Christmas Matters! !
Bob Anderson was an astronomer. And not just any kind of astronomer - he was an
astrophysicist. He not only looked at the stars, he looked at what made the stars tick - and a lot
of other stuff. In fact, he was an experimental astrophysicist, almost a contradiction in terms.
What that really meant was that Bob - Dr Robert Anderson - took other people’s data and tore it apart looking for new and interesting things. ! !
Bob had a sister, Elizabeth, and, among other things, a niece named Susan. Bob had never
married and so had no kids of his own. So he poured a lot of love and affection into Susan. Her
mother was not always as enthusiastic as Bob was about how he spoiled her but she thought
she understood how he felt so she usually didn’t make too much of a fuss. She never did
understand how he couldn’t find someone to share his life with. Bob got it, though - it would
take a special kind of woman to understand that he would be married to both her and his work -
and not necessarily in that order all the time. ! !
Now, since Bob took a special interest in his niece, and since Elizabeth’s husband was no
longer around (greener pastures and all that), Bob often played the father as well as the lovable
uncle to the little family. He would often take time to explain his work to Susan. He found that
putting it into terms a six year old might understand forced him to pare his explanations down to
the nub of the matter. He often gained some useful insights this way. In this way, Elizabeth
could name all eight of the planets, understood what asteroids and comets were, and knew that
the stars were just like the Sun, only much, much farther away. Bob was sure she was a
genius; Elizabeth was sure she was buttering Bob up for something. And, as usual, the truth
was between those two extremes. Susan was a bright little girl (and would drive her teachers to
distraction later on); she also knew that Uncle Bob was much more likely to listen to her desires
if she listened to him. And, truth be told, she was interested in what he had to tell her. It was
certainly more exciting than her 1-2-3s and A-B-Cs. In fact, at six, she was reading at a third
grade level and was doing more than basic arithmetic. Elizabeth approved of that; Bob reveled
in the little girl’s interest in what he did. Very few other people cared.! !
Part of what Bob did was to investigate one of the key riddles of astronomy today - dark energy
and dark matter. The problem was that, while there was direct evidence for the existence of
both, no one had any idea what they were made of. Dark energy was the label given to that
mysterious force that kept the Universe expanding. Dark matter had gravity and helped keep
galaxies together, among other things. It was clearly real, but no one knew what it was made of
or how it worked with normal matter. Bob had told Susan that normal matter - stones and
people and the Sun - only made up a small part of the Universe; in fact it constituted only about
5% - not nearly enough to keep stars and galaxies together. Dark matter - what he was
interested in - took up another 25%. Everything else - a full 70% of the Universe - was dark
energy, whatever that really meant. But Bob was focused on this other form of matter. ! !
This story begins in early December. Bob had developed a computer program that let him look
at information other astronomers had gathered in new and unusual ways. He’d made a
breakthrough in finding signs of dark matter in astronomical data collected by various
observatories; he was now doing an initial survey, sort of a beta test, to see what he could find.
He decided to go from the largest to the smallest, so he started with distant galaxies. Most of
the existing research focused on such distant galaxies - some billions of light years away -
because dark matter effects were easiest to find on very large scales. Bob figured this initial
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survey calibrated his program; he’d duplicated work other folks had done. His next step was to
look at a slightly smaller volume(!) - that of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Bob’s thought was that
he could get more resolution by looking at a much smaller volume of space. He decided to look
at the Milky Way because that’s where the most data about orbital anomalies - unexpected
changes in stars’ orbits around the center of the Galaxy - existed. His program predicted that
dark matter was mostly concentrated in the spiral arms of the Milky Way. This was a new
thought - it meant that dark matter and normal matter tended to coexist with each other and
stayed in the same general areas. He also found distributed concentrations of dark matter -
knots, if you will - associated with all the stars he had data on. So not only were stars and their
planets afloat in the rivers of dark matter that were the spiral arms of the Galaxy, they each had
their own little clump of dark matter for each solar system. Since that was the case, that meant
that our own Solar System had its own clump as well. ! !
