SEEING INTO THE FUTURE
SmithsonianMay 2014 | smithsonian.com
Patrick Stewart Looks Ahead
The Worlds Most Lovable Robot
Sci-fis Idea Laboratory
Forecast for The Planet: Hot, Hot, Hot!
Turbo- Charging Your Brain
The Search for Other Earths
Americas Tech Anxiety
Kaboom! How to Listen to the Big Bang
by BRIAN GREENE
How I Helped a Devastated Forest Make a Comeback
by GERMAINE GREER
Peter Matthiessens New Novel Revisits the Holocaust
by RON ROSENBAUM
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May 2014 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 1
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Contents
Signs of LifeDriven to make the most of her time on this
planet, MIT astronomer Sara Seager has
set herself the goal of discovering another
Earth in her lifetime BY COREY POWELL
Contributors 2
Discussion 4
From the Editor 6
Phenomenon 9This month our theme is reversals,
of Earths magnetic eld, rainforest
devastation and traumatic memories
Listening to the Big Bang 19Just-reported ripples in space
may open a window on the very
beginning of the universe
The White Veil 28 Peter Matthiessen takes on his
most controversial subject yet in his
searching new novel set at Auschwitz
Caf Future 57A new poem by David Yezzi
Science Friction 60A Pew-Smithsonian poll reveals
Americans arent quite ready for
driverless cars or lab-grown meat
The Pay Phone 1982 74A new poem by Joshua Mehigan
Smithsonian 80Whats going on around the Mall
Fast Forward 104
34 38 48 52 68
MAY 2014 Volume 45, Number 2
62 COVER: Sir Patrick Stewart photographed by Dan Winters
THIS PAGE: James Webb Space Telescope
Brave New Words Science ction
isnt meant
to predict the
future, but
implausible
ideas that re
inventors
imaginations
often, amazingly,
come true
BY EILEEN GUNN
Mind CraftAn astonishing
surgical opera-
tion called
deep brain
stimulation is
providing relief
to people with
movement
disorders, even
as it raises trou-
bling questions
BY DAVID NOONAN
Command Performance Patrick Stewart,
whose leading
roles in Star
Trek and X-Men
have taken him
into the far fu-
ture, re ects on
art, 21st-century
science and
robot ethics
BY MARK STRAUSS
Hot Enough for You?As global
warming
makes sizzling
temperatures
more common,
will human
beings be able to
keep their cool?
New research
suggests not
BY JERRY ADLER
National TreasureWith its stubby
cylindrical
body and playful
whistles and
beeps, the lov-
able Star Wars
robot R2-D2 is
just the right
mix of man
and machine
BY CLIVE THOMPSON
70The Real McCoy The Starship
Enterprises
cranky doctor
would approve
of technology
that could turn
smartphones
into devices
that can detect
disease
BY ARIEL SABAR
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2 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
GU
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P
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Dan Winters The eminent photographer, filmmaker
and writer revisited the past for our Future
issue when he photographed Patrick
Stewart for our cover at a New York
studio (p. 48). Id shot him 23 years
prior for Vanity Fair, says Winters, who
jogged Stewarts memory of their initial
meeting by presenting him with a print
from that portrait session. Winters, a
frequent Smithsonian contributor, is the
recipient of countless honors, including
the Alfred Eisenstadt Award for Maga-
zine Photography. His fth book, Road to
Seeing, was published in January.
Contributors
PHOTOILLUSTRATIONS BY Eda Akaltun
Eileen Gunn
A science ction writer
who has won the pres-
tigious Nebula Award
for Best Short Story,
Gunn says the genre
prepares readers for a
future of rapid change
(p. 34). Finding your-
self somewhere where
you dont know whats
going on can be un-
settling, she says. Her
book of stories Ques-
tionable Practices
appeared in March.
Corey Powell
The veteran sci-
ence journalist and
editor-at-large for
Discover magazine
pro led the MIT as-
tronomer Sara Seager,
a leading authority on
exoplanets (p. 62). I
think there are some
ways in which shes a
mystery to herself,
he says. She explores
the inner space of
her psyche, kind of
the way she explores
outer space.
David Noonan
In his career as a med-
ical writer, Noonan
has watched dozens
of neurosurgeries. But
this months piece on
deep brain stimulation
(p. 38) marked his
rst interview with a
patient while his brain
was being operated
on. The patient and
doctor were talking
to each other while
the patients skull
had been opened, he
says. It was extraordi-
nary. A former News-
week senior editor,
Noonan is the author
of two books, includ-
ing Neuro, about the
early days of modern
neurology.
Ariel Sabar
An innovative
UCLA researcher
who is turning the
cellphone into a
clinical laboratory is
Sabars subject this
month (p. 70). Still,
neither the inventor
nor the author wants
to replace the bond
between doctor and
patient with a gadget.
Sabars 2008 memoir,
My Fathers Paradise,
won the National Book
Critics Circle Award.
Mark Strauss
In his seven years as a
senior editor at Smith-
sonian, Strauss has
covered everything
from archaeology to
science ction. Still,
interviewing Patrick
Stewart (p. 48) was an
eye-opener, he says,
a vivid reminder that
the greatest actors
are among the most
devoted students of
humanity. They often
understand ourselves
better than we do.
Germaine Greer
For two years, the
renowned feminist
and conservation-
ist searched for a
piece of devastated
Australia that she
might be able to x. In
2001, she found Cave
Creek, a swath of 150
acres of battered
rainforest in south-
east Queensland.
She describes her
hands-on restoration
(p. 9) in her latest
book, White Beech:
The Rainforest Years.
Cave Creek, she says,
is particularly special
because its subtropi-
cala member of
the most depleted
class of forests.
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4 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
Discussion
to support sweatshop conditions in
Central America and elsewhere?
Camille WalkinshawCOLUMBUS, GEORGIA
Mystery Solved? I read the excerpt [Journey Into the
Kingdom of Spirits] from Carl Hoff -
mans book Savage Harvest in your
March issue with great interest and
some dismay. Milt Machlin rst pub-
lished precisely the same thesis 45
years ago in Argosy magazine and in
his remarkable 1972
book, The Search for Mi-
chael Rockefeller. Milts
book, along with 16mm
lm he shot , became the
basis of our award-win-
ning 2010 documen-
tary, The Search for
Michael Rockefeller.
