Alfie was a graduate student at the local university working on his physics doctorate. In other words, a slave to the university - teaching and lab assisting. Gily was a pediatric intensive care nurse at a hospital on the outskirts of the city. His doctoral thesis was all about gravitational wave theory and black hole GMED (Gravito Magneto Electric Dynamics).
Just like there has been a solid theory of electromagnetic waves for centuries, there should be, because of symmetry, a similar theory for gravitational waves (GW). For example, are there gravitational currents, gravitational capacitance and inductance, gravitational magnetism, gravitational lasers? Theories on the predictions of behavior of these waves must be developed to account for this gap, and to investigate the possibility of new technology. GW, for example, may be the means extraterrestrial intelligences communicate with each other.
Theories that are not testable remain in the outskirts of science, and for them to be testable, it helps to have the mathematics to make predictions. Alfie found this out early in his graduate program. New experiments and new instrumentation would be able to test these new theories. GW may give rise to a new form of propulsion just like electromagnetic wave engines have been for hundreds of years.
This would be meaningless to the general public, but it would be worth an Alfred Prize to its discoverer. The original Nobel Prize was discontinued as a result of investigations that exposed rampant corruption in choosing laureates dating back to the early 21st century.
Alfie however, had other interests and some of them were hard for him to let go.
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Palor
Science FictionA young Mexican-American scientist with aspirations of changing the world gets his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when a life-bearing water world is discovered heading towards Earth.
