Improbables: a Satire About Very Large Numbers: The History Department at the University of Centrum Kath

IMPROBABLES

a satire about very large numbers

Book 4 of the History Department at the University of Centrum Kath series

a prequel

By Steve M

Yes, I wrote this. Blame no one else.

2018 - Florida

www.stevemauthor.com

Complaints: mailto:[email protected]

Table of Contents

Chapter One - Red Robes

Chapter Two - Origins

Chapter Three - Parliament of Bastards

Chapter Four - Field Testing

Chapter Five - Pluto’s Suppository

Chapter Six - Driving Miss Pluto

Chapter Seven - De-emotionalize

Chapter Eight - Ship of Fools

Chapter Nine - Slipping Into Darkness

Chapter Ten - Amor

Chapter Eleven - Harold

Chapter Twelve - Big Finish

Chapter Thirteen - Field Dispersal

Chapter Fourteen - The Deluge

Chapter Fifteen - Doyle

Chapter Sixteen - Love Commanded

Chapter Seventeen - Simulatus

Chapter Eighteen - Advantage Chiro

Chapter Nineteen - Eraser

Chapter Twenty - Family Tree

Chapter Twenty One - War Crimes

Chapter Twenty Two - No Confidence

Chapter Twenty Three - Grenwil Orbs

Chapter Twenty Four - RESET

Chapter Twenty Five - Father and Daughters

Chapter Twenty Six - Temporal Summit

Chapter Twenty Seven - Big nose little runt

Chapter Twenty Eight - Everything that is not recorded is forgotten

Chapter Twenty Nine - New Blood

Chapter Thirty - Oh Dear

Chapter Thirty One - The Greatest of All Time

Chapter Thirty Two - Slightly Elongated

Chapter Thirty Three - Here, not here

Chapter Thirty Three - Peace in our time

Chapter Thirty Four - Loss of Control

Chapter Thirty Five - We Accept

Chapter Thirty Six - Quods

Chapter Thirty Seven - Fruit and Veg

Chapter Thirty Eight -A Catatonic State

Chapter Thirty Nine - The E in the M

Chapter Forty - Range of Response

Chapter Forty One - The Slade SMBH

Chapter Forty Two - Dehydrate

Steve Who?

Everything - Everywhere

I am telling you this history as per the exception for FACTION (Facts Told as Fiction) in accordance with Section 183.17 of the Charter of the History Department at the University of Centrum Kath, the largest repository of knowledge and learning in the universe.

Chapter One - Red Robes

WHEN WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY advances faster than empathy, there is only one destination, an extinction event.

- The First McGee 

Professor Lawrence Chu was nervous and tired. Sleep had been almost impossible the last few nights, ever since he landed on Kath. Staring at the ceiling all night, mind racing too fast to sleep. Listening to the rain, watching the low orbit weather satellites between showers. On Kath, it only rains at night thanks to those satellites.

After three days with less than six hours of total sleep, Lawrence Chu was dead on his feet as he stood in front of the committee. He needed to yawn but dared not as he looked at the ten women and men that made up the Numeracy Committee. Ten red robes staring at him. Ten pairs of eyes on him, eyes connected to brains far superior to his, he believed. He clenched his jaw against the urge to yawn. He was worried that he would faint.

The pictures of the members of the Numeracy Committee could be found in the journal Beyond Mathematics, the quarterly publication found in every math department bathroom in the outer spiral arms. Lawrence had seen them hundreds of times, including that morning, staring at them numbly while the toilet seat warmed. He had expected them to look slightly different from their pictures but was surprised to find that they looked the same. Their pictures were not posed but taken while they were in the middle of doing something.

Lawrence felt himself swoon a little, the rotation of exhaustion. He looked at the two members with the gold medals hung around their necks. He smiled at them. They had completed the Moshe Bao Rofana Conjecture, that partial formula left in the margin of an electronic notepad by a dying mathematician, as he plummeted to his death, a note that predicted the pattern of last digits in the calculation of Pi.

I will try to tell you an abridged version of Moshe’s life at some point in this history. So much has been written about the very short life of the greatest mathematician in history. I will need to do some research first.

