Anomalies, God and the Multiverse

By Mary Quijano

Anomalies, God and the Multiverse is a journey of discovery and spiritual growth, as the female heroine moves through six parallel universes on a quest to prove the existence of a divine creator of the universe. It begins in our own world, with a science teacher trying to demonstrate to her students that it is the inexplicable anomalies in nature that support the reality of God. When personal ruin ends her pursuit, she finds herself awakening in a strange parallel world with its own spiritual beliefs and challenges, and later in another and another, each very different yet with their own similar truths.
Ultimately she enters the ongoing moment of creation, a universe of music and light, and experiences a direct communion with God.
Anomalies serves as a metaphor for the soul’s journey in its quest for spiritual perfection, its desire to return to the Creator from which it came.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796063226

Mary Quijano

Mary Quijano is a published author of 5 novels, 2 novellas and 3 screenplays. She has 5 children, 9 grandchildren, 1 dog, 2 cats, 2 goats and a plethora of wild chickens, and lives in the most beautiful place on earth. She teaches 6th grade students at a small public charter school near Hilo Hawaii, spends weekends surfing in the lush country setting of Pohoiki bay near her home in Pahoa, travels once a year to Hillsong Conference in Australia, once a year to Cali to visit her grandchildren and children, thinks too much, rests too little, laughs a lot and always takes a chance when it comes along. Good life!.

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Anomalies, God and The Multiverse

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Mary Quijano

Copyright © 2019 by Mary Quijano.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-7960-6323-3

                             eBook                             978-1-7960-6322-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/01/2019

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

BOOK I

The Null Hypothesis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

BOOK II

Of Church and State

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

BOOK III

Transcendent and Immanent

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

BOOK IV

Plants and Travelers

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

BOOK V

Water

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

BOOK VI

The Musical Universe

Chapter 38

BOOK VII

Home

Chapter 39

Epilogue

BOOK I

The Null Hypothesis

CHAPTER 1

I T ALL BEGINS with a hummingbird. Or maybe not, maybe the journey has been there all along.

It is a simple 6th grade math problem from the workbook, something about calculating how fast a hummingbird travels on its 2700 mile migration, that starts the whole thing up again. I stop talking math, squinting at the book. Wait a minute, I mutter. How can that even be possible?

What? One of the smirkers in the front row asks. The rest remain silent, happy for the momentary reprieve from the tedium of arithmetic.

How is it possible that such a long flight could be made over water - especially in the time frame given in the rate problem - considering the fact that a hummingbird’s flight uses up so much energy it has to eat at least every ten minutes or drop dead from instant starvation.

I assign them to work out the math problem themselves, and at my desk I immediately Google a hummingbird expert, not willing to leave it at that - an impossible anomaly. I email the scientist to ask how such migration is possible, and hear back within a few days the accepted scientific explanation, that the little buggers store up a lot of fat before the trip to get them through their journey. I read his remarks to my students, then proceed to shred his logic, to their delight. We call this part of the lesson critical thinking.

Of course the scientist didn’t bother to do the math - nor consult a 6th grade math teacher - or he would have realized that storing that excess fat would add excess weight, requiring more energy to keep the bird aloft and thus offsetting much of the benefits, I tell them.

How do you know? the chubby ten year old wannabe genius in the front row challenges me

I looked it up, I reply, giving him my calculated squint. I found out the ruby throated hummingbird stores an additional 40% of its body weight as fat before making the trip. However since it only weighs about 5 grams to start with, that’s a mere 2 grams of fat, or 18 calories worth. And - even without adjusting for his added weight - since he uses about 5 calories per day in normal activities, that only gives him about 3 and a half days’ worth of energy.

Heads tilt, eyebrows raised. Smiling, I continue: Now, the article says the ruby-throated hummingbird makes this 1200 mile journey without stopping, but since his normal speed is 49 miles per hour, it would take him 24 and a half days to cover the distance. So I guess for the other 21 days after he runs out of stored energy, he must be zombie bird!

They laugh and shake their heads, although only a few have the light in their eyes that tell me they really get what I’m talking about. The others simply want me to believe they do, and three of them could care less and are playing with their smart phones, looking down at their laps and giggling. I walk over and remove the devices from their grips, all the while not missing a beat.

Besides which, I inform my rapt (or trapped) audience of eleven year olds; fat only stores twice the amount of energy as the glucose the bird receives from the nectar it sips, but the bird has to convert 23 grams of that glucose into 1 gram of fat, so right off the little guy is working on an energy deficit.

