Severino Villasenor showed some interest in computer programming. He found mathematics to be manageable but not that interesting. His least favorite STEM subject had been Chemistry the prior year. As far as subjects like English or history, he found them to be painfully boring but he was able to get through them with B’s and C’s. In most high schools, Severino would have been considered an excellent student but at Henry M. Gunn high school he was hopelessly outmatched.
His mother was completely unaware of the educational dynamic surrounding her children. She had never heard of Kumon even as a good portion of the parents were shuttling their children in and out of the rote learning centers since the age of six. She had no clue about the existence of college application coaches, educational consultants, tutors and other hired guns that seethed throughout the community, loading students with proven recipes for academic success.
Severino’s loving, well intended mother was unknowingly several steps behind the swarm of laser-focused immigrant families from mainland China, India, Korea and many other education-centric nations that were changing the face of the community, where she always felt more like a guest than a member. Even the historically white base of Palo Alto with its rich legacy of college as a minimum standard, was off balance as education rapidly transformed from a process of exploration and development, to one of gamesmanship and tactics.
Severino had very recently taken stock of the situation in which he found himself floating aimlessly adrift. He had listened to conversations among some of his basketball teammates - conversations regarding subjects he previously tuned out as if he were a child overhearing adult conversation. Something had changed. His pulse had quickened in his pre-calculus class earlier that day, not in a way that he would notice. But the combination of basketball, cross country and track, among other athletic interests, as well as genetic factors, had his blood pressure always low and his resting heart rate at around forty. Now ticking at a rate of fifty, triggered by a mild uptick in his output of epinephrine, dopamine and glutamate, Severino was suddenly enjoying a level of focus he had never experienced.
His newfound sense of awareness even spilled over into his basketball play. But his most interesting new development, was tuning into the conversations among his classmates and teammates, particularly those of Asian decent. And he was now astounded by new discoveries that he would have previously ignored completely. Draco Fong, the team’s starting point guard was telling another player, Arlen Wu about his classes for next semester. Severino sat a few feet away as they took a water break, and he listened intently to the exchange.
“Dude! Are you serious? Okay tell me again,” urged Draco.
“I enrolled at foothill college,” explained Arlen. “My mom found out. You can get high school credit for those classes but they are not counted in your GPA?”
“Are you shit’n me? So you can do that?”
“Yeah. Any class that isn’t AP, you take outside. Then it’s off the record but satisfies the requirement. Then, like, you just take everything AP. You get A’s in those AP classes and you can get a five point oh GPA.”
“Oh man! I gotta talk to my mom. That is so cool.”
“Dude, you better get on it. You’re already a sophomore.”
“I know, right? Dude. You’re all over it. You be playin at Harvard. Jeremy Lin and shit.”
“You got it. I’m goin for it.”
Severino listened and processed the stray chatter. They were saying the kinds of things he had already heard in bits and pieces. But now, he was able to decipher what they were saying and more important, he understood the implications. As a junior listening to these two clever underclassmen, he suddenly felt like a relic as the eavesdropping continued.
“Man! Why don’t the counselors say nothin? Do they know about it?”
“Hell yes. They know. But the school loses money. They only get money for classes that you attend at Gunn. So they don’t say nothin. That’s what my mom says.”
“Thanks bro. I’ll check it out.” The conversation was cut short as the coach’s whistle blew like a knife cutting the air and they were jolted to their feet, along with Severino who suddenly had a lot more to think about. He felt a flash anger and he brought it to his game. The coach took notice.
“Sevy! That’s good hustle. Way to finish!” Sevy was channeling his frustration as he played against his teammates. He wasn’t thinking about basketball much at all, even as he dominated the game. Basketball was just a metaphor for his academic pursuits. The competitive drive he now felt, to achieve more than his peers, was playing out in sport and the tension was palpable. Sevy noted frustration among some of his teammates, at having been blocked or failing to defend against him. But Sevy imagined that their stern expressions transcended basketball. Win, lose, pass, fail. It was all part of a code. The drive to get ahead. To win. And now Sevy was experiencing a new awakening. He was part of the club. Little were they aware that Sevy was now in a league of his own. For his new resolve toward achievement was not engineered by a “tiger mother”. Rather, he was assimilating the new possibilities that existed inside him.