This suggested to Bob that perhaps each planet in the Solar System had a similar clump
associated with it. The data he had came from probes that had gone to each of the planets and
many of the moons. It was extraordinarily difficult to tease out a solution but eventually he
found that his guess was at least partly true. Certainly there appeared to be a clump of the stuff
beyond Neptune; it might have enough gravitational pull to account for Planet X - the
gravitational anomalies that were showing up in Neptune’s orbit. The gas giants - Jupiter,
Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus - all had their own clumps but he couldn’t find any for the inner
planets - Mars, the Earth, Venus, and Mercury. This puzzled him considerably until he realized
that, since the inner planets were so much smaller than the outer gas giants, their clumps would
be similarly smaller. And there was little to no data to to show the presence of dark matter.
Except for Earth. Earth had its own constellation of satellites orbiting it; the orbits were all very
well known, and if there was be any information that would betray the presence of dark matter, it
would be there. Except Bob couldn’t find it. The orbits weren’t known precisely enough.
Except for one set of satellites. GPS. The same satellites that tell your smartphone where you
are in Seattle also carry atomic clocks that are incredibly sensitive. So the orbits of those 30
satellites are extremely well known. Bob looked there.! !
He found what he was looking for. Earth - and so, presumably, the other inner planets - did
indeed have it own small clump of dark matter. Thanks to the precision of the GPS orbits, he
was able to determine that the stuff wasn’t evenly distributed. In fact, the Earth’s clump had
clumps! And he found one very interesting clump over the North Pole. And here is where the
story gets interesting. So we’ll let Bob, Elizabeth, and Susan tell the rest of the story.! !
It was late December, about the 20th. Bob had been invited to to his sister’s house for some
real food, not that processed junk he put into the microwave. Elizabeth never considered that
real food although she would allow that it was, in fact, edible. At least, no one she knew had
been actually poisoned by it . . . ! !
It was a good time for Bob to take a break. He’d been looking at the polar clump and had seen
some very interesting things. He wanted to tell Elizabeth - and Susan, since she’d hang on his
every word - what he’d found. Maybe if he could put it layman’s terms, he’d convince himself of
what he thought he’d found. Even he couldn’t believe it and he’d done the math!! !
So after supper and a delicious dessert, Bob turned the conversation to his favorite topic.! !
“So, Sis, I want to tell you some of my latest work,” said Bob.!
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!
Elizabeth managed to look interested. Most of the time she got lost early on in her big brother’s
explanations, but she tried to be encouraging. And Susan loved it. She thought Uncle Bob was
the smartest man in the Universe!! !
“That is the lamest opening I’ve heard since . . . oh, the last time you were here trying to teach
us astronomy.” Her words were harsh but her tone showed that she was only kidding. “This
must be interesting. I’ve never seen you quite this excited before.” Not quite true but she really
loved her brother and tried to show interest in an area she didn’t understand at all. She’d taken
calculus in high school but hadn’t followed up with college. The missing husband had
convinced her she didn’t need that.! !
“Well, I know I’ve told you about my dark matter work, right?” Bob actually looked to Elizabeth
for confirmation. He got it, however, from another quarter.! !
“That’s right, Uncle Bob!” chimed in Susan. She loved these conversations. They sounded
exciting! Maybe she could be an astroph- astrophys- whatever Uncle Bob was, one of these
days. Like maybe in sixth grade - that was so far away!! !
So Bob turned attention to his niece. He loved telling her about his work. And it made him
break it down to the simplest terms he could, for her benefit.! !
“Well, I found something really interesting,” said Bob. “You remember that Earth is a planet,
right?”! !
Susan nodded.! !
“And you remember that Earth is one of eight planets around the Sun?”! !
She nodded again.! !
“Well, I found that every one of the eight planets has its own dark matter!” He livened it up a bit
for the six year old.! !
“Wow! Does that mean that we have our own dark matter?” Susan’s eyes shone with interest.! !
“Yes, it does, kiddo,” replied Bob. “And it turns out that the Earth’s dark matter is like tapioca.
You like tapioca, right?”! !
“”Yes!” shouted Susan.! !
“And you know that tapioca has lumps in it?” continued Bob.! !
“Yes it does! They’re yummy!”! !
“Well, our own dark matter is like tapioca! It has lumps in it too,” Bob said.! !
“Wow! Are these lumps all over, Uncle Bob?” Susan asked. “Tapioca lumps are all over!”! !
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Now Elizabeth was getting interested. This sounded like Bob was the only one who knew about
this so far.! !
“Bob,” she interjected, “is this new? I mean, did you just discover this?”! !
