Page 12 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Black Pinhole Nanofurnace

beam turned into a stream of bits traveling at the speed of light. The
immediate civilian uses were in fiber optics and optical disks
“burned” with large quantities of data. This was science the former
prodigy knew very well, indeed.
Aitkens wanted to make a home appliance analogous to the
ubiquitous microwave oven, one that would have the opposite effect:
rapidly freezing whatever was placed within it. He would turn the
“radar range” process on its head, inducing H O to give up its
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excitement by sucking its energy out via dual oscillating laser beams
emitted from a single rotating source toward a black dish antenna on
the other side of the target. The frequency of the first photonic beam
would push a water molecule’s electron vibratory rate toward a
slightly higher but unstable harmonic state, knocking those electrons
out as photons trapped by the antenna; their replacements would
come instantly from that second beam at a lower frequency, leaving
the molecule at a lower harmonic. Mass-energy thus conserved, the
higher-energy photons would convert to heat blown out the back of
the freezer by a fan and the target would drop in temperature
instantly.
His corporate experience still rankling, he took pains to protect his
invention. That consumed most of his savings in legal fees, leaving
barely enough to produce a prototype of the Hydrophilic Entropic
Rephaser. He brought HER to an inventors’ convention under a nom
de commerce, hoping to attract interest. I tried to imagine him standing
in a cramped booth, already looking a bit seedy, offering his
brochures to passersby and advertising a demonstration of the device
to take place on the last day of the convention. The only account
extant of that trial run appeared in a local newspaper’s column of the
week’s odd and humorous happenings. I read the yellowed clipping
with apprehension, as if it were a description of a relative’s bad
behavior in a public place.

Now here’s one to warm the cockles of your hearts, gentle
readers. One of our kookier citizens came up with a wonderful
idea to make ice cubes in seconds, but the instant he switched it
on at the Opportunity Expo the climate in Veterans’ Hall
became noticeably warmer. Everything behind the diabolical
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