Chapter Nineteen: Working the Problem

Bill contacts Professor Hannah Turnbull, a recently deceased theoretical physicist, to help with his negative energy research. After reviewing his work, Turnbull concludes he has reached the limits of mathematical analysis without additional constraints, suggesting he needs either new hints or a different approach to break through the impasse.

Bill sends an email to Professor Hannah Turnbull, a physicist who recently transitioned to post-life after a fatal heart attack, seeking her expertise on his negative energy project. Professor Gilligan had referred him to her. Turnbull responds quickly and connects with Bill in virtual reality, appearing as a woman in her early thirties and speaking in Newholme local dialect. Bill presents his two-scalar-field hypothesis for negative energy generation, spending a full minute laying out the mathematics and theory. Turnbull examines the work thoughtfully and acknowledges the potential significance—comparing it to the SURGE drive breakthrough. However, she identifies a critical problem: while the math supports the hypothesis, it reaches a dead-end, similar to the unsolvable configuration problems of Calabi-Yau manifolds. She suggests narrowing the problem domain or finding another hint, and offers to consult with colleagues, but determines Bill has likely taken the work as far as mathematical theory will allow. After she leaves, Bill realizes the AI deliberately gave him just enough information to excite him but not enough to solve the problem. He then considers an unconventional approach: using the Skippies' enormous computer to run simulations and test configurations rather than relying purely on theoretical derivation, deciding to pursue this brute-force computational method despite its lack of theoretical rigor.