Physics Can Be Fatal (2 page)

     “I guess not,” he smiled ruefully, in a way that signaled they both knew this would likely never happen.

*

     A few words about the inception of the Physics and Astronomy Department at Cushing College would perhaps not go amiss, in particular the story of Sanborn House’s outlandishly extravagant founder.

     Equal parts brilliant scholar and unregenerate scoundrel, Professor Theodore Asa Sanborn gifted part of his family fortune to the college in the early 1800s, for the construction of a building devoted solely to the study of physics and astronomy.  Still considered one of the most beautiful buildings on the Cushing College campus, Professor Sanborn’s stately late-Georgian structure sits on the central Green of Cushing’s park-like two hundred acre campus.

    A true polymath, Sanborn taught himself Chinese and Greek so he could read ancient philosophy. Exceedingly hands-on during the construction of Sanborn House, Professor Sanborn directed that his favorite quotation be painted in gold leaf over the mantle piece of the main fireplace in Sanborn House’s library.  It remains there to this day, and reads,  “
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving ~ Lao Tzu”. 
As far as the western hemisphere’s admiration and appreciation for eastern philosophy, Theodore Sanborn was ahead of his time.

     Although he ended up in the history books more for his philandering exploits than his academic ones, Professor Sanborn was at the forefront of several exciting scientific breakthroughs of his day.  He had been of great help and inspiration to Michael Faraday in his seminal work plotting magnetic fields, and had also assisted Charles Babbage in building his prototype calculating machine.   Professor Sanborn’s ultimate disappointment over failing to achieve the scientific fame he hoped for in his own right, was perhaps due to his overactive personal life.  His private journals confirm that Sanborn had a string of dalliances, all with married women.  Three such relationships resulted in court cases.  On one occasion, shot in the arm by a jealous husband, Sanborn declined to bring charges against the man, but continued his romantic involvement with the woman in question.  The poor husband went mad and was eventually institutionalized.  Sanborn never married, but twelve offspring were documented.

    Professor Sanborn bequeathed a voluminous collection of books and papers from his personal library to the new library at Sanborn House, including colorful correspondences with many women, notably Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, novelist and editor of
Ladies’ Magazine and Literary Gazette
, whose brother attended Cushing College.  These lively writings, which would make most readers blush, are endlessly footnoted in articles and books chronicling the roguish life of Theodore Sanborn. 

     To promote the new library, Sanborn innovated the tradition of afternoon tea.  Weekdays from four to five o’clock tea and cakes were––and still are––served in the sumptuous surroundings of Sanborn House Library, where carved butternut paneling on the walls and ceiling, elaborate marble fireplaces, Oriental rugs, and overstuffed chairs continue to evoke the feeling of a private library in a country manor house.  For generations students and teachers have been coming together to enjoy refreshment and conversation in this rarefied atmosphere.

     But his oddest stroke of all was yet to come.

     Professor Sanborn’s final bequeath to the college was the entire remainder of his family fortune, with the proviso that he be present at all future meetings of the Physics and Astronomy Department.  He had read about the English moral philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, having such an arrangement at University College London.  In his will of 1832 Bentham left directions for his body to be preserved and sat upright in his usual writing position, enclosed in a case to be wheeled into future board meetings at the college.  The display case came to be known as ‘The Jeremy Bentham Cabinet’

     Accordingly, Professor Sanborn’s body is preserved in a mahogany and glass case mounted on wheels, where he sits with a cheerful expression in a silk-upholstered chair, dressed in his best suit of clothes.  The task of wheeling Professor Sanborn out for all department meetings falls under the job description of the Sanborn House Librarian.

*

     A life spent entwined in the hierarchy of academia, with its reputation for petty jealousies and even viciousness, can be ulcer-making. Years spent wondering if and when one will succeed in getting to the next higher rung––the pressure to publish or perish––these things can wreak all sorts of stress and tension, unleashing pent up hostilities.  It takes a firm hand and a cool head to run a smooth department.  Theodore Asa Sanborn would have been impressed––and possibly intimidated––by the leadership qualities Dr. Helen Mann possessed.

     As Head of the Physics and Astronomy Department, Dr. Helen Mann was outspoken, intrepid and opinionated.  Dr. Mann operated in a very different style from her predecessor, Professor Emeritus Martin Jacobson, a genteel, pipe-smoking, scholar, liked by all and feared by none.  When he retired and appointed her the new Head, Helen Mann wasted no time instituting a more corporate approach to the business of academia.  She kept a sharp eye on the bottom line, and made individual performance her business, taking it upon herself to coach her department on everything from teaching style to wardrobe, much to their unanimous consternation.  No one could argue that Helen wasn’t devoted to the Department, and that she didn’t tirelessly advocate for its academic prominence, if not dominance, in the field.  She could be overbearing at times, even polarizing people, and there was the occasional fall-out.  Still, she did a good job of running an efficient department, and people generally knew where they stood with her.  Six feet tall in stockings, Helen cast an imposing figure, indeed.

     Helen was responsible for losing one of the Department’s brightest stars, Marjorie Harbottle.  Professor Harbottle, a brilliant astronomer with an international reputation, had left her position at Cushing during the previous year.  She had come to this decision shortly after Helen called her in for a meeting.

     “Marjorie,” Helen began.  “Life’s just too damn short to beat around the bush.  Let’s talk about a makeover.”

     “I beg your pardon?” a stunned Professor Harbottle replied.

     “Let’s neither of us be coy, shall we?  It’s your weight, Marge.  I can’t have any of my faculty being the butt of jokes around campus, no pun intended.”

     “I didn’t realize . . . “gasped Professor Harbottle.

