It all started off so well. I just used the room to help me get my work done. I didn’t realize at first what was happening, and when I did, I thought only of how it could benefit me. I would have eventually used it to help others, but it’s far too late for that now. I might never be able to go back to the way things used to be.
All I wanted was a quiet suite near the university where I could work in peace and not be disturbed. Looking back, I was obsessed with having privacy to do my studies, and that was the reason I rented the place. In the suite was a room at the back that was quiet. Utterly silent. The room had no windows, and had heavy insulation all around the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and the single door, with the lock on the outside still in place. Horrible things had happened in this room. I don’t even want to think about that, and I am sure that no one else would have even considered staying in this suite. The lock on the outside of the door gave me the creeps, so it would have to go.
I approached the landlord and we worked out a deal. I could use the suite and, more importantly, the quiet, isolated room.
Being in that room was like being cut off from the world. Perhaps that’s why all of this happened to me.
I remember when I first understood what was going on. I was frightened then, I’ll admit it. But I was also delighted, and captivated. I had something special. I could use it. And I did.
The first time it happened was the day Portier gave out the first assignment. She’d warned us that it would be very difficult, that there was no room in her course for any but the best, and that we’d do well just to finish the assignment, never mind finishing it on time. "Just get as far as you can, and hand it in next class," she’d said.
I was aroused. I loved a good challenge. After reading the assignment and getting some materials that might help, I was ready to head home and to the quiet room. Then I remembered that Sheila and I had plans for the evening. I wanted to get right to the assignment, but didn’t want to break our plans. We met on the steps to the library. My heart did its regular routine every time I saw her. Every time I saw Sheila, it was like seeing her for the first time.
"Hi," I said and sat beside her. She looked up and leaned over to kiss me lightly on my cheek. "How was your first day?" I asked.
"It was fine. My archeology courses sound great. I’m really looking forward to them. How about you? How was your quantum mechanics class?"
"It’s started with a blast. Portier has given us a really tough assignment. She wants to separate the brilliant from the merely very smart. It’s a real challenge."
"How long do you have to do it?"
"It’s due next class."
"On Friday? So you only have two days?"
"Two days."
"Well, we should put our plans on hold. We can go bowling on the weekend."
"No, no. It’s all right. Let’s go now."
I stood up, but she didn’t. Her brow was wrinkled. "I can tell you really want to get to this assignment, John. It’s all right. We can wait until Friday or Saturday."
In the end she convinced me, and we agreed to meet after my Friday class, and I went home.
Having put off going out with Sheila, I was even more determined to solve the problem. As soon as I got home, I wanted to plunge right into it, but I had trouble getting started. Something was not quite right. I looked around the room and knew what it was. I had to close the door, had to have that feeling of total isolation.
I returned to my desk, sat down, and started thinking. It didn’t take long for me to realize just how challenging an assignment it was, and some doubt crept into my mind. I started my calculations. I thought through the ideas that came to me, progressing steadily, carefully, going slow enough to make sure not to make any errors, fast enough to keep the ideas flowing. Not long into my work, excited by the challenge, I felt a tingling sensation, and the world dissolved around me. While solving the problem, I was so deep into thinking that I knew nothing but the ideas, the thoughts. All that existed for me was this pondering. The problem had subtleties, and I enjoyed weaving through them. Suddenly, I was finished and I felt numb all over. I snapped out of a trance-like state of mind, again aware of the room around me. I’d never before been so deep into thought.
It’s hard to say how long I was at it. Several hours at least. I had the answer, and it checked out. Satisfied that I’d done it correctly, I decided it was time to eat something. Then I remembered: I’d put a pot of beans on the stove before I’d started working, and by now they would be burned to black soot. There must be smoke in the suite, but I didn’t smell any. I rushed to the door and opened it and … and nothing. No odor, nothing.
I ran to the kitchen and found that the pot of beans wasn’t even bubbling. I took the pot off and saw that the element wasn’t hot. I put my hand above it and felt that the heating had barely just begun. Crazy, I thought. It must not have clicked on when I’d set it, and somehow just come on now.
