the time, it doesn't really affect anything but in this case, it does."

"Can anyone tell me how did we find the speed of light?" Karl asked among the audience.

"The way we find the speed of other things. distance/time = speed" One of the students replied.

Before Karl could comment on that, another student spoke against the earlier remark," That would not work. To do that we need to know the two points that we are using to measure the speed of light as well as have a clock on both sides that stops as soon as light reaches the other side."

"The differences between the two clocks would be impossible to solve because of special relativity which tells us that moving clock ticks slower compared to a stationary clock." Many nodded to show consent.

"Indeed" Karl interrupted," And that's why we measured the time that it takes light to travel to a distance and then return. We just divided it in half to get the speed it takes to travel to one point. Do we all agree to that?"

Everyone nodded and some of the students showed distorted faces as they released what Karl was trying to propose.

He continued his explanation for those that still didn't realize, " My point is that we assumed that light travels both sides at the same speed. It could be possible that it took all the time to reach one point and while returning, it was instant."

"Einstein himself accepted this on his writings that we assumed that it could be true or false as we haven't yet calculated the speed of light from one point of another because it seemed impossible at least for now."

"I didn't want to leave you in a dilemma but let's say that we follow your solution and the calculation proved to be wrong, we could end up being extinct. The stakes are too high." Karl finished before turning around and gesturing to the professor to move that he did.

(( If you want to see the source of this theory, you could search ( why no one has measured the speed of light from veritasuim.) on YouTube. A truly remarkable hypothesis.))

***Kar-el P.O.V.

" That was wonderful, Karl." Erik praised while laughing joyfully.

"The process of experiment sometimes proves to be more important than the result itself. When we study science, we tend to focus on finding new results without understanding the old results. We use the variables defined by past hypotheses to figure out new hypotheses but sometimes it is better to look at the past hypothesis too. We might be greeted by a surprise." Kar-el remarked as the three walked towards Erik's office in the university.

"Absolutely true. Sadly, No one gets credit for confirming an already proven theory even though that is also an important part of the research." Erik lamented.

"Yeah, that's why we get news articles saying," chocolate is good for blood cancer or so on". No one wants to confirm that result because they will not get credit for doing that. What were the tests that they conducted, how big was their test pool, and how diverse it was? No one wants to research about that because they don't get credit and which is why such bogus research gets a front-page in New York Times."