The Flip - 15
"What about the pure scientific events being tracked by the Islamic Scientific Counsel", she chimed the first thing in the morning after his last night conversation with her on the Signs.
The weather simulation was really bright, the blue sky was full of birds, and a string of pure white clouds zipping by. The scene was of Sakardu, the town with trees so bright red, yellow and green that it looked more like a painting than an actual place in the world.
"I am no expert on all the scientific endeavours being undertaken by them, and neither all the phenomenon being tracked by all the agencies", he was too absorbed in his own research for the last so many years that he actually had never bothered to scan the database in detail.
"There is an encrypted vault in the database which requires a level one clearance, along with owner's bio scan to open it's contents. Can you please unlock it", she was curious by nature, and presence of a top secret vault must have felt challanging to her.
He would have thought twice before handing over any sensitive contents to an AI on Earth, but they were so far away and so out of touch from any authority, that without a second thought he gave away the retina and thumb prints for the top-Secret database vault. The vault was encrypted using a really long key, based on his DNA, and both the Bio scans. It would take the latest quantum computers years to decrypt using brute force.
"So what are the main contents?", He himself felt a bit curious, intrigued by all the protocol. It was his first time encountering any such information, as the council believed in transparency and the spirit of all things open source.
Wania was quiet, eyes closed to simulate deep thought, scanning the text and data with her parallel processors.
After a minute she started to speak, "Are you aware of the Adam's Event, 42000 years ago?".
He had never heard of the name, but tried to guess it's contents based on the time line. "If by Adam's Event you mean actual arrival of Adam and Eve's spiritual or maybe physical descent on planet Earth, then it might be possible in the 42000 year old time line".
He started speaking again, smiling his shy smile, "I personally think it must be around forty nine thousand years ago, to coincide with the fifty thousand years of Man's presence on earth in my humble opinion. It is said that the length of Judgement Day will be equal to fifty thousand human years (1). By which I speculated that the Adam's and his descendents presence, separate from earlier humans on planet Earth must be only that much or some multiple of that time. Rest Allah and His Prophet (May Allah's Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) knows better. Elsewherr it is said that a day in God's realm equals 1000 years of Human time (2) (3)".
"It's nothing like it, actually. It's named after number 42, the answer to Douglas Adam's famous question of purpose of life , universe and everything in it. Which was humorously suggested to be 42, to indicate the meaningless nature of everything in universe", she informed almost dryly, but picked something in his response mid way as well.
"Why should a day in God's Realm equal 1000 thousand years of human time?"
"Probably due to Gravitational Time Dilation (5), if we are living inside a series of black holes, which we discussed some time ago. But let's not forget ourselves, back to the topic at hand", he found his focus immediately, along with making a mental note to task her to calculate the gravitational relationship based on this clue of time differences found in Quran and Hadith.
"Sorry to veer away completely, but why would the Islamic Scientific Counsel attribute an event to a science fiction writer?", He asked curiously.
"They never did, event was named by the early 21st century scientists, to coincide the length of time ,42 thousand years, with a popular cultural phenomenon, the number 42 made famous by Douglas Adam in a popular science fiction book of the time", she informed.
"Oh, how interesting, so what happened that long ago, and by the way, how did they calculate the event's age so precisely?", His own curiosity was picked now.
"It all started once really old kauri trees were found intact in a bog in New Zealand in 2019. According to its carbon-dating, the tree was alive 42000 years ago and even before that".
"So what? How the time period is significant?", He asked.
"They found traces of a geo-magnetic excursion in the rings, consistent with similar ice samples found in the polar ice and throughout the World in lave fields", she patiently explained.
He had off course heard of term academically, and started to speak as she finished, "If I am not wrong, the Earth's iron core, providing our Earth's magnetic field, keeps on flipping periodically. So it happened last time 42000 years ago?".
"Yes, not only that, but it probably caused some major events in Human History during this very period", she informed him.
"How is that possible?", He was surprised.