I checked the time. It was 7:11. My watch must have stopped. I remembered that it was 7:11 when I’d started the assignment; I tend to remember primes and lucky numbers, so I was certain. Then I saw that the clock on the stove also read 7:11. I brought my watch to my ear, and heard the soft ticking. That was pretty weird, but obviously I had worked twelve hours, almost to the minute. It didn’t feel like so much time had gone by, but then again, time is a subjective thing, and I had done a lot of work. I looked out the kitchen window. It was light out, so I knew that I had, indeed, worked for twelve hours.
After eating, I wrote up the assignment neatly. Then I decided to sleep for a couple of hours. The alarm was set for 9:45 a.m. and at maximum volume because I don’t wake easily. I wanted to be on time for my 10:30 Thursday class.
I fell into a deep sleep, dreamed about the assignment, woke to the alarm, showered, and headed up to the university. Before the class, I met some of the other students and they were talking about the assignment question. Some of them had worked all night and hadn’t put a dent in it, and I’ll admit that I felt some satisfaction upon hearing this.
After my 10:30 class I went to Professor Portier’s office. I found the door open and her inside, working. I knocked quietly on the door and she looked up, said "Hello," and welcomed me in.
"Hello Professor Portier. I am in your quantum mechanics class. My name is John Meyers."
"What can I do for you John?" she asked.
"I’ve done the assignment and I wondered if I could hand it in early?"
She smiled, her brow wrinkled, and she actually laughed. "You’re done? Already?"
I had hoped she’d be impressed. I frowned and nodded quickly. "Yes," I said, more forcefully, "I am done, and done early, and I think my answer is correct."
Maybe I’d said too much. She stared at me, shaking her head slightly. "You’re done? Your answer is correct?"
She leaned forward and asked me what my result was. I told her. Her eyes widened.
"How did you find the answer?" She spoke sharply and I feared she thought I had cheated.
"I worked very carefully, Professor Portier. I didn’t rush and I kept a steady pace." I explained the steps I’d made. Every now and then she asked a question, and my answers seemed to satisfy her. She asked for my assignment and she sat at her desk and started to read it. Her frown grew deeper with each page she read, and I worked hard to keep calm.
I was so sure I had done it correctly. Where had I gone wrong? I couldn’t think of anything.
Finally, she reached the end. She closed the assignment and put in on her desk in front of her.
"Mr. Meyers," she said, "I will come straight to it." She looked me in the eye and said, "Did you cheat?"
I stammered. "Yes, it’s-- I mean: no, I didn’t cheat. It’s my own work."
She was very quiet. She waited.
I was sweating.
Her phone rang. She ignored it.
She said, "If you have done this work yourself, you have done a truly spectacular job."
I waited. She doubted me, and I wondered why. I’d done it, after all. So it couldn’t have been so spectacular a thing that I’d gotten it right. Yes, I am a smart person, but no way am I in the brilliant-beyond-belief category.
"Mr. Myers. Can you do another problem this difficult, overnight?" I hesitated and she added, "Not tonight, next week. Can you do it?"
I understood. I had no choice.
"Yes, I think so. But I’m not sure if I can do it on top of my regular assignments."
She stood suddenly and spoke quickly. "You won’t have to. I will give you a different assignment next week, a question more challenging than the one I will give to the rest of the class." Then her tone softened and she almost whispered. "I always give a very difficult assignment at the beginning of my courses. That way the students know I mean business. The assignment I will give to the class next week will be easy compared to the one you’ve just done." She paused, then added, "This is confidential, Mr. Meyers."
She waited.
I said I understood. I had to ask her. "Did I solve the problem correctly?"
She smiled. "You most certainly did. See you in class tomorrow," she said, and with a wave of her hand sent me on my way.
That Friday evening, Sheila and I went bowling. Sheila was a knowledgeable and competent bowler. She’d tried to teach me how to spin the ball so it would move in a curved path. When we’d first started playing, I just wanted to roll the ball and make it go in a straight line, but as I learned and watched Sheila’s shots, I could see that she had much better control by spinning the ball. I tried to pick it up, but I just couldn’t do it.