Milt and photographer
Malcolm Kirk inter-
viewed in person all of
the Dutch missionaries
Mr. Hoff man quotes, and most of the
other eyewitnesses . Milts conclu-
sion was that Michael was killed and
probably eaten by three natives of
Otsjanep . All this is simply echoed
by Mr. Hoff man. Any author in this
field should acknowledge Mach-
lins groundbreaking, widely pub-
lished work . Your magazines claim
that Michael Rockefellers fate has
remained a mystery for 50 years,
until now, is pure hyperbole and
frankly dishonest.
Fraser C. HestonDIRECTOR, THE SEARCH FOR
MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Editors response:
Milt Machlin did publish a thesis,
one that our excerpt notes had been
FROM THE EDITORS Our third annual
feature on Americas best small towns
to visit moved hundreds of readers to
debate our picks. On Facebook, Jeff rey
Doonan took a broader perspective: I
moved from #5 Woods Hole to Istan-
bul, Turkey, about 25 years ago. It was
a great little place, but the world is full
of great little places, explore more.
Blending In Despite their detractors, the nearly
70,000 Bhutanese who were wel-
c o m e d b y A m e r i c a
[Manchesters Melting
Pot] do indeed set an
example of the kind
of people that Amer-
icans like to imagine
themselves to be. I say
soften the refugees cul-
ture shock as they try
to preserve the idea of
blending happiness with
their love of education,
ambition and the envi-
ronment. Many, many thanks for this
inspiring story.
Tova NavarraMIDDLETOWN, NEW JERSEY
Japanese AmericanaHow ironic that the Japanese ap-
preciate the high quality of [early
20th-century] American-made gar-
ments [Re-Made in Japan] when
our own country sold out the very
workers who produced them. Ameri-
can textile and garment workers were
betrayed by government policies and
industry. They were told they could
be retrained for technology jobs that
never materialized. As a result, many
good blue-collar workers lost every-
thing. Was it morally worth it to de-
stroy a vibrant American industry
that provided solid middle-class jobs
CONTACT US
Send letters to [emailprotected] or to
Letters, Smithsonian, MRC 513, P.O. Box
37012, Washington, D.C. 20013. Include a
telephone number and address. Letters
may be edited for clarity or space.
Because of the high volume of mail we
receive, we cannot respond to all letters.
Send queries about the Smithsonian
Institution to [emailprotected] or to OVS,
Public Inquiry Mail Service, P.O. Box
37012, Washington, D.C. 20013.
FOLLOW US
@Smithsonianmag
Facebook.com/smithsonianmagazine
Interesting article in current Smithsonian about how emotionstravel via social mediarage & awe the fastest; melancholia, theslowest. @JoyceCarolOates ON TWITTER
circulating since at least 1962. Carl
Hoffman is the first writer to find
sufficient evidence to confirm and
explain it. That evidence, which was
not in Machlins book, includes the
report led by Max Lepr, the Dutch
government offi cial who led the vio-
lent raid on the village of Otsjanep
that preceded Michael Rockefellers
disappearance; the reports filed by
the Dutch Catholic priests Cornelius
van Kessel and Hubertus von Peij on
what Asmat villagers were saying
right after Rockefellers disappear-
ance; the report filed by the Dutch
government investigator Wim van
de Waal after his three-month resi-
dence in Otsjanep; and documents
from Dutch government and Cath-
olic Church officials discussing the
non-disclosure of the priests and
investigators information. This new
evidence was included in the Smith-
sonian excerpt. Hoffman discusses
Machlins work in Savage Harvest.
CorrectionIn Americas Best Small Towns, we
mistakenly identified the producer
of MusicFest in Steamboat Springs.
He is John Dickson. John Waldman,
whom we quoted, is the promoter for
the Steamboat Springs Free Summer
Concert Series.
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6 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
Fifty years ago, a Russian-born bio-
chemist with mutton-chop sideburns
and an intense fear of ying visited
the Worlds Fair in Queens, New
York. Inspired by a General Electric
pavilion lled with modern electric
gadgets, he typed up an article pre-
dicting what the world would be like
in 2014. Among his many astonishing
prognostications were the elements
of electric coff eemakers, microwave
ovens, cellphones, Skype, driverless
cars and arti cial meat .
It should come as no surprise
that this prophet was a science c-
tion writer, a novelist named Isaak
Yudovich Ozimov, better known as
Isaac Asimov. Ever since Jules Verne
and H.G. Wells, science ction writ-
ers have been conjuring up possible
futures for usand for scientists and
engineers, who are often sci- fans as
teenagersto build.
We now live in a science ction
world, a time beyond 1984 and 2001
when many far-fetched inventions
have come true, and the time be-
tween imagination and actualization
is shrinking every year. No idea is too
sci- anymorethere are people right
now tackling everything from raising
extinct animals from the dead to tele-
portation to tribbles.
In this issue, we peer into the future
that is being constructed for us. Weve
chosen a fearless leader for this time-
travel trip: Sir Patrick Stewart, a.k.a.
Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek
and Professor Xavier of the X-Men
(Command Performance, p. 48). We
follow with stories on a tricorder that
would have made Bones less grumpy
(Inventing the Real McCoy, p. 70);
daily life in a globally warmed world
(Hot Enough for You? p. 52); and our
own Smithsonian-Pew poll on Ameri-
cans attitudes about the future (p. 60).
We are celebrating this issue with
a big event May 16-18, our second
annual Future Is Here festival (de-
tails at Smithsonian.com/future). A
starry lineup of speakers will unveil
the cutting edge of their elds, in-
cluding exo-planet seeker Sara Seager
(Signs of Life, p. 62), de-extinction
expert Stewart Brand, Google moon-
shot leader Rich DeVaul, George Takei
( Star Treks Sulu), and physicist
Brian Greene (Listening to the Big
Bang, p. 19). On May 17, Patrick Stew-
art will host the D.C. premiere of his
new lm, X-Men: Days of Future Past.
In our own most recent past, our
April issue, we published a column
by the Secretary of the Smithsonian,
G. Wayne Clough, that was a perfect
combination of future and past. Dr.
Clough, who will be retiring in 2015,
wrote eloquently about looking for-
ward to revisiting his rural childhood
hometown of Douglas, Georgia.
Dr. Clough has written more than
60 columns for the magazine, cover-
ing his own work and the vast reach of
the Smithsonian Institution. Its been
a great run and diffi cult to say good-
bye. But there are now so many other
sources of information on the SI, in-
cluding our thriving website, Smith-
sonian.com, that weve decided to dis-
continue the From the Castle column .
I cant imagine a better one to end on.
Michael Caruso, EDITOR IN CHIEF
[emailprotected]
From the Editor
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May 2014 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 7
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May 2014 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 9
I LLUSTRATION BY Traci Daberko
to life, but creating habitat
for hedgehogs will give other
hedgehogs a better chance of
breeding successfully so that
numbers can build up again.