Larry straightened his posture to a more formal stance and took a deep breath with flared nostrils while keeping his jaw clenched. Must not yawn. Must not yawn. Stand up straight. Why did he have to stand up and they got to sit down? It wasn’t fair. He wanted to lay down, with a pillow. He let his eyes close for just a moment. He was exhausted from all of the traveling, late hours of work, and a lack of sleep, not them. His legs felt wobbly, a moment of jelly. He locked his knees to keep from falling. The woman in the center of the table cleared her throat.

Let’s begin, she said. She looked like a grandmother with an unusual haircut. A medallion the size of a fist hung around her neck holding an orange stone, a very unusual stone. In its center a fire was raging and clearly visible. Larry stared blankly at the stone in her medallion, the fire mesmerizing.

It’s called the Infinity Stone in more primitive parts of the universe, said the woman with a smile.

It’s beautiful, Larry replied.

On some planets it is fought over and even worshiped. In reality, it is just a chemical reaction at an atomic level that eventually stops in a few billion years without recharging it by shaking it again. However, explaining this to those who fight over and worship the stone won’t do any good. They refuse to accept the facts. They are the sort of people you should never ask where the sun goes at night because their answer will leave you very depressed and pessimistic about the future of our species. She chuckled at her own words.

Wow, replied Larry because he was too tired to think of an intelligent response.

Thank you for your time, Lawrence. It’s been a rough few days. You’ve done well. We appreciate your work, admire your curiosity and cherish your honesty.

Thank you, was his reply before he could filter the tiredness from his voice.

It’s not often that we consider things with such consequence, continued the woman as Lawrence was admiring the dramatic cut lines of her hair, a series of sharp scissor cuts that could best be described as asymmetrical and acute. Was it cubist? He realized his mind was drifting off topic.

I hope we haven’t worked you too much over the last few days. You look tired.

I’ll manage, Chu replied and tried to stand up straighter, realized it looked absurd and then slouched again. Do not yawn! Do not yawn!

I suggest you go have a nice nap after this meeting. Have a cup of tea then a pleasant lie-down. It will do wonders to bring you back to life. Perhaps a good meal after. Listen to some nice music. Just the thing, she suggested.

Professor Lawrence Chu felt like he could sleep until next Thursday, except there is no concept of Thursday out among the stars. If he dreamed it would be of wearing a plush red robe, the red robe of a master mathematician. Every mathematician did. No one from his university had ever come close to getting one and Larry wasn't even considered one of the best in his small math department of nine professors.

Professor Chu, we've examined your study, and while we find the subject most unusual, it is intriguing in its approach, and especially its application, noted the chubby woman wearing the red robe with the medallion, smiling at him as she had done the first time they met. Yes, research is always about ‘its application’ during wartime.

This red-robed, medallion wearing woman was Professor Balala Souf, four-time speed calculus champion and, not to mention, two-time winner of the gold medal for predictive models of marbles rolling downhill.

Thank you for considering my work, he said feebly.

We hope to gain from it, replied Balala.

Professor Balala Souf had written eleven books on mathematics, including a seminal work considered to be the one she will be remembered for, Measuring Non-Dimensionals. In it, Balala Souf presented a framework as well as models for measuring things that aren’t measurable. So, if you wonder ‘how much does he/she really love me?’ Balala presented a framework for devising a unit of measure and a range of response from zero to 100. Professor Souf received many awards for this work, despite the increase in relationship failures, and it is considered a breakthrough in measurement.

Professor Balala Souf was also an accomplished card cheat. Until recently she was the wealthiest member of the committee. 

Smiling, Souf continued, I particularly enjoyed hearing how the idea came about. Adding, Such a nice story, with a wistful look that only really old people can make, the look of someone remembering something that happened well over 50 years ago. This look has a faraway component to it, and if they are lucky, an instance of a daydream will grab them, and they will be transported back to that moment in time. A moment not represented accurately but misrepresented by faulty memory, a moment where everyone is strikingly attractive, and the memory of the halitosis of the hot looking guy/girl is forgotten. 

Larry was embarrassed and blushed, the origin of his work was not heroic, but it was romantic. He felt his legs wobble a little more, another indication that he was tired. Physically he was tired. Mentally too. Tired of talking, tired of having everything he said challenged and clever people demanding proof of everything.

