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humming.
"The beam is formed and accelerated in a generating setup located next door," he said. "We use
hydrogen as our starting material; the feed-stock is held by the side of the building in big tanks that you
may have noticed as we came in. That tube conveys the beam into the annihilation chamber. Actually, the
core of the tube where the beam itself is is only six inches in diameter. The rest of the thickness that
you see is mainly made up of focusing and control coils. The chamber is shielded inside that sphere; we
get a fair amount of heat and radiation as a side effect of the process."
"Have you got a black hole in there now?" Aub asked. Morelli shook his head.
"Not at the moment," he said. "They're only doing some calibration tests this afternoon. Pity you won't
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be around next Tuesday; we should have one then."
Clifford was leaning on the guardrail and looking thoughtful. After a while he turned toward Morelli. "The
radiation you mentioned just then, Al does it come simply from losses inside the chamber, or is it
produced by the annihilation process itself?"
"There are some losses, sure," Morelli answered. "It's pretty straightforward to calculate what they are.
But on top of that, yes, there is a residual amount left over that must come from the annihilation process."
"So you not only create a gravity effect; you generate other kinds of radiation as well," Clifford checked.
Morelli nodded and replied: "That's correct. From what you said this morning, it's what you'd expect
from your own k-theory. Why what's on your mind?"
Clifford appeared not to hear the question but went on. "What about when you go all the way to a black
hole . . . what happens then?"
Morelli raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly. "It's funny you should mention that," he said.
"That's exactly one of the things that's been bothering us. When we set up a black hole in there, we
detect a definite radiation flux emanating from the hole itself. According to classical relativity, that
shouldn't happen; nothing should be able to escape from a black hole energy, radiation, light nothing.
But . . ." Morelli shrugged and spread his arms, "there it is. No question."
"Hawking Effect?" Aub suggested, referring to the idea of quantum-mechanical tunneling, first proposed
by the English theoretical physicist Steven Hawking of Cambridge, back in the 1970s. The theory
postulated a method by which black holes might be seen effectively to emit radiation. It required the
spontaneous production of a particle-antiparticle pair somewhere in the vicinity of the black hole.
Occasionally one particle of the pair might fall into the hole while the other escaped in the opposite
direction to be detected by a distant observer. The net effect that he would observe would be a flux of
particle radiation apparently produced by the hole itself.
"We thought of that too," Morelli replied. "You could be right, but I don't think we've got enough data
yet to be certain one way or the other. That's one of the things we mean to look into." He looked at
Clifford. "What does your theory say about it?"
"I haven't really gotten round to considering the k-physics of black holes," Clifford said, turning his back
on the rail to face the other two. "But now that you mention it, it's an interesting point. According to
k-theory, a particle appears to be created when two hi-domain functions interact to produce a k."
Morelli held up a hand to interrupt. "Just a second. Hi-domain . . . that's the higher order of existence
outside normal spacetime. Check?"
"Check," Clifford agreed. "A k-function exists in both hi- and lo-domains together. Now, the large
number of annihilations taking place inside the reactor back there will produce a flux of hi-domain
particles a kind of radiation, if you like, not detectable in normal space. Since this radiation is not
subject to the limitations of ordinary spacetime, it will be capable of escaping from the black hole."
Clifford nodded to himself. "Yes. Outside the hole there will be a flux of hi-particles. These can interact
with each other to produce k-particles, which are detectable. What you would see are particles
apparently appearing spontaneously . . . looking like conventional radiation coming out of the hole. As I
said, I haven't gotten round to working out the details, but qualitatively the theory sounds okay."
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"So there are two possible explanations for it," Morelli summarized. "Hawking Effect and k-theory."
"That's about it."' Clifford seemed pleased.
"The first involves conventional quantum probabilities; the second doesn't but talks about hi-radiation
instead . . . as an intermediary agency."
"Uh huh."
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