“Ah, yes I did,” he admitted. “In fact, I ran the last bit of data two days ago. The results are
fascinating.” Turning to Susan, he said, “You’ll never guess what I found!”! !
“What, Uncle Bob? What?”! !
“I found that the biggest lump in our dark matter tapioca is . . . . right over the North Pole!” He
sat back, like he’d just revealed how the rabbit came out of the hat.! !
“I thought I might put in a late letter into the January edition of Nature,” he said to Elizabeth,
naming the most prestigious science journal in the world.! !
Elizabeth looked concerned. “Are you sure enough for that, Bob? I mean, you just found this.
How sure are you of your computer program? Could this be a mistake somehow?” She was
trying to caution Bob not to run off before he was ready - he’d done that a few times in the past
and had been quite embarrassed by a couple of them.! !
“Well, I’m pretty sure that the code is correct. I mean, it matched current theory for extragalactic
objects. The results for intra-galactic space are reasonable. I looked hard at the data and the
code for the Solar System results. I think it’s good.” He stopped for a moment. “You want me
to wait, don’t you?”! !
Elizabeth frowned. “Well, yes. Do you remember about the radio waves?” she said, referring to
an earlier enthusiasm of Bob’s.! !
His face fell. “Yeah, I remember that. I wish I could forget it but I’ve got enough critics out there
that keep reminding me.”! !
“Well, then, I think you should take it easy. Take another look at your program after Christmas.
Run your numbers again.” She was protective of her big brother, after all. Someone had to be.! !
“Yeah but what if someone else publishes before me?”! !
“Bob.” One word full of authority, just like she used on Susan at bedtime. “Don’t be silly. No
one else has your program, right?” He nodded. “No one else is looking at the data you are,
right?” ! !
“Well, there are a couple of guys . . .”! !
She cut him off. “No one else knows what to look for, do they?”! !
“No, they don’t.”! !
“Then I think you can afford to let it lie a bit,” she said. She went on in a softer voice; she was
concerned about how hard he worked sometimes. “Bob, it’s almost Christmas! I’ll bet you’ve
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forgotten all about that, have’t you?” This was a sucker bet - she was sure he had, in all the
excitement.! !
“Oh, geez! I gotta go! I have to go shopping, get a tree - you don’t have one already, do you? -
get-“! !
Elizabeth cut him off again. “Bob. We have a tree. All you need to do is get a few presents,
especially for someone in particular.” She inclined her head towards Susan, who was nodding
off. She went back to her authoritarian mode again. “You will be here Christmas Eve, right?
We’ll decorate the tree then and you can put your presents under it. OK?”! !
Bob knew direction when he heard it. And, really, he could use a break. There was just this tiny
little thing he needed to check out . . . ! !
“Bob.” Elizabeth saw ‘that look’ creep into Bob’s eyes. She did it again. “You aren’t listening,
are you?”! !
“Yes! Yes, I am. I will be here on the 24th and Susan won’t be disappointed in her favorite
uncle!”! !
“You’re her only uncle, Bob,” Elizabeth said but she was smiling as she said it. “Now, off to
home with you. At least get a good night’s sleep, OK?”! !
“OK,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. “Luv ya, little sister.”! !
“Luv ya too, big bro!” He collected hat and coat and ventured forth to home.! !
—————————————! !
The next day, Bob took a look at his Earth data for that tiny little thing. An anomaly in the North
Pole data. It seemed to show a matching clump on or near the Earth’s surface right under the
space clump. He couldn’t go too much further into the data - the resolution just wasn’t there -
but he thought he could identify smaller sub-clumpings, as it were, in the surface structure.
Right on the axis. Fascinating, he thought. Fascinating. He gave it up around seven that night.
He had a headache and his eyes refused to focus properly. Time for bed.! !
The next day, the 22nd, he awoke with a feeling of doom. Dark matter juxtaposed with the
surface of the Earth, right at the North Pole. He had a brief vision of a coal black blob pierced
by a peppermint candy cane. Totally ridiculous, of course. And those sub-clumpings. He knew
he was seeing things in the numbers but it was as if they were arrayed in a grid, a rectangular
grid. Of course, that couldn’t be right. He’d be laughed out of court with that assertion. But he
couldn’t shake the image that came to mind - cubes of dark matter arrayed like a chess board
right at the North Pole. He shook his head and headed out to get Susan’s present - and
something nice for Elizabeth. She put up with his technical explanations even though they both
knew she didn’t follow a word of it. But she wanted to make him feel good and little Susan
thought it was wonderful. Made an uncle want to buy out the local Toys-R-Us!! !