We played that night mostly just the two of us, but also had a few games with a couple of Sheila’s friends. One of them flirted subtly with me, and that made me uncomfortable. I ignored it and she stopped after a bit.
Afterwards, we went to Sheila’s for a snack. We talked about the bowling and our courses and other things. After a while it seemed that she was troubled about something, and I thought I knew what it was.
"It bothered me that your friend would flirt like that right in front of you."
"So you noticed?"
"Of course. But I ignored it and she stopped."
She was silent for a moment, then, looking down, she said, "You could have mentioned this earlier you know."
"I know. I discouraged her, so it didn’t seem important to talk about."
"It’s important to me. I’d rather you told me sooner. Suppose I hadn’t noticed. Then it would be like you had something to hide."
"Sheila, I have nothing to hide. You know what you mean to me."
We talked more about it, and the tension eased up. We found our way into each other’s arms, and the night ended on a positive note.
All in all, it was a good evening and break after the first week of classes.
Most of the next week dragged by. The assignments I got in my other courses were much easier than the one Portier had given us. I spent only a little time in my quiet room, working slowly but steadily, getting the assignments done quickly, and learning the material in the other classes.
Finally, Wednesday came and Portier gave the class the second assignment, saying how easy it would be as she looked at me. I went up to the front after class to get "my" second assignment. She pulled it from her bag and slid it in my hand.
I read it. I read it a second time. A third time. This was a monster of a question. I didn’t even fully understand it. I asked her some questions. Time ran out and another class came in the room. We went to her office.
She answered all my questions and explained the problem fully. It most definitely was a huge question, and I felt icy fingers slide up my spine.
Was this the end for me? So soon? Two weeks into graduate school?
No. I would do it. Somehow, I would figure it out. I feared what Portier might think if I didn’t get this question right too.
I went straight home, to the quiet room in my suite. I decided to skip supper, eat when I was done. I intended to work until I solved the problem, no matter how long it took. I slipped my watch over my hand and put it in my bag. I pulled out the assignment and a stack of paper and plenty of pencils and erasers. The door. I went to the door and closed it. I sat down and started working.
It was slow going at first. I thought about a number of approaches. Finally, I realized that there was a symmetry in the problem that made it solvable. That got me fully into the problem. Again the tingling swept through me, and I plunged into a world where only my thoughts and ideas existed. I worked methodically, taking no shortcuts and doing all the calculations in full. I worked a long time. There were a few occasions when I thought I was beaten, but each time I persevered and found a new path. I followed them all, and eventually had the problem done. Then I felt a numb-like sensation in my fingers and hands, my arms and legs. I dropped out of my immersion into the puzzle I’d solved and stared at my work. I noticed the room around me, much like when you reach your destination after driving and you wonder how you got there.
Did I have time to write it up neatly? I pulled out my watch and saw that it was 6:55. My watch doesn’t indicate a.m. or p.m. This assignment had been harder than the first one, and I had probably spent twice as long on this one. That meant that it was 6:55, Thursday night. I hadn’t noticed exactly what time I’d started, but it had to have been about 6 or 7 o’clock when I’d gotten home Wednesday evening.
I’d done it. I closed my hand into a fist, pumped upward and shouted a triumphant "Yes." I still had plenty of time to write it up neatly and hand it in. It wasn’t due until the next class, which would be tomorrow. I felt that thrill of success and a wonderful sense of relief. Strangely, I wasn’t very tired, and I decided to write it up clearly right then. I checked the steps as I wrote and I was satisfied I had gotten this one right too.
After eating and taking a shower, I flopped out on my bed. Suddenly I remembered that Professor Portier had asked me if I could do another difficult problem "overnight!" That meant that the assignment was due today.
I sprang up and dressed and got to the university as soon as I could.
It was late, about 10 p.m., but not too late. I was out of breath when I reached her door.
I didn’t need to knock. Her door was open and no doubt she’d heard my panting.
She smiled and said, "Do you need some help Mr. Meyers? This problem a bit too much? Or have you not yet even started?"