Okay, I can tell I’m losing them at this point, but since I took the time to figure all this out, I’m not about to stop now: Time for my dramatic close: Thus the migratory flight of the ruby throated hummingbird is, according to nutritional science and math, impossible, I proclaim, waving the printout in the air theatrically; and this expert’s explanation is no more than blatant scientific lies, arrogantly posturing as truth, when the real truth is far far greater than his miniaturized mind and super-sized ego could ever allow.

My students giggle at the insult, but some cock their heads, look at one another skeptically. After a moment a hand goes up, and I point, hoping for brilliance.

Teacher, what’s for lunch today?

That is the moment I decide to prove, once and for all, through the study of anomalies in nature, that God exists, that He creates this world and everything in it according to His own fancy, His own rules….That God is the null hypothesis for every scientific hypothesis that is ever tested and proven wrong.

*  *  *  *  *

It’s been weighing on me a long time, this problem of God versus science. As a science major, a researcher and teacher, I’ve found that the more I understand the universal simplicities that underly the complexities of all life, the remarkable amazing design that allows the miracle of life to exist and evolve, and work together, the more I’ve had to accept an intelligent and creative force behind it all. Being forced to teach pure science without discussing this aspect is to omit a greater truth these children need to explore.

That evening I share this new purpose in life with my best friend/lover/partner Jerry, who nods and mutters the appropriate words of encouragement and agreement, although his eyes remain fixed on the UFC fight on TV, and I remain - as always - unsure whether he is truly in tune with me, some kind of spiritual savant who understands every word I am saying without question, or whether - like my students - he is thinking of something else entirely, while nodding and smiling. Like: What the heck is she talking about now……and what’s for dinner?

But I love him to death and it doesn’t really matter as long as he doesn’t jump in my shit about my peculiarities. This time he actually listens: I thought you weren’t supposed to teach religion in school.

I’m not, but… I sigh, gathering my thoughts. It’s just that these are 11 year old children, teetering on the edge of the rest of their lives. If they fall one way - under bad influences - they might go into drugs, crime, gangs, random sex, and all that. Pushed the other way they might make choices that lead to happy lives, fulfillment, joy, and prosperity. I feel that push is my responsibility.

Random sex, huh. He lifts an eyebrow suggestively. I ignore it.

Puberty is like an evil force standing on that ledge right beside them, just waiting to stick out his foot …

His hormone-laden cloven hoof, he grins

– whatever - and trip them up. They need a steadying hand, the belief in a higher power that will help to guide them through this time in their lives. But they have to know such a higher power exists. I may not be allowed to teach them about my specific religion, but if I can at least convince them scientifically that this world had to have been the product of a Creative intelligence and not just random chance, that God exists….

And if you don’t teach them this God thing? He asks, raising a brow.

If all I teach is straight science, and they are led to believe that they are a mere accident of nature or chemistry, then they are left to wonder what purpose there is in their life, what difference will it make to anyone or anything what they do with it? That’s what leads to all those bad choices.

He shrugs, gives me a kiss, and says; So, what’s for dinner?

The next day I tell my students we are going to spend the rest of the school year in science exploring all the things in nature that cannot be explained by the scientific principles I’ve been teaching them.

No one objects that we’re not covering the standard curriculum: What can they say? They’re sixth graders.

A hand shoots up from the back of the room.

Do we have to take notes?

I raise a brow, contemplate what will happen if I say no, and nod. Every word, I tell them.

We begin at the beginning, where better? The Big Bang.

The theory goes that some fourteen billion years ago all the mass and all the energy in the entire universe was the size of a pencil point. I hold up said object to illustrate.

Bullshit, cries an anonymous voice from the back of the room. Kudos to him, at least: the rest seemingly have no concept of size.

Look around the room, I say. Imagine everything in it, yourselves included, collapsed down to the size of a BB.

"Like in Honey I Shrunk the Kids," a chubby boy in glasses says, immediately regretting it for the ensuing cat-calls his contribution engenders.

Right. Now, think bigger, think of the whole school shrunk to the size of a BB.

Shoots, says a local boy. I’m not sure if he intended the double entendre or was just agreeing with me.

Now imagine this entire island all the way from Hilo to Kona and Kohala to South Point, shrunk down to the size of a BB.

C’mon miss, that’s not even possible, a girl wearing her first hints of make-up complains.

But it is, I respond. Don’t you remember what we learned about quasars? How when a giant star supernovas and blows out all its negative electrons, it shrinks to something the size of our moon?

But the moon’s a whole lot bigger than a BB, she argues.