In suburban gardens
across the country people
are making tunnels under
their fences so that hedge-
hogs can travel without
having so often to cross
roads. It doesnt take much
and costs nothing, but it
puts the householder on the
side of Earth, which is the
hedgehogs home as much
as it is ours .
The swallows that have
nested at my place in Essex
ever since I have didnt turn
up one year. Or the next. Ten
springs passed, and I thought
Once great wrongs are done, its rarely possible to undo
them. Earth, the most exuberant planet known to exist in any
galaxy, carries great wounds upon its lovely face: denuded
hills, fertile farmlands being washed into the sea or turned
to dust, treasure houses of biodiversity annihilated, air,
land and water poisoned. It seems that nobody knows how
to reverse any of it.
And yet, in the cracks between the pavement of the
expanding cities , seedlings of long-gone forest giants con-
tinue to emerge. Earth keeps on trying to renew itself,after
radioactive leak, after nuclear explosion, after earthquake
and eruption, ood and tsunami. The planets powers of
recuperation and restoration are almost unbelievable. Give
it an inch and it will give you a mile.
Field owers no longer grow amid the crops in Englands
elds , but once the backhoes are withdrawn from roadworks,
poppies spring from the disturbed ground. The seed they
have grown from blew off the elds maybe a generation ago,
and has lain in the soil ever since, waiting for someone or
something to break the sod. Year on year the poppies keep
turning up, every time bringing their promise ofresurrection.
The dead hedgehog on the road cannot be brought back
henomenonA CURATED COLLECTION
OF NEWS AND OPINIONS
ON A SINGLE THEME
Life must be
understood
backwards.
But it must
be lived
forwards.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
This month were thinking about . . .
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10 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
REVERSAL
Phenomenon
they couldnt possibly re-
member the barn where they
had built their mud nests so
many years before. I stopped
scanning the sky for them. I
was working in the green-
house when I heard their
call and ran out to see. They
were ying in and out of the
little entrance I had cut out
of the barn door for them, for
all the world as if they had
never been away. And they
have come back every year
since. They too tell me that
everything is not lost.
The lower orders, as we
unjustly call them, have
enormous potential for
replenishment, because
they reproduce in huge
numbers. A butter y that
this year seems extinct may
turn up in clouds next year,
given a diff erent weather
pattern. This is a massive
reversal of fortunes, but the
butter y is born to it.
Insects are the virtuosos
of reversal, because meta-
morphosis is their specialty.
They begin as earthbound
larvae that do nothing but
eat and are as likely to end
up as winged creatures that
never eat. Even the humble
co*ckroach can have several
nymphal stages; rainforest
co*ckroach nymphs can be
spectacular. Even our ex-
hausted honeybees might be
capable of coming back from
the brink, if we improved
their genetic diversity.
The further down we go
the more transformational
the powers of the creatures
we meet, until we arrive at
the viruses that can change
themselves faster than we
can find ways of dealing
with them. We imagine our-
selves to be at war with such
creatures, when they are our
cousins and we need them
on our side. If we colonize
Mars, we will need to take
them with us.
In the last hundred years a
patch of subtropical rainfor-
est in southeast Queensland,
Australia, has been logged,
burned, cleared, plowed,
grazed and sprayed with
Agent Orange. Yet I knew
when I saw it in 2001, while
searching for a piece of my
devastated birthplace that I
could x, that it could rebuild
itself. All I had to do was to
remove the obstacles that pre-
vented its coming back into
its own, the cattle, the inva-
sive weeds, most of them gar-
den escapes and deliberately
introduced pasture grasses.
There was enough seed
in the canopy to reveg-
etate much more than a
mere 150 acres; most of it
carried larval infestation,
which meant that the pol-
linators the trees required
would be regenerated along
with them. No sooner did
the numbers of fruiting
trees build up than the bats
turned up, a dozen species
of them. The bird species
multiplied, including some
thought to be on the verge of
extinction. And the inverte-
brate population exploded.
The reversal of the for-
ests devastation may seem
slow; its taken 13 years so
far, but for at least ve of
those I and my wonderful
workforce were learning
what to do (and what not
to do). It has now gathered
speed, and soon there will
be nothing but maintenance
left to do. The whole process
has taken less than an in-
stant of evolutionary time.
GERMAINE GREER
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May 2014 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 11
Flip this artwork over,
and youll nd another ka-
leidoscope of pastel hues
stretched over a raw wood-
en frame . The canvas of
Untitled (Reverse) is cut to
create aps, some attached
to what looks like the front of
the frame and some pulled
around to the back . There
is not a hierarchy of either
side, says Maria Walker,
a Brooklyn-based artist who
views paintings as three-
dimensional objects rather
than surface images. Her
goal: to create sculptures
out of the raw materials. She
twists and manipulates the
canvas, often opting for un-
conventional frame shapes
and, in this case, applying
primer sparingly so that the
paint seeps into the canvas.
While many of Walkers
pieces stand upright or
protrude from walls, giving
gallery visitors a fuller view,
Untitled (Reverse) hangs
at, hiding one half. This
creates a tension, says
Walker, making the viewer
wonder, Whats on the oth-
er side? KIRSTIN FAWCETT
View more of Walkers art at
Smithsonian.com/walker
A painter looks
at her canvas
from a new
perspective
FlipArt
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12 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
LIT
TLE R
ED
R
IDIN
G H
OO
D,
ILLU
ST
RAT
ION
FR
OM
T
HE S
TO
RY
B
Y C
HA
RLES
P
ER
RA
ULT
(1
628
-170
3)
(CO
LO
UR
LIT
HO
), H
AS
SA
LL,
JO
HN
(1
868
-1948
) /
BIB
LIO
TH
EQ
UE D
ES
A
RT
S D
ECO
RAT
IFS
, PA
RIS
, FR
AN
CE / A
RC
HIV
ES
C
HA
RM
ET
/ T
HE B
RID
GEM
AN
A
RT
LIB
RA
RY
; CO
UR
TES
Y D
AN
IEL P.
LAT
HR
OP
Phenomenon
REVERSAL
FOLKLORISTS HAVE LONG BE-
lieved that the tale of Little
Red Riding Hood originated
in China, where, instead of
a cross-dressing wolf, the
villain was a shape-shifting
tiger. But after studying 58
versions of the story from
Europe, Africa and Asia, an-
thropologist Jamie Tehrani
of Durham University in En-
gland concludes the reverse
is true: The little girl rst
took the trek to her grand-
mothers in Europe, and later
her story traveled east.