Severino’s mother was still away, on her big adventure in South America. He had always been able to handle responsibility, helping his single mother as needed and always watching over his sister Lolita. But this time the solitude and freedom to be his own man was timely. It allowed him time and space to perceive an inner voice. He called his sister from in front of the gym, where his performance had just formed new impressions among each of the fifteen other players and two coaches present.
“L. Ya vengo. Quince minutos,” Severino rattled off and hung up. His teammates streamed by, all headed home, all trying to gain eye contact, showing respect. He was on good terms with most of the boys, but he only had one close friend on the team. They had known each other since elementary school. His name was Brady, he had blond hair and lived up in the hills. It was an unlikely pairing given the ethnic and socioeconomic disparities but it was also a perfect example of public schools as the great equalizer.
“Sev, you want a ride? My mom is picking me up.”
“Okay, sure.”
“I see her car, let’s go.” Severino and Brady gathered their bags and hobbled on flip flops over to the beaming white Tesla Model X. Severino loved the car, especially the gull wing rear doors as they opened smoothly like some sort of space ship.
“Hi Sevy,” called out Brady’s mother from the front.
“Hi Mrs. O’Malley. It’s out of your way so I can walk. I don’t mind,” said Severino.
“We need to pick up some things anyway. It’s no problem.” The space ship doors whirred their way closed, ending in a reassuring click. “How’s your mom and sister?”
“My mom’s in Argentina with her boyfriend so I’m taking care of Lola. We’re all good.”
“Are you….? I mean, is your mom from Argentina?”
“No, she is doing a physics experiment down there. She’s working with a physics professor from Stanford.”
“Really? I thought you told me she was doing janitorial work at school. Now she is doing physics?” Brady’s mother tried not to sound nosey or judgmental.
“That was a long time ago. Sorry I didn’t say anything. She was working at Stanford and now she works at Foothill but she still has some project with her boyfriend and a guy at Stanford named Sussman.”
“Sussman? Wow. I don’t know if Brady told you but his father works at NASA and he also knows Roy Sussman. What a small world.”
“That’s cool. I didn’t know.” They continued toward Severino’s neighborhood in silence but Severino couldn’t help but notice they way Brady’s mother now glanced at him in the rear view mirror. He sensed her surprise and he felt proud that his mother was moving in circles that were so highly regarded. Angel’s new world did involve impressive figures, but that was just a byproduct of her new interests and her determination to learn and uncover the truth.
Severino likewise had interest in making new friends. Not for the sake of social status but simply in order to gather new information. The conversations he now sought to join, like the one he had overheard in the gym, were interesting but only in the sense that there was preferential access to the highest levels of knowledge and it was the knowledge that fascinated him. Especially knowledge of mathematics.
“Sevy, we will have you and your mother over for dinner soon I hope. Oh, and of course Lola,” declared Brady’s mother as the rear spaceship door opened near the entrance of Buena Vista. It was an added degree of certainty in Severino’s mind, that things were changing. Rapidly.
“Thank you Mrs. O’Malley.” Severino watched as the hatch secured itself for takeoff and waved as they pulled away. Then he ran toward the trailer at full speed, backpack bouncing in all directions. He knew he needed to get dinner going, but first there were a dozen things to Google.
They all huddled inside the tiny server room, issuing opinions on every detail of how to arrange the Casio watches and the iphones. But it was only Angel that handled the pieces, taking some suggestions, ignoring others, as advice flowed freely in Spanish staccato all around her. Once the devices were arranged to everyone’s satisfaction, and the power was connected to the battery, which acted as a UPS device, they all backed out of the room waiting for the next step. Juan had called in the University IT people to install a webcam that they could view at any time and from any place. A small LED light was also fitted to improve the image, since the server room was generally dark, save the dozens tiny blinking lights emanating from the racks of equipment.