"It's just a theory, proposed by some of the scientists of the time. During this period, Earth's magnetic field dropped to below 6% of the current level, Carbon 14 production increased, ozone levels decreased, and atmospheric circulation changed. It must have been a wild show of auroras (6) throughout the world, along with increase in skin cancers. They tried to link it with increase in cave art, because early humans were probably trying to save themselves from increased radiation levels by spraying their exposed body parts with natural red paint, and also with extinction of Australian megafauna (7) , the extinction of the Neanderthals (8)".
"I very much doubt this wild theory, not possible that whole species are destroyed because of reduced magnetic filed, unless it is a long time, how much time the field remained weak?", His forehead was wrinkled now, thinking of the impact from a modern perspective.
"Hundreds of years, actually. Then the magnetic field flipped again and the protective magnetic shielding was restored, as per the records", she was amazed mid sentence. So hardly any clue was left of a global event, until humans unearthed the evidence in early 21sy century.
"But what is the significance to us?, How far away is the next event as per this document?", He asked the logical question.
"As per this document, it had started off in late 20th century, and kept on moving slowly towards opposite directions till today, it has not yet fully flipped, but is is very very close now", she informed him.
"What!!, How is that possible, I have never observed this change using any smart instruments during my wilderness excursions. Magnetic poles are clearly pointed out by a simple magnetic compass. May smart compass always pointed towards true north....which I felt a bit strange at the time, in hind sight", his thought process was again disrupted by old memories.
She was quiet for a second, and then spoke very slowly, "The Magnetic difference was being fed automatically to all the smart sensors by International Geographical Society, for the last few decades. If it was not for this very top secret document, I could have sworn it as a global level cover up", her eyes became wide, stating the significance.
"I don't believe it, although the cover up is pretty obvious to me, but the need is not at all. At worst, the total reversal will do today will be exceptional weakening of the magnetic field surrounding Earth, resulting in electrical malfunction at global level, satellite communication and operation disruptions due to exposure to solar winds and off course the actual reversal of the magnetic poles, the north will become south and vice versa", he was unconvinced.
"Yes, I assume the same based on this report, the need for this global cover up, if it was an actual cover up is not logical. The end of report gives us a few clues, stating that public imagination was being fed visions of doom and gloom, hence the whole phenomenon was deliberately blocked methodically from public view".
"Strange, it is not consistent with what I know. Anything else in the report?, Any conclusions?", He was getting impatient of silliness of it all. It was most illogical to treat a minor inconvenience to modern world in such a manner, with top secret classifications, level one clearance to access the data and all. He was convinced modern humans could easily overcome any such calamity, if they could do it thousands of years ago.
"There is a file, but it is double encrypted with the DNA sequence and bio-matric credentials of its initiator, titled 'The Risk Analysis and Significance of Impending Geo-Magnetic Excursion at Global Level'", she Informed him.
"What the what, I am officially pissed now, how we will open it?"
"We can't, using any legal means"
"How much time it will take to break the encryption?", He was getting impatient.
"Depending on the processing power available at our disposal, at minimum 2 years, and at maximum 4 years", she replied instantly.
"Totally useless endeavour. Ok tell me, based on file meta data, how much information is contained in this file?", He asked, deep creases covering his forehead.
She became quiet, analysis took her all of 10 seconds, after which she calmly replied "The file can contain at maximum a single line of text".
He was dumbfounded.
After a minute of introspection, he told her to start off with the decryption process using brute force.
References
(5) Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass, like a laney or a black hole. The lower the gravitaty, the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravity increases. So anyone living inside or near a black hole will have time passing much more quickly than an observer outside it.
(7) The term Australian megafauna refers to a number of megafauna in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, and the roles of human and climatic factors in their extinction are contested.
(8) Neanderthals (/niˈændərtɑːl, neɪ-, -θɔːl/, also Neandertals, Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. They most likely went extinct due to great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors. They were fully replaced by early European modern humans.
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ReplyDeleteYes, I am getting some hang of what readers want :)
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