What was she saying? I wouldn’t wait twenty-four hours to start the assignment. I said, "I’ve not only started, I’ve finished."
She jumped from her chair and almost shouted, "What? Done? Already? You cannot possibly be done."
"But I am done. You asked if I could do it overnight, and I’m therefore late, if anything, because it’s taken me about …" I looked at my watch. "… about twenty-nine hours."
"Whatever are you talking about, Mr. Meyers? It’s only late this afternoon that you got the assignment." She paused, then said, "All right. I see. I suppose you are saying that it seems like it’s been twenty-nine hours … to you." She frowned. "But that … Are you saying that you’ve done it in … in …" She looked at her watch. "In less than five hours?!"
That’s when I first realized that something very strange was going on. Professor Portier was saying that it was Wednesday night, and she was not one to joke around about things like this. That meant that, somehow, I had done the problem in about five hours. No. Less than that. Three hours. There was no way that I could have done so. I’d felt sure that I’d worked much more than three hours. Just writing the assignment up had taken about an hour. But I couldn’t go back and say I wasn’t done.
My thoughts were buzzing. What was wrong with me that I thought I’d worked so long, now knowing that it had been just a few hours? Yet how could I have done the work I had in such a short time? The problem was much too difficult to solve in two or three hours. No wonder she’d been suspicious.
I started to think about what had been going on with the quiet room I had been working in. Could the answer be in that room? How? I was lost, baffled, and very much afraid.
I didn’t get a chance to think much about it then, because she walked quickly over to me and took the assignment from my hand.
She started to read it. Slowly at first. Then she made her way to her desk, sat, continued to read it. The more she read, the deeper she frowned. Now and then, she shook her head abruptly, side to side.
I watched her as she read, and I tried to think. Had it really been only five hours since I’d gotten the assignment? That had to be it; it had seemed so much longer than that to me, but then time is subjective, I reminded myself. What had seemed like ten or twenty hours to me must have actually just been a few hours. Now, as I waited for her to finish reading my work, it felt again like a very long time, an hour maybe, but she finished reading in just fifteen minutes. So that explained everything. There was no big mystery here. Nothing more than subjective time and my having misread the time on the kitchen clock and my watch was needed to explain things. At least, that’s what I believed at that moment. What Professor Portier would say next would change that.
"Do you have any idea what you have done?" she asked.
"I haven’t done anything," I protested. "I’ve simply solved the problem you gave me. No cheating."
"No, that’s not what I mean. I know you didn’t cheat."
"You know I didn’t cheat," I repeated, quietly. Then I asked how she knew.
"This problem that I gave you? Do you know where you can find the answer?"
"Well," I said in a small voice, "the correct answer is in my assignment, right?"
She smiled, ever so slightly. "Where else?"
Then I understood, or thought I did. "Are you saying that you, and you alone, have solved this problem? That it’s not on-line or published anywhere? That--"
"More than that, Mr. Meyers. This problem had not yet been solved when I gave it to you this afternoon. It has only been asked just today."
My mouth fell open and I froze. I said nothing. Too much was happening.
"That’s right. I made this problem up this morning. I’ve thought of problems like this one, but this particular one has not been looked at. Or, it hadn’t been. Not until you solved it tonight. And you did get the correct answer, as far as I can see anyway.
"I wanted a problem that I could know you’d have to have solved on your own," she said, as she stood and walked toward me. "I have to tell you: I’m impressed. Oh, I could pretend that the problem wasn’t as difficult as I thought, but I’m not caught up with myself like that. You deserve credit.
"I have to admit," she continued, "I am amazed that you did the problem so quickly. I wouldn’t have thought that possible. But I won’t deny what I’ve seen with my own eyes. Every step in your assignment is correct, as far as I can see, and the final answer makes sense. So you’ve done it correctly, and in a very short time."
She paused, thinking, then went on.
"While I’m at it, I’ll be honest: I want you as my grad student. So will all the other professors, when they find out how good you are."
I said nothing.
"Well? Yes or no? Or do you need more time?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes I’ll be glad to be your grad student, and no I don’t need more time."