Tehrani subjected the
story to phylogenetic analy-
sis, a method biologists
use to map the diverging
evolutionary branches of
species. Stories, like living
organisms, acquire and
lose traits over time. In this
case, Tehrani analyzed 72
features of the plot, such as
whether the main character
is male or female and how
that character is tricked.
He believes that the tale
traveled west to east some-
time during the 12th to 14th
centuries. MARK STRAUSS
Little Reds
First
Hood
In a large, warehouse-like
laboratory on the Univer-
sity of Maryland campus,
a stainless steel sphere ten
feet in diameter whirls rap-
idly. It is the largest spinning
model of the Earths interior
ever built and resembles the
Star Wars Death Star, only
shinier. Geophysicist Daniel
Lathrop wants, among other
things, to use it to predict
when the Earths magnetic
eld will next reverse.
Over the course of our
planets history, the eld has
ipped hundreds of times:
Magnetic north has slid to-
ward the bottom of the plan-
et while magnetic south has
traveled north. Signatures
in volcanic rocks reveal that
the switch last happened
780,000 years ago, when
human ancestors were just
learning to make re.
Were still here, so well
probably survive the next
reversalbut we dont know
what to expect. During the
reversal, a gradual event that
takes about a thousand years,
the eld will weaken. With-
out the protection it off ers,
will our suns radiation bom-
bard us? Will migrating birds
relying on the eld become
hopelessly confused? And
when will it happen? Some
estimates say soon, which,
for a geophysicist, could be
in the next 10,000 years. It
could even start tomorrow .
Thats where Lathrops
sphere comes in. Within is
nested another spherethe
space between the two lled
with 12 tons of liquid sodium,
heated to 250 degrees Fahr-
enheit. When set spinning,
the setup mimics the roiling
liquid iron in the Earths out-
er core, which forms electri-
cal currents that generate the
magnetic eld in a process
called a dynamo. His team
hopes to nd out how Earths
eld forms and evolves. Any
theory theyre able to even
rule out will be front-page
news to many of us, says
Peter Olson, an earth and
planetary scientist at Johns
Hopkins University.
Just getting the sphere
going was a major feat: eight
years on design and con-
struction, two years of ex-
periments with water , and
another six months to drain
the water and pour in the
sodium, an element prone to
explosions. Hazards have to
be respected, Lathrop says.
With the sphere spinning
at 45 miles per hour, and
a little help from electro-
magnets, the team saw
short-lived magnetic bursts
within the sodium. When
the spinning ramps up to
nearly 90 miles per hour
later this year, the sodium
might generate a eld with-
out the extra nudge. If so,
and with one second of the
experiment equaling 5,000
years of Earth time , the re-
searchers could see a rever-
sal before everyone else on
the planet. HALEY EDWARDS
A giant whirligig tries to predict Earths next magnetic ip
Pole ReversalWhen a sodium- lled model
of the Earths outer core
spins at full speed, it could
generate a dynamo.
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Joan UronisDiagnosed at age 62.
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14 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
REVERSAL
ers call it, works well with
recent memories but not so
well with deeply entrenched,
long-term horrors. But a new
study in mice, from the lab-
oratory of fear memory re-
searcher Li-Huei Tsai of MIT,
now promises to change that.
The scientists, who report-
ed the study in Cell, taught
lab mice fear by the standard
method of applying a mild
electric shock, accompanied
by a loud beep . Mice show
fear by freezing in place, and
they quickly learned to freeze
when they were put in the test
box or heard the beep. It was
a conditioned response,
like Ivan Pavlov ringing a bell
to make dogs salivate, in his
pioneering experiments on
learning and memory.
For mice, fear extinction
therapy meant going back
in the test box for a while,
but without the shock. That
alone was enough to unlearn
the conditioned response if
it was a new memory, just a
day old. But if the mice had
been trained 30 days earlier,
the therapy didnt work.
So Tsai and lead author
Johannes Grff combined
the extinction therapy with
a type of drug that has re-
cently shown promise in
mice as a way to improve
thinking and memory.
HDAC inhibitors (that is,
histone deacetylase inhib-
itors) boost the activity
of genes in ways that help
brain cells form new con-
nections; new connections
are the basis of learning.
The HDAC inhibitors alone
had no eff ect, but drugs and
therapy together seemed to
open up and reconnect the
neurons where long-term
traumatic memory had until
then been locked away. Mice
could be taught to overcome
the entire conditioned re-
sponse or just a partignoring
the beep, for instance, but still
freezing in the test box .
Getting from mice to hu-
mans is, of course, always a
great leap. But the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration
has already approved inves-
tigative use of some HDAC
inhibitors for certain can-
cers and in ammatory dis-
orders, which could make
it easier, Grff speculates,
to get to clinical testing for
human psychiatric therapy.
Marie Mon ls, who stud-
ies fear memory at the Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin,
calls the new study beauti-
fully done, with potential to
open up really interesting
avenues for research and
treatment. That could be big
news for a society alarmed by
the surge in military suicides
and other PTSD-related
problems from more than a
decade of war . For the des-
perate patients themselves,
science now holds out hope
that it will soon be possible,
in eff ect, to rewind memory
to a time before trauma stole
their peace of mind.
RICHARD CONNIFF
Phenomenon
The best way to forget an
alarming memory, oddly, is
to remember it rst. Thats
why the 7 percent of Amer-
ican adults who experience
post-traumatic stress disor-
der (or PTSD) at some point
in their lives are often asked
by therapists to recall the
incident that taught them
the fear in the rst place.
Stirring up a memory
makes it a little unstable,
and for a window of perhaps
three hours, its possible to
modify it before it settles
down again, or reconsoli-
dates, in the brain. Reliving
traumatic moments over and
over in safe conditions can
help a person unlearn the
automatic feeling of alarm .
The trouble is that fear ex-
tinction therapy, as research-
WEEKS BARBRA STREISANDS
ALBUM MEMORIES SPENT IN
THE BILLBOARD TOP 200
FearlessWill scientists
soon be able
to erase our
most traumatic
memories?