"True, but a giant star is so big that it would swallow our entire solar system, sun and all, with room to spare. So relative to its size…"

The moon is a BB, finishes my would-be genius in row one, smirking in self-satisfaction.

None-the-less, I say, the universe is made up of billions of stars that big, and trillions of planets and moons. Yet the scientists tell us all those galaxies, those stars and planets and moons and comets and asteroids, everything in the universe was at one point in time, fourteen billion years ago, shrunk down to the size of a pencil point. How could that possibly be?

It couldn’t, come several voices from around the room, some using more colorful language of denial than others.

There is one way, sort of, I say. But we’ll come back to that. Here’s the other problem with the theory: The scientists postulate…

They what? someone calls out.

Sounds nasty, another adds, eliciting laughter all around. Pos-tu-late. Cousin of Mas.

They know better than to engage in outright vulgarity in the classroom, but readable innuendo is always appreciated. I suppress a smile.

Postulate: It means they believe, they predict, they hypothesize… .

Oh.

They postulate that there was this huge explosion, and all those tiny particles of matter that had been in that pencil point went flying out in all directions at triple the speed of light.

You said nothing could go faster than light.

My point exactly, or one of them - Right away we have a conflict with the general theory of relativity. In any case, it gets worse. They say that after a few hundred thousand years these subatomic particles began to slow down and collide with one another, attracted by their opposite electrical forces, to form the first simple atoms: Then after billions of years of similar off -course collisions as they hurtled away from one another, they eventually created star systems and galaxies, okay?

There are shrugs, nods, expectation.

But students, the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. In one year it travels almost 600 billion miles. So after 200,000 years of traveling at the speed of light, each of these subatomic particles would have been one hundred and twenty quadrillion miles apart from every other particle!

I look out at the sea of stupefaction. Big numbers mean nothing. I draw it out on the board. 120,000,000,000,000,000. There are sighs. That’s like one hundred and twenty million billions of miles. More sighs. It’s ludicrously far, I shrug, opting for a term from Space Balls, the movie. So all I’m saying is, how could these little tiny pieces of sub-atomic particles possibly get together by some kind of attraction when they are already that far apart?

But they did, a girl says, rolling her head. Cuz here we are.

Yep, here we are, I agree.

Maybe God did it, another ventures.

I rest my case, I smile.

Next day I re- teach them about the structure of the atom.

Remember what we learned last semester about atoms? I begin.

Blank stares greet me: I guess the answer is no.

I blow out a breath. Okay, remember what three essential things make up everything in the universe?

Water, sunlight and CO2? ventures one student bravely.

Um, that isn’t quite it. More basic… . I’ll give you a hint, one is energy.

A hand shoots up, waving frantically. I nod in that direction.

Energy, matter and empty space! The owner of the hand proclaims, looking smug.

Right, I affirm. And what is matter made of?

Atoms! Several students now call out.

There we go! And what are atoms made of??

There is the silence of another memory wall. Then the boy in the first row says tentatively: Uh, protons, newtons and electricity?

Close. Tiny little particles called protons, neutrons and electrons. Remember? The protons and neutrons are a thousand times bigger than the electron, and they stay in the middle of the atom, and the electrons are super tiny and orbit around the outside like the moon orbits the earth, right?

And isn’t the electron negative? A boy ventures.

Yes! The electron has a negative force, and the proton has a positive force, and they attract each other like little magnets, you remember now?

Ah, memory cells provoked, hands now shoot up around the room, some not waiting to be called upon to tell me things."

That’s what keeps the electron from flying away!

And between the center of the atom and the electron orbit is mostly empty space.

Yeah, that’s right, you told us an atom was mostly empty space, and if it wasn’t for the negative force field of the electron cloud around the atoms we could walk right through things.

Good, good, I nod. But now I have to tell you something else about them that might really blow your minds.

I see those looks shooting around the room again, raised brows, smirks, anticipation.

See, in the last thirty or forty years, scientists figured out a way to break the atom into all the little pieces it’s made of so they can name and measure them.

How? The Einstein in row one asks.

Something called a particle accelerator; it shoots atoms around a big tube faster and faster until they are going almost the speed of light, then it smashes them into a metal plate so they explode into all the tiniest pieces the atoms are made of. And guess what the scientists found?

What.

They are made of other little parts so small their mass can’t even really be measured. They are just tiny bits of energy: quarks and gluons and other things they named and classified according to the direction they spin and whether they have positive or negative attractive charges. But they don’t really understand anything about them beyond that. So when you come down to it, atoms are made of nothing but their attraction and motion.

I don’t get it teacher, what are you saying, a tall boy in the back row challenges me.

