The Best of Connie Willis by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online

“As you can see,” Dr. Lvov said, “the laser pulse is already in motion before the experimenter sets up the wave or particle detector.”
    He clicked to the next slide, which was dark gray. “We used a Mach-Zender interferometer with two mirrors and a particle detector. For the first series of tries we allowed the experimenter to decide which apparatus he would use by whatever method he wished. For the second series, we used that most primitive of randomizers—”
    He clicked again, to a white slide with black polka dots that gave off enough light for me to be able to spot an empty chair on the aisle ten rows up. I hurried to get to it before the slide changed, and sat down.
    “—a pair of dice. Alley’s experiments had shown us that when the particle detector was in place, the light was detected as a particle, and when the wave detector was in place, the light showed wavelike behavior, no matter when the choice of apparatus was made.”
    “Hi,” David said. “You’ve missed five black slides, two gray ones, and a white with black polka dots.”
    “Shh,” I said.
    “In our two series, we hoped to ascertain whether the consciousness of the decision affected the outcome.” Dr. Lvov clicked to another black slide. “As you can see, the graph shows no effective difference between the tries in which the experimenter chose the detection apparatus and those in which the apparatus was randomly chosen.”
    “You want to go get some breakfast?” David whispered.
    “I already ate,” I whispered back, and waited for my stomach to growl and give me away. It did.
    “There’s a great place down near Hollywood and Vine that has the waffles Katharine Hepburn made for Spencer Tracy in
Woman of the Year
.”
    “Shh,” I said.
    “And after breakfast, we could go to Frederick’s of Hollywood and see the bra museum.”
    “Will you please be quiet? I can’t hear.”
    “Or see,” he said, but he subsided more or less for the remaining ninety-two black, gray, and polka-dotted slides.
    Dr. Lvov turned on the lights and blinked smilingly at the audience. “Consciousness had no discernible effect on the results of the experiment. As one of my lab assistants put it, ‘The little devil knows what you’re going to do before you know it yourself.’ ”
    This was apparently supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t think it was very funny. I opened my program and tried to find something to go to that David wouldn’t be caught dead at.
    “Are you two going to breakfast?” Dr. Thibodeaux asked.
    “Yes,” David said.
    “No,” I said.
    “Dr. Hotard and I wished to eat somewhere that is
vraiment
Hollywood.”
    “David knows just the place,” I said. “He’s been telling me about this great place where they have the grapefruit James Cagney shoved in Mae Clarke’s face in
Public Enemy
.”
    Dr. Hotard hurried up, carrying a camera and four guidebooks. “And then perhaps you would show us Grauman’s Chinese Theatre?” he asked David.
    “Of course he will,” I said. “I’m sorry I can’t go with you, but I promised Dr. Verikovsky I’d be at his lecture on Boolean logic. And after Grauman’s Chinese, David can take you to the bra museum at Frederick’s of Hollywood.”
    “And the Brown Derby?” Thibodeaux asked. “I have heard it is shaped like a
chapeau
.”
    They dragged him off. I watched till they were safely out of the lobby and then ducked upstairs and into Dr. Whedbee’s lecture on information theory. Dr. Whedbee wasn’t there.
    “He went to find an overhead projector,” Dr. Takumi said. She had half a donut on a paper plate in one hand and a styrofoam cup in the other.
    “Did you get that at the breakfast buffet?” I asked.
    “Yes. It was the last one. And they ran out of coffee right after I got there. You weren’t in Abey Fields’s thing, were you?” She set the coffee cup down and took a bite of the donut.
    “No,” I said, wondering if I should try to take her by surprise or just