The Scientist's Revenge (2)

Part 2 — The Visitation

I was in my office, sitting at my desk, doing research.

Well, not specifically research at that specific moment. Right at that moment I was setting up a doodle poll for a research meeting. Although, I should add, that actual meeting was going to be a discussion of how to write a technical note, responding to a piece of research by a competing group, arguing that they should more effusively cite us.

The details are not important. The point is that I was extremely busy.

Nonetheless, I cheerily called "Come in!" when there was a knock at the door. You never know who it might be. An ironclad excuse to take a coffee break? A grad student with an amazing new result? An undergraduate student on the verge of nominating me for a teaching award?

People say that I have become jaded and cynical, but you can see what a wellspring of hope and optimism I truly am.

Options 1 and 2 were immediately eliminated when he opened the door and came in. It was not one of my colleagues. And I'm pretty sure I recognise all of my grad students.

He could have been one of my undergraduates. Had I forgotten an assignment that was due tomorrow? There was no other reason he would be here.

Whoever this idiot was, he hadn't brought any notes with him. They could have been in his bag, except that he didn't have a backpack, either. If this wasn't enough to arouse suspicion, his opening question ensured a direct injection of panic.

"Are you an astronomer?"

I am most certainly not an astronomer! What an insulting assumption! I have better things to do with my time than peddle lurid photographs of the cosmos. A physicist has deeper concerns. But I was too stunned to respond. I instantly understood what was facing me: a crackpot, in the flesh, in my office, and standing between me and the door.

I pretended to remain calm. "What can I do for you?"

"I have to tell you something extremely important."

"Oh yes?"

"You're not going to like it. But the truth cannot be hidden any longer."

"I am a seeker after truth, so you have come to the right place."

"I am pleased to hear it."

My sarcasm had passed straight through him. He looked genuinely relieved.

I sat and waited for him to tell me that Einstein was wrong. Obviously it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light. That was their standard complaint. How dare that frizzy-haired moustachioed clown tell them what they could and could not do?

But it was infinitely worse than that.

"All right," he began. "The Big Bang did not happen. The universe is not expanding. Atoms do not exist. Gravity does not exist. The moon is an illusion. The sun is really made entirely of carbon. Everything you have been told is wrong. You have been lied to your entire life. I am sorry to tell you this, but you need to stop passing these lies on to your students."

I was stunned. I wanted to argue. Even more, I wanted to escape. I suspected I had to argue in order to escape. But where to begin?

"Woah, slow down!" I said. "That's a lot of stuff."

"There's a lot more."

"I'm sure there is. But let's start simple. What do you mean that gravity doesn't exist? How do we stay on the ground?"

"Electrostatic forces."

I felt affronted on behalf of the force of gravity. Why was gravity voted out, but electricity and magnetism got to stay around?

Before I could object to this blatant fundamental-force prejudice, a look of horror crossed his face, and he cried out, "You believe that the Earth is round, don't you?"

Oh Jesus! He was a Flat Earther!

I had never met a Flat Earther before. Until now I assumed that they didn't really exist.

I was paralysed between fascination — I had a real live Flat Earther in my office! — and abject terror. I mean, I had a real live Flat Earther in my office. This was a person with no discernible connection to reality. He could be capable of anything.

How was I going to get out of here alive? Could I send him to someone else? Like an actual astronomer? Or the science outreach people — wasn't this their job? Wrestling with a deranged crackpot was just the sort of thing they could put on a promotion application. Or the physics education people? They would know how to deal with him. They could give him a survey.

No. I had to be brave. I would deal with him myself.

"Of course the Earth is round. You can see it from space."

Just as I was increasingly horrified by him, it looked like he was increasingly disappointed by me. "Are you now telling me that you think they really did put a man on the moon?"

As terrified as I was that this guy might be armed with a knife, or a gun, or, more likely, only his dirty fingernails, but if provoked entirely indistinguishable from a rabid dog, I was too shocked to resist blurting out,

"Wow, you're the full crackpot package! Is there no theory too batshit crazy for you to sign up to?"

This delighted him. Now we could have an argument! "Why are you so sure the moon landing is true?"

This was too stupid to even engage in. "It must be true. It was on television."

I expected my flippancy to provoke him, but in fact it saved me. He thought I was serious.

"Really?" he said. "You're that gullible?"

I did that shrugging with palms up thing that means, "What can I say?"

Then he just gave up on me. Of all his cherished beliefs, the one that turned out to be a foolish misconception was not that gravity was a myth, or that the sun was made of carbon, or the Earth flat, or the US space programme a hoax, but his naive assumption that university professors are clever.

He shook his head. He really was very sad. All he could do was deliver a parting promise that the Truth was coming, and I would not be able to hide from it, and then he left.

I slumped back in my chair.

For the next few minutes I felt only relief. I had been in the presence of a pure lunatic, and I had survived!

Then I felt ashamed. I, a renowned scientist, had sat in my actual professor's office, in an actual university, and let this moronic shit stand over me and terrorise me with gibberish.

Then I was angry. This was unacceptable! This could not be allowed to happen again, and it could not go unpunished.

We scientists must stand up for ourselves!

We must have revenge!

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Up next: Part 3 — Search and Destroy.

How will our hero try to exact revenge? Will he succeed? And, most importantly, will he publish his results in a high-impact journal? It is possible that some of these questions will be answered in the next instalment. If you’re not yet signed up for immediate notification when the episode materialises, now is your chance. And if you feel like it’s a crime that you got to read this for free, you can rectify that, too.