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16 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
IN 1572, A TINY EXPLODING STAR IN THE CONSTELLATIONCASSIOPEIA
caught the eye of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. The
burst of light, at its peak rivaling the brightness of Venus,was
fueled by the radioactive decay of enormous quantities of
metals , and then faded away in 1574. But today astronomers
using X-ray observatories continue to study that samegalactic
drama , whose expanding cloud of debris now spans some 140
trillion miles . A s the iron created in the explosion ewoutward,
slamming into interstellar gas, the collisions generated ashock
wave headed in the opposite direction at millions of milesper
hour. The energy blasted the iron, causing it to emit X-rays(in
red ), and now astronomers have for the rst time mapped the
spectacular impact of the reverse shock wave . Hiroya Yama-
guchi of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues,
including Randall Smith of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics, discovered that the heated iron-rich gas
reaches roughly 100 million degrees Fahrenheithotter than
the center of the Sun and, Yamaguchi says, much higher than
expected. KEN CROSWELL
Cosmic FlashbackHalf a millennium
later, a famous
explosion has
new life
Phenomenon
REVERSAL
Every atom in your
body came from a
star that exploded.
L AWRENCE KRAUSS HA
RVA
RD
-S
MIT
HS
ON
IAN
C
EN
TER
FO
R A
ST
RO
PH
YS
ICS
I N D E X
30Number of species or
populations delisted from the
Endangered Species Act
thanks to recovery
10Survival time, in minutes,
of the only animal ever brought
back from extinction, a
Pyrenean ibex in 2003
0.4Average height in inches that
people over age 40 lose
each decade
741Population of grizzly bears
in the Yellowstone region, as
estimated by the U.S. Geological
Survey , up from 136 in 1975
89.3The longest reverse ramp
car jump, in feetrecently set
by reality TV star Rob Dyrdek
in a Chevy Sonic
18The upper estimate of the cost,
in billions, of re-reversing the
Chicago River, to keep invasive
species out of the Great Lakes
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May 2014 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 19
ST
EFFEN
R
ICH
TER
/ H
AR
VA
RD
U
NIV
ER
SIT
Y
Listening to the Big Bang
A remote telescope finds support
for a revolutionary theory about
the formation of the universe
or six months
SCIENCE THE UNIVERSE
Less than a mile from the South Pole, the
Dark Sector Labs Bicep2 telescope (at
left) searches for signs of in ation. BY BRIAN GREENE photographby Steffen Richter
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20 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
to grasp our origins. But Ill pick up
the narrative laterwith Albert Ein-
steins discovery of the general theory
of relativity, the mathematical basis
of space, time and all modern cosmo-
logical thought.
Warped Space to the Big Bang
In the early years of the 20th century,
Einstein rewrote the rules of space
and time with his special theory of
relativity. Until then, most everyone
adhered to the Newtonian perspec-
tivethe intuitive perspectivein
which space and time provide an un-
changing arena wherein events take
place. But as Einstein described it, in
the spring of 1905 a storm broke loose
in his mind, a torrential downpour
of mathematical insight that swept
away Newtons universal arena. Ein-
stein argued convincingly that there
is no universal timeclocks in mo-
tion tick more slowly and there is no
universal spacerulers in motion are
shorter. The absolute and unchanging
arena gave way to a space and time
that were malleable and exible.
Fresh off this success, Einstein
then turned to an even steeper chal-
lenge. For well over two centuries,
Newtons universal law of gravity had
done an impressive job at predicting
the motion of everything from planets
to comets. Even so, there was a puz-
zle that Newton himself articulated:
How does gravity exert its in uence?
How does the Sun in uence the Earth
across some 93 million miles of es-
sentially empty space? Newton had
provided an owners manual allowing
the mathematically adept to calculate
the eff ect of gravity, but he was unable
to throw open the hood and reveal
how gravity does what it does.
In search of the answer, Einstein
engaged in a decade-long obsessive,
grueling odyssey through arcane
mathematics and creative ights of
tronomers led by Harvard-Smithso-
nian researcher John Kovac braved
the elements to point a brawny tele-
scope known as Bicep2 (an acronym
for the less euphonious Background
Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Po-
larization) at a patch of the southern
sky. In March, the team released its
results. Should the conclusions stand,
they will open a spectacular new win-
dow on the earliest moments of the
universe, and will deservedly rank
among the most important cosmolog-
ical ndings of the past century.
Its a story whose roots can be
traced back to early creation stories
intended to satisfy the primal urge
physical fancy. By 1915, his genius
blazed through the nal equations of
the general theory of relativity, nally
revealing the mechanism underlying
the force of gravity.
The answer? Space and time. Al-
ready unshackled from their Newto-
nian underpinnings by special relativ-
ity, space and time sprung fully to life
in general relativity. Einstein showed
that much as a warped wooden oor
can nudge a rolling marble, space and
time can themselves warp, and nudge
terrestrial and heavenly bodies to fol-
low the trajectories long ascribed to
the in uence of gravity.
However abstract the formula-
tion, general relativity made de ni-
tive predictions, some of which were
quickly confirmed through astro-
nomical observations. This inspired
mathematically oriented thinkers
the world over to explore the theo-
rys detailed implications. It was the
work of a Belgian priest, Georges
Lematre, who also held a doctorate
in physics, that advanced the story
were following. In 1927, Lematre
applied Einsteins equations of gen-
eral relativity not to objects within
the universe, like stars and black
holes, but to the entire universe itself.
The result knocked Lematre back
on his heels. The math showed that
the universe could not be static: The
fabric of space was either stretching
or contracting, which meant that the
universe was either growing in size
or shrinking.
When Lematre alerted Einstein
to what hed found, Einstein scoff ed.
He thought Lematre was pushing
the math too far. So certain was Ein-
stein that the universe, as a whole,
was eternal and unchanging, that he
not only dismissed mathematical
analyses that attested to the con-
trary, he inserted a modest amend-
ment into his equations to ensure
that the math would accommodate
his prejudice.
And prejudice it was. In 1929, the
astronomical observations of Edwin
Hubble, using the powerful tele-
scope at Mount Wilson Observa-
tory, revealed that distant galaxies
are all rushing away. The universe
is expanding. Einstein gave himself
a euphemistic slap in the forehead,
a reprimand for not trusting results
coming out of his own equations, and
brought his thinkingand his equa-
tionsinto line with the data.
Great progress, of course. But new
insights yield new puzzles.
As Lematre had pointed out, if
space is now expanding, then by
winding the cosmic lm in reverse
we conclude that the observable uni-
verse was ever smaller, denser and
hotter ever further back in time. The
seemingly unavoidable conclusion
is that the universe we see emerged
from a phenomenally tiny speck that
erupted, sending space swelling out-
wardwhat we now call the
Big Bang.
The result knocked him back on his heels. The math showed thatthe fabric of space was either stretching or contracting, whichmeant
the universe was either growing or shrinking.