Larry spent three days explaining his work to teams assembled by the committee. Mornings were the theoreticians, those that thought they must define it before they begin to calculate it. They drew models for everything and used the word ‘concept’ often. Afternoons were The Ants as he referred to those who spent hours taking apart the billions of calculations used in his work. They drew logic maps and rule sets with large symbols everywhere. He preferred the Ants.

I was reluctant to tell how it came about. It’s a silly story, said Larry.

Nonsense, chided Balala Souf. It’s the nicest story I’ve heard in a very long time. Gives me hope, she added nostalgically. Occurrence Void Accumulation may be the most important concept in mathematics in a very long time.  

It may not seem intuitively obvious, but Lawrence Chu had WONDERED:

IF, when we are dealing with infinity AND remembering that since infinity by definition consists of all possible outcomes, THEN IF unlikely events have not occurred yet, THEN the longer they go without happening, the more LIKELY they are to happen SOON.

Most did not accept his idea; some were openly hostile to it. Only one person replied, ‘so what?’ the correct response. Her name was Beatrice. Few opinions changed when he showed them the results of his Rochambeau simulation (rock-paper-scissors).

Your use of a Rosario simulation is very advanced, Balala added. Brilliant. Genius. This made Larry feel very nice and warm inside despite his exhaustion.

Larry used a Rosario simulation for infinity to prove his case. A Rosario Simulation is named after Rosario Kalculare, a mathematician that asked a simple question:

‘Hey everybody, is this number large enough to act like infinity even if it’s not? I’ve got some cool tests I’d like to run, but I need something to act like infinity for them to work. What do you say? Is this close enough?’

Mathematically the answer was yes 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time, and people mostly agreed that it was good enough. They gave Rosario many awards for this, and a new level of quality assurance swept manufacturers everywhere. Most of the obscura exitus would occur in Rosario’s really big number, a number so large that it required many computers to calculate it. It was so large it could never be displayed, printed or spoken, only referred to as Rosario’s Really Big Number. Larry Chu had used Rosario’s Really Big Number to test accumulations of voids, numerical ranges without events, in the very outer extremities of a normal distribution (bell curve). 

We would like to put a team together to assist you in validating your findings about Improbables, Souf stated with a mischievous hint in her smile.

Sometimes when good news comes there is a slight delay before it registers with the brain. It was like this with a very tired Lawrence Chu. A full two seconds (Atomic Standard) after he heard the words, it finally registered within his cranial mass. Larry suddenly and only for a brief moment wanted to shout, to scream. He wanted to yell, to dance, to get drunk and exclaim it to the world. The Numeracy Committee at the University of Kath, the most prestigious university in the galaxy, the best math department for light years, was funding his work. It can’t get better than this he thought. He could die happy. It was several minutes before his teeth were no longer visible.

At important moments in our lives, some people are just naturally inclined towards a less than optimal response to really good news.

Are you sure? was Larry’s contribution to this phenomenon.

Yes, very much, said Balala Souf with a smile.

Larry noticed the entire committee was smiling at him as well, the type of smile given to a child who can’t tie their shoes. He thought about the road to this moment.

Previous attempts at bringing the idea of Improbables to the attention of anyone outside of his own department had been met with scorn and derision. Most along the long chain between an unknown math professor and the most renowned group of mathematicians in existence simply ridiculed the idea, or dismissed it outright and very quickly as completely preposterous. Some even made a big point of learning his name so they could make sure that the ridicule, scorn, and negative classifications were correctly attributed when they told their colleagues about the moron they had met. Many looked at him with a look similar to the moment you realize the person you are talking with is crazy. Preposterous is home court for insanity.

Yet, here he was. Someone important had finally heard of his work and wanted to know more. Twenty-third time’s a charm. Things must be desperate, he thought. There was a new sense of desperation and panic in the rebel zones.

So it can't be done had changed to maybe it can. Good enough, Chu thought. Then he realized he might be in a sleep stupor, that blank time with a VACANT sign on his forehead. The committee had spent the last eleven seconds looking at a man asleep on his feet, eyes closed, still smiling. His body slightly jerked as he regained consciousness. Oh shit!

May I have Professor Kassman on the team? Larry blurted.

Yes, of course, said Souf. Let’s hope you continue to inspire one another, said the plump woman with a chuckle and a wink.