Finally, there was the subject of temperature monitoring and control. Following an explanation and demonstration by one of the resident scientists, on the temperature control system, they were satisfied. But as a precaution, IT was called upon once again, to install an IOT-equipped temperature sensor that would dump data to the the cloud every few minutes. When all was said and done, Juan was feeling quite satisfied and confident. Angel and Javier, on the other hand, felt empty. It was so anticlimactic as the realization set in that they might need to wait a year or more to reach a conclusion. Nevertheless, there was still much to do, not the least of which was to repeat this set up in Preston, England.
“The time delay of the internet could be a problem if you really want the webcam to be useful,” observed Juan.
“I think it’s fine because the internet delay is what? A few seconds? Less?” Replied Angel.
“Less I would say,” opined Javier. “So I think that after a while, if we are getting a real disparity, that won’t matter.”
“Okay, if we are done here, I asked two of my guys to look into the barometric pressure data and also the gravimetric concept,” explained Juan. They are over at the university.”
Angel had come to expect universities to have incredible grounds, gardens and buildings, along with a projection of grandeur. But her main point of reference was basically Stanford. She understood that community college was the most basic level of higher education but even there, Foothill college, her only other point of reference, was a beautiful place. University of Argentina, Rio Grande, was a different matter altogether. It looked like two starkly identical, weather beaten apartment buildings, with a low rise structure between them. In such a small city, with surrounding land in complete abundance, she was confused by it, but then adjusted her perspective quickly, as if refocusing a camera lens.
Juan and Javier already saw beyond it, their familiarity providing a different way of filtering the differences between universities, cities or even countries. Theirs was a landscape of mathematics and that was the salient measure of beauty. It defined grandeur in their eyes. Much as a dog, even in the most urban setting, will remain singularly attuned to the scent of his comrades, without concern for the lack of trees or open spaces, Juan and Javier likewise only gauged a place on the merits of its mathematicians, living or dead.
They were now in the heart of Juan’s country, in a remote place that he loved. And he was by all measures, one of the greatest living mathematical minds. That alone bestowed beauty upon this desolate outpost, and it drew toward it, like some form of gravity, aspiring talents the world over. Those few accepted to the desolate campus, and those able to cast aside their preconceived notions of what institutions should look like, giving themselves completely to the science and maths, would invariably form a lifelong bond with Patagonia and its powerful, unforgiving majesty.
They entered the elevator in one of the apartment-looking towers and rose to the eighth floor, which was the top. The elevators were few and most students and faculty labored up and down stairs, a situation that they realized was to their ultimate benefit. Juan’s door was unlocked, and inside his little compound of several rooms there was a secretarial station manned by Margarita Schultz, whose name and bright blue eyes revealed some of her story. She greeted them cheerfully and led them into a small conference room.
“Guys, meet Angelica and my nephew, Javier.” Following pleasantries, but before they were even into their first sip of espresso, Juan got things going. “What did we find out,” he snapped, all business.
There were two post docs fully prepared to give answers, as this was what it meant to work under Dr. Hernandez. They were sharp, a bit nerdy and always on top of their game. Actually, they were extremely nerdy. Max Trujillo from Barcelona via Max Planck Institute was the first to speak.
“Los datos barométricos son basura.”
“What the hell you mean, garbage?”
“It’s useless. Most of the time, it’s not even logged. No one ever cared about that particular data, only wind speeds, direction, temperature. So they just let the interface between the instrument and the uplink to the global database develop a glitch, which no one ever fixed. Probably power outages required some action. But no one ever bothered.”
“Shit! Nothing easy in this world,” spat Juan. Then he turned his gaze toward Angel and Javier, looking apologetic. “You know nature’s biggest variable is human error. Or that other condition called, I don’t give a damn.” Juan swiveled back to his underlings, this time trained on a tall, pasty, red-haired young man. The young man had a look that indicated science, and only science, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His name was Davis Rose. A last name for a first name and a girl’s name for a last name, combined with his appearance, put him on the scientific track from a very early age.
