When Bodies Collide

A former CERN scientist has written a steamy novel about physics goings-in


Their eyes met across a refraction grating. Or, at least, one of their eyes each did. The others ended up gazing at the floor and out of the window respectively. He felt a wave of excitement. Or was it a particle of excitement? It all depended how he looked at it.

"Ulrich", she said, "all my life I've only met dull scientists  - geeks who sit around drinking cider and black and talking about the Claisen Condensation. Or those media physics types - the ones who think a flash of white coat is all it takes to melt a girl's heart. But with you - it's different. It's like we're...."

"Entangled? You know, wherever you go - wherever I go - we will always be in a correlated spin state. Nothing can keep us apart - not even the speed of light."

"But there's Erwin - you must know that I have to take his feelings into account."

"Typical of an expert in wave mechanics. Always interfering."

Her boson heaved. "You don't understand. It's not that I still have  any feelings for him...."

"Julia - there are three people in this relationship. And that's not stable. We either need to lose one or gain another seven."

"No - it's all over between Erwin and me. It's just taking him a while to come to terms with it."

"But what about the presents he bought you? Didn't he give you a cat?"

"He did. But I never dared open the box."

Ulrich shook with rage.

"He sticks like gluon," he exclaimed. Who does he think he is - the God particle? At least that would explain why, when you were together, you never saw him."

"Ulrich - do I sense the blue-eyed monster?"

"Don't you mean the green-eyed monster?"

"Not travelling at this speed."

He swallowed hard, and looked at her again - the diffraction patterns making the depths of her eyes dance.

"I want this to be the real thing, Julia. Not just two protons passing in the night. And then, shortly afterwards, passing again. And again. And again. And...."

"OK, Ulrich. I get the metaphor. But surely the point of going round forever is that eventually our souls will collide. But will we then be one? Or will we instead shatter into a million parts - photons and gravitons and muon... muon... muon..."

"Neutrino?"

"Bless you."

Ulrich gazed recklessly towards the Large Hadron Collider, which seemed to epitomise the enigma that was Julia. She made his head spin. She was deeply magnetic. But was her heart super-cooled?