We shook hands and exchanged smiles, mine forced and awkward.
I should have felt a thrill like none I’d had in a very long time: I would be working with the famous Professor Portier. But I was so upset I only wanted to go somewhere and figure everything out.
I’m not sure exactly what I did next. I walked around campus, went to the graduate student center, checked the time. I asked people questions to check that it really was Wednesday night. Things like, "Is the football game two days from now, Friday night, or is it on Saturday?" I asked questions that wouldn’t give away that I didn’t know what day it was. All of the responses reassured me that it was indeed Wednesday night.
I didn’t realize that the nightmare was well underway.
I went back home and sat for a long time, thinking. An idea came to mind. I checked the time on the kitchen clock and on my watch. I slipped my watch off and left it on the kitchen table. After calming myself, I wrote down the time and went to the quiet room with one of my assignments. I sat down, focused on the questions, and worked my way through the assignment, and wrote it up in good. I estimated that I had worked for at least an hour and a half. Then I took my assignment with me and left the room. I checked my watch, checked the time on the kitchen clock.
The kitchen clock and my watch still read the same time as when I’d entered the room.
Was I going crazy? I thought so, at first. In the days and weeks to follow, I tested this room, tried out a lot of different ideas and did some experiments. When I had finished, I knew the rules. If you’re a skeptic, like me, you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you next. But these are the facts.
When I worked in that room, with the door closed, lost in thought and isolated from the rest of the world, I did calculations and wrote them down. I would get my work done and be very productive, yet no time would pass outside the room. I would not grow weary, or sleepy. I did not get hungry or thirsty or need to relieve myself. It was as if time had stopped.
However, if I stopped working and became aware of my surroundings, noticed other things in the room, even if the door was shut, then I would get hungry and thirsty, and I would tire. Time would pass for me, but still no time would go by outside the room.
I thought I had something wonderful, a place to go and work and get things done with no need to worry about how long it took. I knew this was precious and that I must never allow anyone to know what I had, not even Sheila.
I thought of a possible way to see that this time stoppage might be true.
Einstein’s special theory of relativity taught us that you can travel through time, but only in one direction: you can go to the future. For example, if you could accelerate up to near light speed, go for a trip, turn around and return home, you’d experience much less time to go by than the friends you left at home would. You might experience, for example, a month to pass, while your friends would go through ten years. In a sense, you’d be travelling to the future faster than the others, faster than if you stayed at home. There is another way to do this. If you left, traveled to and went into orbit around a massive star, then returned home, again you would experience less time to go by than those you left at home. Again, you’d be going into the future faster. So, in theory, we could travel faster through time, if we wanted to, and if we had the technology.
What about the opposite: is there some way to go into the future slower than the rest of the world? Isn’t that precisely what I was doing in the quiet room? Everybody outside the room would go to the future the way we always do. In that room, I would go to the future slowly. For everyone outside the room, a minute would go by, but for me in that quiet room, I would need a long time to get to your next minute. How long though, I do not know. How this could happen, I have no idea. Well, actually, I have one idea.
In quantum mechanics, the role of a conscious observer is very important. Perhaps I thought of myself as so isolated in that quiet room that my isolated consciousness cut me off from the outside world, and time for me was different. What is time? Nobody really understands time, not really, and no one really knows how to treat it in a proper way in quantum mechanics. For all physical things that can be observed there are mathematical operations, or "operators," in quantum mechanics, with one exception. Time. There is no operator for time. Maybe that is somehow linked to me going slowly to the future in the quiet room. I’ll admit, it’s not a completely satisfactory answer: it doesn’t explain why my watch stopped while I was lost in thought, or why time stopped not only in my mind but for my body as well. I don’t have all the answers.
Nevertheless, I now knew the rules of the quiet room. Thinking back on it, whenever I finished working in that room, I would recall only the thoughts and ideas I had while doing the work, and absolutely nothing else. Perhaps it was, after all, the state of my conscious mind that determined whether or not time would pass for me.