SCIENCE THE UNIVERSE
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22 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
would now have dropped to a mere
2.7 degrees above absolute zero,
placing their wavelength in the mi-
crowave part of the spectrumex-
plaining why this possible relic of
the Big Bang is called the cosmic
microwave background radiation.
In 1964, two Bell Labs scientists,
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson,
were at wits end, frustrated by a large
ground-based antenna designed for
satellite communications. Regardless
of where they pointed the antenna,
they encountered the audiophiles
nightmare: an incessant background
hiss. For months they sought but
failed to nd the source. Then, Pen-
zias and Wilson caught wind of the
cosmological calculations being done
at Princeton suggesting there should
be a low-level radiation lling space.
The incessant hiss, the researchers
realized, was arising from the Big
Bangs photons tickling the antennas
receiver. The discovery earned Pen-
zias and Wilson the 1978 Nobel Prize.
The prominence of the Big Bang
theory skyrocketed, impelling scien-
tists to pry the theory apart, seeking
unexpected implications and possi-
ble weaknesses. A number of import-
ant issues were brought to light, but
the most essential was also the most
basic.
The Big Bang is often described as
the modern scienti c theory of cre-
ation, the mathematical answer to
Genesis . But this notion obscures an
essential fallacy: The Big Bang the-
ory does not tell us how the universe
began. It tells us how the universe
evolved, beginning a tiny fraction of
a second after it all started. As the
rewound cosmic lm approaches the
rst frame, the mathematics breaks
down, closing the lens just as the cre-
ation event is about to ll the screen.
And so, when it comes to explaining
the bang itselfthe primordial push
But if true, what sent space swell-
ing? And how could such an outland-
ish proposal be tested?
The In ationary Theory
If the universe emerged from a swel-
tering hot and intensely dense pri-
meval atom, as Lematre called it,
then as space swelled the universe
should have cooled off. Calculations
undertaken at George Washington
University in the 1940s, and later at
Princeton in the 1960s, showed that
the Big Bangs residual heat would
manifest as a bath of photons (parti-
cles of light) uniformly filling space.
The temperature of the photons
that must have set the universe head-
long on its expansionary coursethe
Big Bang theory is silent.
It would fall to a young postdoc-
toral fellow in the physics depart-
ment of Stanford University, Alan
Guth, to take the vital step toward
lling that gap. Guth and his collab-
orator Henry Tye of Cornell Univer-
sity were trying to understand how
certain hypothetical particles called
monopoles might be produced in the
universes earliest moments. But cal-
culating deep into the night of De-
cember 6, 1979, Guth took the work
in a diff erent direction. He realized
that not only did the equations show
that general relativity plugged an es-
sential gap in Newtonian gravity
providing gravitys mechanism
they also revealed that gravity could
behave in unexpected ways. Accord-
ing to Newton (and everyday expe-
rience) gravity is an attractive force
that pulls one object toward another.
The equations were showing that in
Einsteins formulation, gravity could
also be repulsive.
The gravity of familiar objects,
such as the Sun, Earth and Moon,
is surely attractive. But the math
showed that a diff erent source, not a
clump of matter but instead energy
embodied in a eld uniformly lling a
region, would generate a gravitational
force that would push outward. And
ferociously so. A region a mere bil-
lionth of a billionth of a billionth of
a centimeter across, lled with the
appropriate energy eldcalled the
inflaton fieldwould be wrenched
apart by the powerful repulsive grav-
ity, potentially stretching to as large
as the observable universe in a frac-
tion of a second.
And that would rightly be called a
bang. A big bang.
With subsequent re nements to
Guths initial implementation of re-
pulsive gravity by scientists includ-
ing Andrei Linde, Paul Steinhardt
and Andreas Albrecht, the in ation-
ary theory of cosmology was born. A
credible proposal for what ignited the
outward swelling of space was nally
on the theorists table. But is it right?
Testing In ation
At rst blush, it might seem a fools
errand to seek con rmation of a the-
ory that ostensibly operated for a tiny
fraction of a second nearly 14 billion
years ago. Sure, the universe is now
expanding, so something set it going
in the rst place. But is it even con-
ceivable to verify that it was sparked
by a powerful but brief ash of repul-
sive gravity?
It is. And the approach makes use,
once again, of the microwave back-
ground radiation.
To get a feel for how, imagine writ-
ing a tiny message, too small for any-
one to read, on the surface of a de ated
balloon. Then blow the balloon up.
As it stretches, your message
stretches too, becoming visible.
The Big Bang is often described as the modern scienti c theoryof creation, the mathematical answer to Genesis. But this obscuresa fallacy.
It does not tell us how the universe began.
SCIENCE THE UNIVERSE
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24 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
position and the speed of a particle.
For elds suff using space, the uncer-
tainty principle shows that a elds
strength is also subject to quantum
jitters, causing its value at each loca-
tion to jiggle up and down.
Decades of experiments on the
micro realm have verified that the
quantum jitters are real and ubiqui-
tous; theyre unfamiliar only because
the uctuations are too tiny to be di-
rectly observed in everyday life. Which
is where the in ationary stretching of
space comes into its own.
Much as with your message on the
expanding balloon, if the universe
underwent the stupendous expan-
sion proposed by the inflationary
theory, then the tiny quantum jit-
ters in the in aton eldremember,
thats the eld responsible for repul-
sive gravitywould be stretched into
the macro world. This would result
in the elds energy being a touch
larger in some locations, and a touch
smaller in others.
In turn, these variations in energy
would have an impact on the cosmic
microwave background radiation,
nudging the temperature slightly
higher in some locations and slightly
lower in others. Mathematical calcu-
lations reveal that the temperature
variations would be smallabout
1 part in 100,000. Butand this is
keythe temperature variations
would ll out a speci c statistical
pattern across the sky.
Beginning in the 1990s, a series of
ever more re ned observational ven-
turesground-, balloon- and space-
based telescopeshave sought these
temperature variations. And found
them. Indeed, there is breathtaking
agreement between the theoretical
predictions and the observational data.
And with that, you might think the
in ationary approach had been con-
rmed. But as a community, phys-
Similarly, if space experienced dra-
matic in ationary stretching, then tiny
physical imprints set down during the
universes earliest moments would be
stretched across the sky, possibly mak-
ing them visible too.