She’s vital to everything I do, said Larry continuing with his stream of consciousness blurting.

I’m sure she is, agreed Souf.

Good ol’ Kassman. It was a mushroom wine-fueled argument with her that had prompted Larry's method for finding Improbables. She had called him on his humorous but highly nonsensical explanation of why the central tendency of the universe suggested that they kiss again. She refused to kiss him. He had responded that if they didn’t kiss, a statistical aberration would be more probable in the immediate future. Kassman was having none of it. So Chu kept coming up with more and more elaborate and outrageous explanations, all of them bullshit. Bullshit comes easy after drinking mushroom wine due to the psychoactive chemicals. The more he reinvented and redesigned the laws of logic and feasibility, the more she refused to kiss him. So, he went even deeper into the weeds of absurdity and bad math in his attempt to get another kiss and have a good laugh. All the stops of reason were removed.

Then a funny thing happened. Even in a wasted state of mind, they recognized the idea of Occurrence Void Accumulation as something that might not actually be bullshit. In fact, it might be real and predictable when dealing with infinity, as well as an excellent reason for Kassman to kiss him again. The leap from Occurrence Void Accumulation to Improbables is not that large.

When do I get started? Larry asked Professor Souf as he wondered if he drifted off once again for a second.

Souf looked at Professor Bhati seated next to her. He nodded to her, answering the unspoken question.

You now work directly for the committee, as of this meeting, said Balala Souf. You begin now. What are your immediate needs?

My clothes and Professor Kassman. That's all. Another look, another nod from Bhati.

Professor Neil Bhati had four awards in Fifth-Dimensional Geometry and a lifetime achievement award from the Oscar Kaluza Institute of Best Explanations (So Far). He is most notable for two reasons. Firstly, he is the wealthiest member of the committee, having attained that status recently when he finally caught Professor Souf cheating.

Secondly, he is a traitor.

Bhati smiled at Larry. Larry smiled and remembered how hard Bhati had questioned him. He led the Ants team.

If you ask him why he is a traitor, and he answered honestly, he is under no obligation to be truthful like I am, he would tell you that Goodness have over 300 members of his family captive and are threatening to kill them unless he spies on their behalf. And you would be very well within your right mind to wonder how in the name of Hydrogen does he have a family with over 300 members? The average in the universe is 39. The actual count for Professor Bhati’s family was an even more remarkable 436.

It’s a cultural thing.

Bhati comes from a planet that places a premium on family harmony. Domestic bliss is their highest form of happiness. His culture stresses that partners should never go to sleep angry with one another. Elders suggest that if a couple is angry with one another at bedtime, they should have sex instead and forget about what they were angry about until the next day when they can take it up again if it is really so damn important. This advice can lead to two things: very large families and a lot of arguments starting between 10:30 and 11:00 PM at night.

As a licensed historian, I must also tell you that Professor Bhati’s reply to your hypothetical question would be incorrect. He is correct that he believes they are all being held captive, that much is true. I must point out though that at this point in history 183 of them are already dead due to prioritizing of captives by their captors. They only kept the ones close to Bhati. As for the others, ‘can’t turn ‘em loose, tired of feeding ‘em, kill ‘em,’ were the exact words of the officer that ordered their execution. The man with 53 cousins, now only had seven.

A military squad will be sent to Orji to get your clothes and Professor Kassman today, said Souf.

Won't that take people from the war effort? asked Larry.

Bhati looked at Souf before he finally spoke. She nodded. Speaking with a stern baritone, Professor Chu, we believe that you may have answered a very difficult question, a question so intimidating no one tries to solve because we all believe it is impossible to solve. But if, and I repeat IF we can verify your results, and Improbables can become another weapon to help us win this war, sending a small squad to get some clean underwear and a colleague is a very reasonable price.

The war — right. Fasten your seat belts. This is the very abridged history.

Eighty percent of the universe was under the control of an empire called Goodness, which like many things on your planet, its name was opposite of what it really was; oxymoronic you’d call it. Goodness wasn’t even an empire but rather an alliance of smaller empires. Former enemies until recently, sharing one trait – they were all authoritarian societies.  They had that ugly blend of industry, government, media, and military, where the only disagreement allowed is over who agrees the most. Once foes, they were now in a bumpy era of cooperation. The 5% of the population previously lost to their internal warfare had been replaced now by 7% lost to malnutrition.