On the 23rd, after wrapping his gifts, he took a last look at his data. He deliberately envisioned
the results as something other than a grid - tapioca clumps, possibly. He tried to make it fully
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three dimensional and random, like a cloud brought down to Earth. Maybe it was all part of the
space borne cloud; he’d just missed the connecting pieces. But, nope, they weren’t there. He
was stuck and he was getting more than a little scared. Things like this just didn’t happen in
physics. There was no room for that kind of fantasy. He tried to shake it off and prepare for
tomorrow. After all, Christmas Eve is perhaps the most magical part of Christmas. Maybe he
could lose this foolishness in amongst The Night Before Christmas and hanging stockings with
Susan. Yeah, that should work.! !
————————————! !
It would be nice to say Bob had a dream the night of the 23rd, one that made it all clear to him.
After all, it had happened before. His subconscious had rearranged data he didn’t understand
into something he’d never expected. It didn’t happen often but he had his most creative
moments when it did. But that didn’t happen tonight. Instead, his dreams were full of Santa
Claus, reindeer, and annoying little elves running all over the place with squeaky voices, yelling
“Merry Christmas” as loudly as they could. He was nowhere near rested when he work up the
morning of Christmas Eve.! !
He showed up at his sister’s a little after noon. Susan almost knocked him over with the
expected cries of “what did you get me?” ringing in his ears. The tree was already up and the
three of them had a good time decorating it. Bob and Elizabeth took turns telling Susan stories
about ornaments that had family history behind them or some cute little tale about how they
were gotten. Susan just wanted the lights on as soon as possible.! !
Supper was early, as usual. There was a fair amount of tradition to go through - Clement
Moore’s little story, the Bible story of Jesus’ birth and the Wise Men, putting presents under the
tree - Elizabeth had to speak sternly to her daughter about shaking the boxes - and, finally, the
hanging of the stockings. Bob usually stayed the night in the spare bedroom and this year was
no exception. After they’d tucked Susan into bed and promised her visions of sugarplums
parading through her head, they went back downstairs to talk a while in front of the fading fire.! !
Bob was actually rather pensive and stared into the fire for a few minutes before he said
anything. ! !
“Bob, are you OK?” Elizabeth asked. “Something wrong?”! !
“Actually, yeah,” he replied. “Something in the data.”! !
Elizabeth was annoyed. “Bob, I told you to let it lie until after Christmas! You’re going to drive
yourself crazy if you don’t let up once in a while!”! !
Bob looked right at her and said, “Listen to this, Sis. I told you the GPS data was really good?”
Elizabeth nodded. She didn’t fully understand what he meant, but he had said it. ! !
“Well, it was much better than I expected. Usually GPS data isn’t worth much over the Poles
but the atomic clocks on board really don’t care where they are in their orbits. I was able to
correlate some detailed data and I found something. Something really weird!”! !
“Well, what did you find?”!
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!
Neither adult was aware that Susan had left her sugarplums upstairs and was listening to her
uncle and mother talk. She wasn’t following what he said much - something about a GP,
whatever that was. But she kept listening.! !
“You’re not going to believe it,” Bob continued. “I don’t believe it and I did the math! I did the
math several times, in fact, from several angles. The answer didn’t change.”! !
“Well?” she prompted.! !
“All I could find was a rectilinear distribution of dark matter right on the Earth’s surface.” Seeing
her confusion, he said, “Clumps of dark matter on the ground arranged like a chessboard. A
bunch of cubes or something . . .”! !
Elizabeth actually had a comment here. “That sounds really weird, Bob! Do you mean, like,
buildings?”! !
“You’d think I’m crazy if I said that, wouldn’t you?” He gave a weak smile.! !
She tried to lighten the mood a bit. “Well . . . yeah, but then you’re my brother, the famous
astronomer! You’re supposed to be weird! It’s in the contract.” ! !
Bob wasn’t having any. “Well, I’ll tell you what I think I saw. It was right on the edges of
detectability, but I can only say I saw a . . . village, Sis. A village at the North Pole.” He sat
back with a strained expression. He couldn’t believe he’d said that, yet that was exactly what he
thought he’d seen!! !
“A village.” Her voice was curiously flat.! !