Is there a process that would have
imprinted a tiny message in the early
universe? Quantum physics answers
with a resounding yes. It comes
down to the uncertainty principle,
advanced by Werner Heisenberg in
1927. Heisenberg showed that the
microworld is subject to unavoid-
able quantum jitters that make it
impossible to simultaneously spec-
ify certain features, such as both the
icists are about as skeptical a group
as you will ever encounter. Over the
years, some proposed alternative ex-
planations for the data, while others
raised various technical challenges to
the in ationary approach itself. In a-
tion remained far and away the lead-
ing cosmological theory, but many felt
the smoking gun had yet to be found.
Until now.
Ripples in the Fabric of Space
Just as elds within space are sub-
ject to quantum jitters, quantum
uncertainty ensures that space itself
should be subject to quantum jitters
too. Which means that space should
undulate like the surface of a boiling
pot of water. This is unfamiliar for
the same reason that a granite table-
top seems smooth even though its
surface is riddled with microscopic
imperfectionsthe undulations hap-
pen on extraordinarily tiny scales.
But, once again, because in ation-
ary expansion stretches quantum
features into the macrorealm, the
theory predicts that the tiny undu-
lations sprout into far longer ripples
in the spatial fabric. How would we
detect these ripples, or primordial
gravitational waves, as they are more
properly called? For the third time,
the Big Bangs ubiquitous relic, the
cosmic microwave background radi-
ation, is the ticket.
Calculations show that gravita-
tional waves would imprint a twisting
pattern on the background radiation,
an iconic fingerprint of inflation-
ary expansion. (More precisely, the
background radiation arises from
oscillations in the electromagnetic
eld; the direction of these oscilla-
tions, known as the polarization, gets
twisted in the wake of gravitational
waves.) The detection of such swirls
in the background radiation has long
been revered as the gold standard for
establishing the in ationary theory,
the long sought smoking gun.
On March 12, a press release prom-
ising a major discovery, issued by
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics, North American
ground control for the Bicep2 mis-
sion, sent breathless rumors churn-
ing through the worldwide physics
community. Perhaps the swirls had
been found? At the press confer-
ence on March 17, the rumors were
con rmed. After more than a year
of careful analysis of the data, the
Bicep2 team announced that it had
achieved the rst detection of the pre-
dicted gravitational wave pattern.
Subtle swirls in the data collected
at the South Pole attest to quantum
tremors of space, stretched by in a-
tionary expansion , wafting through
the early universe.
What Does It All Mean?
The case for in ationary theory has
now grown strong, capping a century
of upheaval in cosmology. Now,
not only do we know the uni-
Is there a process that would have imprinted a tiny message inthe early universe? Quantum
physics answers with a resounding yes. It comes down to theuncertainty principle.
SCIENCE THE UNIVERSE
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26 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
of the microwave swirls. Within a
years time, maybe less, some of these
groups may report their ndings.
Whats certain is that current and
future missions will provide ever
more re ned data that will sharpen
the inflationary approach. Bear in
mind that inflation is a paradigm,
not a unique theory. Theorists have
now implemented the core idea of
the bang-as-repulsive-gravity in hun-
dreds of ways (diff erent numbers of
in aton elds, diff erent interactions
between those elds and so on), with
each generally yielding slightly diff er-
ent predictions. The Bicep2 data has
already winnowed the viable models
signi cantly, and forthcoming data
will continue the process.
This all adds up to an extraordi-
nary time for the in ationary theory.
But theres an even larger lesson.
Barring the unlikely possibility that
with better measurements the swirls
disappear, we now have a new obser-
vational window onto quantum pro-
cesses in the early universe. The Bi-
cep2 data shows that these processes
happen on distance scales more than
a trillion times smaller than those
probed by our most powerful particle
accelerator, the Large Hadron Col-
lider. Some years ago, together with
a group of researchers, I took one of
the rst forays into calculating how
our cutting-edge theories of the ul-
tra-small, like string theory, might
be tested with observations of the
microwave background radiation.
Now, with this unprecedented leap
into the microrealm, I can imagine
that more re ned studies of this sort
may well herald the next phase in our
understanding of gravity, quantum
mechanics and our cosmic origins.
In ation and the Multiverse
Finally, let me address an issue Ive
so far carefully avoided, one thats as
verse is expanding, not only do we
have a credible proposal for what ig-
nited the expansion, were detecting
the imprint of quantum processes
that tickled space during that ery
rst fraction of a second.
But being one of those skeptical
physicists, albeit one whos excit-
able too, let me conclude with some
context for thinking about these de-
velopments.
The Bicep2 team has done a heroic
job, but full con dence in its results
will require con rmation by indepen-
dent teams of researchers. We wont
have to wait long. Bicep2s compet-
itors have also been in hot pursuit
wondrous as it is speculative. A pos-
sible byproduct of the in ationary
theory is that our universe may not
be the only universe.
In many in ationary models, the
in aton eld is so effi cient that even
after fueling the repulsive push of
our Big Bang, the eld stands ready
to fuel another big bang and another
still. Each bang yields its own ex-
panding realm, with our universe be-
ing relegated to one among many. In
fact, in these models, the in ationary
process typically proves never-end-
ing, its eternal, and so yields an un-
limited number of universes populat-
ing a grand cosmic multiverse.
With evidence for the in ationary
paradigm accumulating, its tempt-
ing to conclude that con dence in
the multiverse should grow too.
While Im sympathetic to that per-
spective, the situation is far from
clear-cut. Quantum uctuations not
only yield variations within a given
universea prime example being the
microwave background variations
weve discussedthey also entail
variations between the universes
themselves. And these variations can
be signi cant. In some incarnations
of the theory, the other universes
might diff er even in the kinds of par-
ticles they contain and the forces
that are at work.
In this enormously broadened per-
spective on reality, the challenge is to
articulate what the in ationary theory
actually predicts. How do we explain
what we see here, in this universe? Do
we have to reason that our form of life
couldnt exist in the diff erent environ-
ments of most other universes, and
thats why we nd ourselves herea
controversial approach that strikes
some scientists as a cop-out? The
concern, then, is that with the eternal
version of in ation spawning so many
universes, each with distinct features,
the theory has the capacity to under-
mine our very reason for having con -
dence in in ation itself.
Physicists continue to struggle
with these lacunae. Many have con-
dence that these are mere techni-
cal challenges to inflation that in
time will be solved. I tend to agree.
Inflations explanatory package is
so remarkable, and its most natural
predictions so spectacularly aligned
with observation, that it all seems
almost too beautiful to be wrong.
But until the subtleties raised by the
multiverse are resolved, it is wise to
reserve nal judgment.
If in ation is right, the visionar-
ies who developed the theory and
the pioneers who con rmed its pre-
dictions are well-deserving of the
Nobel Prize. Yet, the story would be
bigger still. Achievements of this
magnitude transcend the individual.