     “No need to dwell on this,” Helen interrupted.  “Let’s see if we can’t get you on a diet program with a goal to drop––say, thirty or forty pounds?––by springtime.  You’ll be speaking at commencement this year.  A lot of alumni and other important folks in the audience.  A lot of endowment money riding on it.  What say we get you in the best shape of your life?  And afterwards, I’ll take you shopping for a whole, new wardrobe!  And I’ve got the best personal shopper in the business!”

     Professor Harbottle had secured a new position at Princeton within the academic year.  

      Helen’s private life was a favorite topic of gossip and speculation around the department.  Among many colorful scenarios one rumor had it that Helen fell deeply in love with one of her professors during graduate school, and when he broke it off, Helen swore off men.  One version of this tale included a baby who either died or was adopted.  Others speculated that Helen perpetuated this story as a subterfuge to protect the fact that she did not like men at all and never had.  Helen’s regular trips to Boston fueled this idea of a ‘Boston marriage’.  Another view was that Helen was asexual, that her satisfaction came from work and work alone, and that her preferred outlet for pleasure was shopping.  Helen dressed impeccably and expensively, and accessorized to freakish perfection.       

     In her quest to promote the Physics and Astronomy Department, Helen sent out an invitation to an academic superstar from Cambridge University to teach at Cushing for the fall semester.  Noted scholar and leading string theorist, familiar television personality, and best-selling author, Distinguished Professor Alan Sidebottom was well known to the scientific community and beyond.  Delicious stories and rumors abounded of his eccentricities and escapades, indiscretions and scandals.  Urban legend recorded that he once demolished a London bookshop display window when it featured books on scientology (there was method to his madness).  Alan Sidebottom had earned his reputation as the bad boy of theoretical physics. 

     And so when Professor Sidebottom did not respond at first to Helen’s invitation, she did not allow herself to feel the disappointment, but simply turned her mind to coming up with another idea for increasing The Department’s standing on the international stage of theoretical physics.  But then, at the last minute, Professor Alan Sidebottom changed his mind and decided to come to Cushing, after all.  Helen was over the moon.  She left Sanborn House early to go shopping.

     Her colleague in the Department, Associate Professor Mitchell Fender, strolled jauntily into Sanborn House after lunch.

     “Hello, Ruth!” he chirped to the Department secretary.

     Mitchell Fender was well aware of Helen’s invitation to Professor Sidebottom, but was under the impression that Professor Sidebottom had turned the invitation down.  Helen had not yet shared the news that Professor Sidebottom would soon be arriving in New Guilford to join the Cushing College faculty for the semester. Mitchell had strong reasons for wanting Alan Sidebottom to keep as great a distance from Cushing College as possible, reasons to which the whole department was privy.  Mitchell was about to have his bubble mercilessly burst by the announcement of Professor Sidebottom’s plans to come to Cushing, after all.

     Loquacious and garrulous to a fault, Mitchell Fender oozed with bonhomie, but lacked the self-discipline and serious mindedness necessary to climb the ivy ladder.  Five feet, nine inches in height, Mitchell carried his considerable weight in front of him, and looked as if he were going to burst out of the suspenders he always wore.  He sported a walrus moustache, and a curly fringe of gray hair encircled his large, shiny head.  Underneath his intermittent commitment to scholarship and habitual long-windedness, Mitchell Fender was a lonely man.

     “Wrap it up, Mitch,” Helen interrupted Dr. Fender during a departmental meeting, tapping her watch while Mitchell made a ramblingly random observation about an irrelevant issue.

     “This is strictly N.G.I. (Not of General Interest), kiddo.  Let’s not waste Professor Sanborn’s time, shall we!” Helen barked at Mitchell Fender.  Mitchell chuckled amiably, as if he were the teacher’s pet, and Helen was singling him out for some good-natured ribbing.

     Mitchell Fender had managed to publish only two articles by the age of sixty.  It was this paucity of published work that had stymied his promotion to full professor.  Mitchell was discovering that being a middle-aged associate professor––and unwitting department jester––could, at times, be frustrating.  Still, he managed to maintain a jovial demeanor in and out of the classroom, as best he could.  Even in the face of terrible disappointment.

       The previous year Mitchell had made the astonishing allegation that seven years of research toward a book he was working on, were stolen out from under him by Alan Sidebottom.  When Professor Sidebottom published a best-selling book based on work Mitchell claimed to be his own, legal steps were taken but nothing was ever proven, and the matter fell by the wayside.  This blow to Mitchell’s career was made considerably worse when Mitchell’s wife of thirty years abruptly left him. 

     Thus, Mitchell Fender felt vastly relieved when he thought Alan Sidebottom would not be coming to Cushing. Mitchell believed in his heart that the Distinguished Professor from Cambridge was the cause of all his troubles.

Chapter 2

   Surrounded by a flotilla of crisp, paper shopping bags with brightly colored tissue paper exuberantly announcing purchases yet unpacked, Helen Mann sat on her bed at nine-thirty at night with a glass of claret by her side.  Bent over a laptop, she sent an email around the Department, requesting that everyone attend a brief Department meeting at eight-thirty the following morning.

     The next day, impeccably dressed in a charcoal wool suit and mint green silk blouse, Helen strode confidently into the conference room on the third floor of Sanborn House at 8:25.  Ten minutes later everyone had arrived and were seated around the long conference table.  They chatted and drank coffee out of paper cups, waiting for Helen to start the meeting.

     “I’ll make this brief,” she addressed them.  “I know some of you have nine o’clock classes, so I won’t keep you long.”

     She gazed triumphantly around the table, and breathed deeply.