Over the next few weeks of the fall term, I used the room to do all my homework and assignments and to learn all the material presented in the lectures. It took me almost no time at all. So I never bothered to do much work up at the university. That was a mistake. People began to notice. I became the guy who was never seen working yet always had assignments done and understood all the topics in all the courses. I even got most of my research done for my Masters thesis, me being a theorist and having the use of the quiet room.
My fellow students started to tease me, and maybe wonder about me. They’d ask, "Why are you such a slow worker here, John, and yet you get so much done at home?"
I’d answer, "Here you guys are always bugging me, wanting to shoot snooker and drink beer. At home, I just do my work. I focus better at home, when I’m alone and it’s quiet."
Word got around, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until Sheila heard about it and would ask me some questions that I wouldn’t want to answer.
My world ended on the day that Sheila asked me about the quiet room.
We were at my place. We’d just played tennis and we were cooling down and sipping on refreshments from cups I’d chilled in the fridge.
"What is this stuff about you and your timeless room?" she asked, suddenly.
I coughed. "My ‘timeless room?’ " I repeated. "What do you mean by that?"
Sheila’s eyes narrowed and she fixed her gaze on me.
"People say you never do any work at the university, that you do it all at home."
"So what’s wrong with that?" I asked her.
"Nothing. Just…"
"Just what?"
"You seem different John. You don’t seem yourself somehow. What’s wrong?"
I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew she had sensed that there was more to this.
"Nothing is wrong," I said. "I’m the same person I’ve always been. It’s just that… just that I…"
I wondered if this was the right time to tell her more about the room. She’d seen it before, of course, but I had always steered the discussion onto another topic. Now, as we talked, we made our way to the room, and I sat in the chair and she sat on the top of the desk.
I said, "This is where I do my work. This is what people are calling the ‘timeless room.’"
"They call it that because you get so much done here?"
I nodded.
"Is there something special about this room?" she asked. "Do you work better in here?"
I hesitated. What should I tell her? I couldn’t expect her to believe what had happened to me in here.
"There is something, I can tell, John. What is it?"
"You’d never believe it."
"You don’t know that! Tell me. I’ll decide if I believe it."
I didn’t think she could believe what really happened in here. I told her so.
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back.
She looked down into her cup. "You should be able to trust me, to be honest with me," she said. "You’ve never talked to me about this room, and now you’re holding something else back." She looked at me for a few seconds.
I raised my hands, looked down, and shrugged.
Then she slid off the desk and put down her cup with a loud thud. This time, she spoke sharply. "You used to trust me before. Why not now? What’s different?"
I watched helplessly as she strode out of the room. She turned around and gave me another look. She shook her head, grabbed the door handle and shut the door with a bang.
I sat there a while, trying to figure out what to say, how to make things better. There was no hurry going out, and I thought for a long time about telling her the whole story. I concluded that this would be the right thing to do.
I got up, walked to the door, and--
I couldn’t open the door! It was locked! I panicked and pounded on the door and screamed for Sheila to come back. My heart was pounding so hard and fast that I felt a spike of pain in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I fell to the floor.
Calm down, I told myself. She’ll come back. She’ll open the door. Just wait a bit.
I have been in here for what seems like forever. On the other side of the door, Sheila has just finished locking the door, and it’s only a matter of time until she’ll come back and open it. It might take her ten minutes, or maybe an hour, or more. No matter how quickly she comes back, it’s going to be much too long for me.
That first time, when I’d put the pot of beans on the stove: almost no time had passed outside the room. The element had only just begun to warm. It could be an eternity for me before the door would open again. I shudder at the possibility that the door was shut and locked at almost the same time. I shake my head at the thought that she might leave, might forget that she locked the door.
I wish I’d told her about this room, told her from the very beginning. I wish I’d removed the lock.
I’m trying to keep my mind occupied, working out problems, whatever I can think of. It’s hard to keep this up. It’s easy to fall out of this state of mind, and when I do, I feel the time going by, and I know I can only last so long.
But I have to make it, have to keep busy.
Sheila is on the other side of that door. I need her. I love her. I miss her.
My whole world is on the other side of that door.
I hope I can hold out long enough.
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