“We have nothing here of any use. The chemistry lab is a joke,” Davis spewed with disdain. This put everyone on edge, Juan especially. “But main campus has something interesting,” continued Rose, his mood suddenly bright. “It’s a scale that operates at forty degrees C under high vacuum and it can handle ten kilograms. The precision is point one micrograms. If you loaded 10 kg in there, you’re talking ten to the minus nine.” Davis Rose looked smug and a bit proud of his discovery.
“Hey, that’s something,” countered Juan. “What do you guys think?” Juan asked, looking at Javier for some indication. Javier nodded affirmatively and looked toward Angel to gauge her reaction.
“Can we use it? It was your suggestion Juan. So, if you think it can show something, I’m all for it. But I don’t think Buenos Aires is a good location. It should be here. In the same place as the time measurement. Then we could see some relationship. I mean. I hope we see something.” Angel smiled, a little worried suddenly about what would happen if they saw nothing. Juan had a blank stare as he thought momentarily.
“Is that in chemistry? In B.A.? I mean the vacuum thing,” stumbled Juan as he thought in parallel.
“Yes,” replied Rose. “I didn’t ask them about bringing it down here.”
“Those clowns probably don’t even use the thing. Leave that one to me,” declared Juan. Just then, Margarita peeked in, trying to politely interrupt.
“Juan, I need to go. But I wanted to let you know, Abel Jennings called from England.”
“Abel? Oh! The guy from Oxford. He’s the one Sussman mentioned. Okay, just leave me his number.”
“I already texted you,” said Margarita flashing her blue eyes, glancing at Javier, a subtle dynamic that registered with Angel. Not in a positive way.
“What time is it over there? Must be the middle of the night,” assessed Juan out loud, evaluating whether to call. “Well, he’s old, probably never sleeps.”
In fact Abel Jennings slept quite a lot, until very recently. The initial call from Roy Sussman was a joy to receive, giving him a jolt of the kind he used to feel - back when he was relevant. The discussion was almost purely social - two old time charmers, charming one another. There was just this one small favor. It was a crumb laid before a man in his twilight - a man starving for purpose. Seemingly of low importance, the small favor formed the center of Abel’s current purpose in life. What’s more, he ached for more understanding of just what it was that possessed Roy to reach out in such a seemingly random fashion, as if calling out the national lottery, as it aligned with Abel’s ticket, to a number.
This inspired Abel to follow up, careful to not appear overly interested, lest revealing his true condition of utter intellectual listlessness. In fact, Abel had not had an original thought in over forty years. His legacy of high achievement at an early age, followed by awards and honoraria, combined with wit, graciousness and charm, had carried him through a career spent mainly looking back and rarely ahead. Oh yes, he did pontificate on the next great frontiers of cosmology, as if he were up to his elbows in near breakthroughs. But the truth was sadly much less impressive. At some point in his mid-thirties his mind simply switched off and he dedicated himself toward the mentoring of the next waves of new contributors - those with energy and ambition to stand on his shoulders hoping to glimpse that which lay ahead.
His call to Roy was masterfully crafted as simply the concerns of an ambassador addressing the particulars of those to be taken into his care. Nearly as an aside, Abel inquired as to purpose. All of his beating about the bush was of course completely a function of his own inhibitions, as Roy Sussman was not at all perturbed by such questioning and more than happy to elaborate in great detail.
Those details washed over Abel while every drop was savored to the utmost. As the long and fruitful call ended, he felt such a feeling of satisfaction. The kind one feels by simply being invited to the party. But he soon felt something else, as the actual content of Sussman’s words percolated and brewed in areas of his brain he had long since put out to pasture. He was experiencing not only a renewed interest, but he felt the mental elasticity to envision new questions and started to feel as though he was having original ideas. He had forgotten about those feelings. No. It wasn’t an old man’s delusions. It was unmistakeable. At the age of eighty two, Abel Jennings was once again an aspiring young physicist.
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