It would be a moment for all of us
to stand proud and marvel that our
collective creativity and insight had
revealed some of the universes most
deeply held secrets.
In fact, in these models the in ationary process typicallyproves never-ending, and
so yields an unlimited number of universes populating a grandcosmic multiverse.
SCIENCE THE UNIVERSE
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28 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
BY RON ROSENBAUM
rudging through the snow that blan-
kets the old whaling village of Sag
Harbor and the tiny nearby hamlet of
Sagaponack, up to Peter Matthies-
sens porch, you confront a at white
fragment of a giant whale skull. Its
affi xed to the outer wall beside the
front door. A slab of bleached bone
that inevitably conjures up the Mo-
by-Dick aura of this place on the east-
ern end of Long Island that juts out
into the Atlantic.
That ghostly whale fragment cant
help suggest Peter Matthiessen as
modern American literatures Ahab.
Not raging across oceans in search of
revenge but scouring the far ends of
the earth and its seas for something
diff erent, but equally hidden from
the surface: a mystical oneness with
the world. A glimpse not of a White
Whale but of something beyond
the White Veil of the mystics, the
veil Matthiessen believes separates
himall of usfrom True Knowl-
edge of in nitude.
Matthiessen has trekked nearly
impassable Himalayan passes and
hacked his way to dangerous out-
posts of shaman-haunted Andean
tribes, searching the far reaches of
the planet for the oceanic peace that
lies beneath the choppy surface of
the mind. All of which hes chroni-
cled in stunning works such as The
Snow Leopard and Shadow Country,
two books that made him the only
American writer to win the National
Book Award for both nonfiction
and ction, respectively. A unique
body of work, William Styron
called it, the work of a man in
photograph by Subhankar Banerjee
The White Veil
How did Peter Matthiessens lifelong quest for peace lead him toone of the
most horrifying places on earth?
MATTHIESSEN INTERVIEW
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30 SMITHSONIAN.COM | May 2014
Now, at 86, after a remarkable ca-
reer (and enduring chemotherapy for
Stage 4 leukemia), Matthiessen has
chosen his most daring and controver-
sial subject yet: Auschwitz. Not only
that, but a Zen retreat at Auschwitz.
The novel is called In Paradisea
deeply ironic title, based on an apoc-
ryphal biblical story about the hell of
separation from heaven.
Its an act of courage because, in
striding into the mine eld of debate
about the appropriate response to the
death camps, Matthiessen is taking
on a subject that has exposed those
who treat it in ction, non ction and
lm to fearsome critiques for failing
to do justice to the dread impondera-
bles of that horror.
Inside his sprawling, shingled re-
treat, the rst thing one comes upon
is a wall of Michael Rockefeller pho-
tos, stunning images of Stone Age
New Guinea tribes at war, which the
Rockefeller heir and Matthiessen
traveling companion took before he
disappeared, rumored to be the vic-
tim of cannibals. [For more on this
mystery, see Journey Into the King-
dom of the Spirits in Smithsonians
March 2014 issue.]
Matthiessens wife of some three
decades, Maria Eckhart, a soft-spoken
woman, off ers me tea and cookies and
he and I settle in at a sturdy wooden
table next to the kitchen. Outside, a
deer pokes its nose into the snow and
stares at us through the dining room
window. Inside, Matthiessen is a tall
blue specterblue sweater, blue eyes,
blue blood. Yale blue.
ecstatic contemplation of our beauti-
ful and inexplicable planet.
And lets not forget Matthiessens
other contribution to American litera-
ture: He founded (with George Plimp-
ton) the legendary Paris Review, which
has nurtured several generations of
literary stars. Matthiessen is a sui ge-
neris giant whose work has spanned
the entire stretch of post-World War
II American literature, yet one whos
moved through it with the stealth
grace of a snow leopard. No bombastic
Maileresque self-promotion or pomp-
ous Franzenian polemics. No wild,
glitterati-strewn Plimptonian parties.
In fact it is in asking him about
his experience in the Yale English
Department that I elicit what turns
out to be a fascinating tale about the
entanglement of postwar American
literature and cold war espionage.
Its mainly espionage historians
who know this, but the Yale English
Department was a hotbed of spies and
future spy masters from the 1930s
to the 50s. Among them William
F. Buckley Jr. and the most notori-
ous spy master in American history,
James Jesus Angleton.
But perhaps the most eff ective in-
telligence operative there was Nor-
man Holmes Pearson, a Le Carr-
esque prof who was a founder of the
wartime OSS and its successor, the
CIA. It was Pearson who recruited
Matthiessen into the Company in
1951, after his graduation, when Mat-
thiessen was living the expatriate
writers life in Paris.
My cover was writing a novel called
Race Rock, Matthiessen recalls. It
was Paris, the height of the espio-
nage world and everybodys coming
through, stolen passports, etc. But my
CIA superior in Paris said my cover as
a novelist was feeble, and at that time
I ran into a man called Doc Humes.
He was running something called the
Paris News Post and he signed me on
as ction editor. I thought if I could
go into an offi ce, that would be a little
bit better cover. But Doc was making
a mess of it; he had a mutiny on his
hands with that magazine. Id gotten a
short story from Terry Southern [the
brilliant comic satirist, later author
of The Magic Christian and the Dr.
Strangelove screenplay] and said Doc,
that story is kind of wasted on your
magazine, lets make our own mag-
azine, just ction for young writers.
After a while he just couldnt handle it
so thats when I remembered this guy
Id gone to [prep] school with in New
York, at St. Bernards, named George
Plimpton.
The rest is literary history. We had
Kerouac, he recalls. We had the rst
English story by Samuel Beckett.
They also had Philip Roth, Adrienne
Rich, Norman Mailerthe whole lot
of postwar literary eminences. The
magazine, which just celebrated its
60th anniversary, has been hailed for
decades for its waves of new talent
and extraordinary writers at work
interviews.
What did you actually do for the
CIA? I ask him.
You know, if I told you Id have to
be taken out and shot, he answers,
laughing. Mostly, he says, it was just
running errands and carrying mes-
sages and false passports between
agents in Paris.
I wanted to know because Id read
allegations about the Paris Review
being founded with CIA money as
part of soft power cold war cultural
outreach.
No, he says, the Paris Review was
not . . . This is a canard Ive always
been trying to settle.
He says the CIA involvement in the
origins of the Paris Review was more
an accident than the result of a delib-
erate cold war strategy.
In any case, Matthiessen says he
It was Paris, the height of the espionage world and e
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