The populations of Goodness were organized around the three traditional pillars of righteousness: work, state, and religion. Military service was mandatory. Pledges and anthems were widespread, the daily catechisms and rituals were never far from the lips. They bowed frequently and knelt often. The economic model was built upon growth and growth was best ensured via conquest, exploration, and exploitation, as it is easier than innovation in regressive societies. A few lived well under this system, but the vast majority did not.

Fortunately, the empire did not reach into the far outer spiral arms of galaxies and to planets like Kath. Out there it was a hodgepodge of groups and cultures, largely self-determinant. They were loosely allied for defensive purposes but coordination between planets remained a challenge. Now I know what you’re thinking. They don’t stand a chance, and that would be a fair initial assessment.

What about computational resources? Larry asked and tried to open his eyes as wide as possible. They began to water.

You and your team now have A-level priority on all resources, replied Professor Souf.

Thank you, Larry replied with a nod.

Professor Chu, we appreciate the work you have done with little to no means at your disposal. We’re impressed by your resourcefulness and situational programming skills. The compartmentalization of your computations are exquisite and highly efficient, acknowledged Souf.

The University of Bilcor-Anders at Orji has some very powerful computational resources, Larry replied.

A chuckle ran through the committee. For the first time, Larry felt less than admiration for this group. They laughed at his school. Jerks.

We believe you will find your new resources improved, declared Souf with the confidence of someone holding four aces in a single deck game. 

Thank you very much, Larry murmured.

The planets in the outer spiral arms had resisted the expansion of Goodness, first by migration, then by battle. Kath is in a binary planetary system with an identical but uninhabited twin planet, Centrum, in an opposing orbit. They chase each other perfectly around a red dwarf star. Kath has a population of just over one hundred million. Centrum has zero population, excepting scientific teams, and both looked not unlike your Earth in that they have polar ice caps, some desert areas and a lush green belt at the equator.

Let me make this very clear to you and everyone, began Professor Souf with her eyebrows pulled down, almost matching the cut of her hair, and her voice very solemn, your work is now rated with the highest security rating possible. Any discussion of this work with people outside of the project and this committee will result in a terminal point (death), after a very long reprimand. Do you understand?

Yes, answered Larry with a worried look.

Security cannot be underestimated, Bhati added.

Larry noticed that Professor Souf was, once again, smiling at him. She had a lovely smile for someone threatening to kill him. Larry wondered what it was like to work with Professor Balala Souf in the Math Department on Kath. It was in the most handsome building on campus, probably the oldest. It wasn’t one of those glass and metal monsters like most of the other buildings.

The Math Department sat in a stone building covered in vines. The vines were the Cognitionis Vine and are from the planet Imdillian, a very inhospitable world, where its people have traditionally used the leaves of the plant to enhance their mental faculties temporarily. At the time it was planted around the building, no one mentioned to the new owners of an exotic off-world plant that use of it would prove to be addictive.

Fortunately, it is impossible to overdose on it, it has no detrimental cerebral or physical effects, either short or long term, no hangover, and there are no physical withdrawal symptoms upon cessation of use. It doesn’t make your mouth dry, make you hungry or cause you to hallucinate. No, the addiction was a much more insidious one, tied to the addicts’ self-esteem. Users of Cognitionis could not stand the feeling of being stupid again when they stopped chewing the leaves. Let me assure you that these were not stupid people, but their assessment was based relative to the mental acuity they experienced with a full-on Cognitionis rush. For this reason, the lower leaves, those within reach of the outstretched hand, were thin on the vines covering the building.

The war was going badly. The Committee needed a breakthrough and were hoping Lawrence Chu would provide one.

Do you have any further questions? requested Souf.

No, was all Larry could mumble now, his exhaustion was beginning to take over.

The guards will show you to your quarters.

Some people need to have the last word. At times Larry fell into that category. This was one of those times, exhausted as he was he began, I'd like to thank you and the committee for, ah, ah...the opportunity to contribute. I will do everything possible to be ah, ah...successful. The words came out of his mouth with all the smoothness of the onset of vomiting.

I’m sure you will, confirmed Souf, who also liked having the last word more often than not.