“Yeah.” That was all he could say.! !
“Bob, you’re not saying that . . .”! !
“I can’t think of any other reason for there to be something like that at the North Pole! What else
would be there?”! !
Susan finally let her presence be known. “Uncle Bob? Did you find Santa’s village?”! !
Elizabeth was about to tell the little girl to go straight to bed but Bob beckoned her over and
lifted her onto his knees. ! !
He cuddled his niece tightly. “I don’t know if it’s Santa’s village, honey, but it sure looks like
buildings to me.”! !
Susan looked up at him with wide eyes. “Santa Claus, of course, Uncle Bob! Who else would
live there?”! !
He finally smiled. It was a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless for his niece. ! !
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“Who else indeed, honey? Maybe it is Santa’s village. What do you think, Sis?”! !
Elizabeth was shocked. Her brother, the big-time astrophysicist, was actually telling her
daughter that he’d seen Santa’s village at the North Pole. And now he was asking her opinion!
What was she supposed to say?! !
She directed her answer to her daughter. “Well, dear, if that’s what Uncle Bob says, it must be
true. Right, Uncle Bob?” with a pointed look at him.! !
He sighed. “Well, if I publish this, I’m done,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone believing this
story.”! !
“Why, Uncle Bob? Doesn’t Santa live at the North Pole? Didn’t you see his village?”! !
“I guess I did, sweetheart. I guess I did.”! !
Susan looked thoughtful for a moment, in a six-year-old way. Then she looked up at him and
said, “Uncle Bob, don’t tell anyone else, OK?”! !
Bob looked at her in surprise. “Why not, Susie?”! !
She had clearly thought this through. “If you tell other astro- astroph- people like you, they’ll
want to go there and find out, won’t they?”! !
Bob smiled. “I guess they would, honey.”! !
Susan had a serious expression. “And they’d scare Santa’s reindeer, wouldn’t they?”! !
“It’s possible,” said Bob.! !
“And, and, they’d bother the elves, wouldn’t they?”! !
“Probably,” said Bob.! !
“Then you shouldn’t tell anyone, Uncle Bob! Don’t tell anyone and they won’t scare the
reindeer!” There was an “and so!” expression on Susan’s face.! !
“That’s a good idea, Susan,” said Bob. “I think that’s a real good idea. OK, I promise I won’t tell
anyone else about Santa’s village. That good enough for you?”! !
Susan extended her little finger. “Pinky promise?”! !
Bob caught hers with his and gave one small shake. “Pinky promise! Now, little girl, up to bed.
I won’t tell anyone about Santa’s village but you can bet he’ll be unhappy if he finds you awake!
Now scoot!”! !
And Susan scooted.! !
Elizabeth said, “Well, that takes care of your publication problem, doesn’t it?”!
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!
Bob chuckled. “Yeah, it does. I can’t break a pinky promise to my niece, now could I?”! !
“Nope,” Elizabeth said. “And now off to bed with us! Santa won’t like finding US awake, either.”! !
“G’night, Sis! And merry Christmas!”! !
“Merry Christmas to you, big bro.” She gave his a big hug. “Damn! I forgot Santa’s milk and
cookies. Come here a minute! It won’t add too many calories! Here, drink this!”! !
——————————! !
When Bob awoke in the morning, he felt the familiar weight of a stuffed stocking on his feet. He
smiled as he thought about him and Elizabeth finding her stockings on their beds all those years
ago. Well, gotta keep those traditions going! Who knows, maybe some little boy or girl will feel
the same happy weight on their feet in 2135!! !
So Bob leaned down to get the stocking and start his early breakfast. Any day that started with
chocolate was gonna be good. As he grabbed his goody, his hand brushed a rolled up piece of
paper. Kind of like a scroll. It was tied with a precise little bow of red satin ribbon. Very
professional looking, thought Bob. He gently pulled at the ribbon, not wanting to damage any of
Elizabeth’s work. The scroll unrolled a bit. He could see some Gothic-looking lettering inside.
Nice touch, Sis, he thought. ! !
Bob picked it up and unrolled it completely. It couldn’t have been more than three inches by five
but the lettering was precise, the paper felt more like . . . parchment, he thought, and the
message, well, the message rocked his world.! !
Just one word. One short word but it changed Bob’s world completely. It said,! !
“Thanks!”! !
——- / ——-!
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