What I’m saying is that apparently the atoms that make up all matter aren’t made of three basic things after all, just two.

A girl looks at me thoughtfully, head tilted and eyes a little bit squinted: Opposite forces and motion, she says.

I nod. No real matter at all, nothing solid at all, just virtually non-existent particles which zip around at close to the speed of light due to some kind of positive or negative quality which attracts them to each other and makes them spin. That constant motion is what we perceive of as matter, as something solid, when actually …

Nothing is there at all, she finishes. She smiles. I smile back.

She just got the basics of quantum theory.

Then how can it weigh anything! the boy who challenged me before demands.

The pull of gravity is what tells us something has mass, I reply calmly. But no one really knows what causes gravity either: It’s just another attractive force. Think about it.

The bell rings for lunch.

And turn in your notes.

CHAPTER 2

B UDDY? I VENTURE, pulling him away from The Traveling Gourmet and the lip-smacking descriptions of exotic dishes that I will never in a million light years pull off.

Yeah? His eyes still fixed on the dish of scrumptious deep-fried goose livers drowning in some dark purple sauce with an unpronounceable name made from unobtainable ingredients.

I’m doing it.

Doing what?

Teaching students about God.

I thought that was against the Law.

The constitution, actually; but I’m sneaking it in as science lessons.

Sounds like fun.

Yep. Want to hear about it?

He glances up at me with a ‘do I have a choice?’ expression."

How about tomorrow? I smile.

How about now, he grins back, pushing mute on the TV.

I tell him about the day’s lesson, and his eyes sparkle with amusement.

You one smart lady, you know that?

I love it when his eyes sparkle, light green and full of suppressed ill-hidden affection. He’s ten years younger than me, handsome, rugged, hard-working and funny as hell. I love him to death but am not allowed to say so. We are friends with benefits, and he doesn’t want to acknowledge or allow it to be anything else, which is ridiculous because it is. And I already secretly told God I would be just like his wife as long as he allowed it…just between Him and me, of course.

Yep, I know, I say. I’d actually like to talk to them about quantum physics and the many worlds theory, but I think it would go right over their heads.

The what?

It’s this theory, based on quantum physics, that says since quantum particles are not definite or measurable things that can be found in definite or predictable places, they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of real things. The many-worlds interpretation" of this - aka multiverse - says that every quantum event is like a fork in the road, and that each fork creates a new universe."

Say what?!

I can’t tell if his reaction is disbelief or befuddlement.

I try for deeper: The theory states that the universe is constantly dividing into a stupendous number of duplicates, splitting stars and galaxies and even our local world on earth into myriads of copies of itself, and that there might be countless versions of ourselves on these other worlds.

This is science? He asks, skeptical It sounds like new age Zen or something.

‘So, they won’t get it, huh?"

He shakes his head, making a wry face.

Okay, so tomorrow I think I’ll talk to them about the origin of life instead. Want to hear it?

Tell me later, he says, unmuting the sound so he can learn all about how escargot in garlic wine sauce is supposed to make your lips pucker in delight.

I shake my head, kiss him on the top of his balding head, and go into my spare bedroom office to begin preparing tomorrow’s lesson. Closing my eyes, I think back to the incident that gave me the final proof regarding the fact that life could not have self-generated.

On a lovely fall day about ten years earlier, I attended a symposium at UCLA…open to the public, even dorks like me with a bachelor’s degree in science, a teaching credential, and not much else in the way of initials after my name. But I was interested as a science teacher as well as believer in God, so I went. The symposium was on the scientific theory of the origin of life, and featured the world’s leading researchers on the subject, men who had spent the better part of the last 5 decades devoting their careers to finding evidence that life had self-assimilated by random chance in the early oceans of our planet.

The sum total of my knowledge on the subject going into this lecture series was what was taught in our middle school science textbooks; the classic Miller-Urey experiments, in which scientists had been able to synthesize a number of tiny precursor molecules in a lab setting. To me, their conclusion - that living cells could have originated through abiogenesis in the early seas - was about as feasible as saying if you had an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite supply of materials and three billion years or so to work, they could have built the Sears Tower with all its functioning parts…plumbing, electricity, elevators, and so on…the equivalent complexity of a living cell. Oh, and a Sears Tower that could have self-replicated, built another identical Sears Tower next door after the monkeys all went home. So no, I wasn’t a fan of abiogenesis theory.

I was interested in how much progress had been made in the succeeding half century of research on the subject, but as each team of scientists presented the results of their years of work, I discovered that thus far, even under the most controlled laboratory conditions the best any had managed to synthesize within their broths of precursor chemicals