The initial step towards this meeting had started several months ago, the night when Kassman unexpectedly kissed Chu. With a single kiss, she had unleashed a demon. A demon of affection, of adoration, a demon of lust. It was a monster for which she was wholly unprepared. What she discovered was that Larry was just unsure of how to make the first move. That’s all. And when she finally made it for him, it was like a British Bouncing Betty bomb destroying a German dam inside of him. Professor Lawrence Chu was not alone in this. There had been a lot of it recently. It was heightened by a phenomenon called ‘Desperation Pairings.’ The more desperate the times, the more people paired off romantically as if an hourglass of sand were about to run out, then someone came along and removed half of what was left.

There is one last thing, said Professor Balala Souf before she paused for a long time. She smiled and still didn’t speak.

While she is on verbal sabbatical, let me mention the central premise of the story. I’m not a mathematician, but let me try to explain an Improbable. I’ll just take a brief moment here.

Imagine a roulette wheel or any other game of chance. Now, imagine a nearly infinite population. I think you see where I'm going with this. There will be a very small number of people who will have the ability to choose correctly or incorrectly for a significantly long winning or losing streak. These are Improbables. They are the antithesis of Regression Towards the Mean.

But please don’t misunderstand this. This part is very important. They have no magic powers. They are not blessed. There are no magic wands or prophecies foretelling their coming. They just sit at the very far ends of the normal distribution and are a part of the natural order of outcomes when dealing with large numbers approaching infinity. If you’ve ever met someone appropriately called Lucky, you’ve seen a glimpse of a tiny fraction of its reflection.

Professor Larry Chu believed he had found a method of finding these people and most importantly the circumstances that produce them. It involved massive amounts of Krieger modeling in some very interesting new ways. But there was a catch. He did not know if these people would always win or whether they would always lose, and the likelihood of being either was equal. He wasn’t sure when the winning streak or losing streak would begin but was confident it would be soon. They were in desperate times. It had to be for a professor from a backwater planet to be given funding and a team.

Finally, after a dramatic pause worthy of Shakespeare, Professor Souf regained her tongue, The council has agreed that it would be fitting for the head of our most important project to wear the red robes of Master Mathematician. I trust you will not object.

This time there was no cognitive delay.

Fuck yeah! Larry blurted out before he could stop himself. Some laughed. A few looked disappointed. Professor Bhati shook his head from side to side in disgust and gave a very pretty blue stone to Professor Souf who had a broad smile on her face.

I apologize, Larry quickly added as his cheeks burned pink but was now wide awake and smiling from ear-to-ear, even more extensive than before.

Not a problem. Your response was the highest probable outcome, exclaimed Souf as she held up the sparkling blue stone and looked at it fondly.

Larry Chu was from a planet that never made the news, never accomplished anything noteworthy. The biggest thing that ever came from his planet was Connor Lusp, the space pirate. Lusp was a galactic version of Robin Hood, but not as generous. He only gave away ten percent of everything he stole. It was a reluctant compromise to stop the mutinies among his crew that happened with regularity. Now there was Lawrence Chu to add to the list of notables.

Thank you, Larry said with the same smile as a lottery winner holding a huge check.

You’ve earned it, remarked Professor Bhati with a stern smile, an unusual thing to see and a Bhati expression specialty. He used it to intimidate students in his lower level classes for his own amusement.

Thank you, Larry repeated. There was a long silence, then finally Professor Souf made ‘go away now’ finger signs to him and smiled.

Professor Lawrence Chu left the council chambers as the sort of person he always dreamed of being — vital. Someone needed. And maybe, just maybe, he would leave a mark on history. I can assure you, that he did.

As he walked down the marble hallway lined with statues of famous mathematicians, he held tightly onto a list of names in his pocket.

There were only 30 Improbables identified in the entire universe according to Chu and Kassman. Apologies, I am required by law to tell you that the list had thirty-one names. There was one name that kept showing up on the final list due to total scores, despite failing two of the testing regimes. It came in through the back-testing allowance for variance. This meant that the person scored so high that it overcame failing scores in other places, a very improbable outcome. The back-testing allowance for variance was the part of the model that was the weakest. Professor Chu knew it. Kassman knew it. They both were determined to make it more accurate, just as soon as they could get their