Waves In Time

Waves In Time

By: Raphael Simon

Late one evening in the darkness, a glow was visible in the working area of the oceanographic institute offices, all the lights were off except for the two fluorescent lights casting beams over a sea of cubicles. The light faded out into what could have been an infinite number of neat rows but the ones at the center were bright and clear standing out like a bacon in the darkness, a young man who snuck into the facility that night sat with his head hunched and contorted stretched out in a position as if to be almost inside of the computer screen he is gazing at with nervous anticipation. The only sound that can be heard is the clatter of the key board at a frantic rate while one leg was pumping up and down and his glass of water next to his mouse pad, ripples were fighting with each other back and forth from the vibration of the two independent sources of motion. You see this seemingly insignificant computer geek is about to launch a program that will literally change the human condition in ways this programmer could not even begin to realize.

It all started with a documentary the programmer; Simon Easting watched about a year ago that explained the complexity of the sperm whale’s ability to manipulate sound. Scientists surmise that this could be an advanced form of communication as well as means of navigating and exploring the world around the massive toothy mammals. Although he was captivated by the 45-minute program he did not pay much credence at first. But he started thinking about something from his past that could help him to understand and quantify what he thought might just be some kind of language.

A few weeks after he made that connection and after many hours of thought on this subject when Simon was at work with his best friend and Coworker Justin Snighter, hanging out trying to avoid management as per their usual daily grind Simon spun around at his cubical and said:

"Hey Justin, "did you watch that documentary I told you about the Sperm Wales? it got me thinking."

Justin, "no I have not yet"

Simon "did you know one whale could communicate with another whale on the other side of the planet?

Justin, “no way! Really?"

Simon, “no I'm serious, they are the loudest animals on the planet they could cook your insides from a hundred yards away using only sound"

Justin, “that is crazy I never knew that.”

Simon, “I know me either, and they have the largest brain in nature and it’s the most complex too."

Then Simon asked Justin, " do you still have that gaming project we made?"

Justin responds, “yea, why? Did you want to start messing with it again?”

Simon answered," I have a theory that I would like to test out, but I would rather test it out before talking about it."

"Sure" Justin said

"But make sure you tell me how it goes, now you have piqued my interest. I will drop it by after work."

The game Simon was referring to could best be described as a way of generating an extreme form of Morse code while utilizing an advanced type of data compression with artificial intelligence. The program along with the homemade receiver/transmitter would take any data i.e., Images, video or sound and compress it down into a short nano second long burst that seemed like a screech mixed with a bassey beep. But when analyzed by their complex receiver would be deciphered back to its original standard source data.

The idea Simon had was about to embark him upon one of the most formative and amazing journeys not only of his life but more importantly of all man and woman kind as a species. Transform the perspective of every woman and man on the planet as well as capture the imaginations of generations of youths who would grow up to carry this torch far into the future for centuries to come. Simon had little knowledge yet on the superiority of sperm whales. The fact that sperm whales are so beyond humanity in wisdom, intelligence and oral history of this planet has an almost basic reason. Imagine if a cave man in modern day NYC could speak with a cave woman in Hong Kong. You see before humans had even discovered language sperm whales were doing this exact thing. Also, a global hierarchy was formed eons ago like a government of sorts where the sperm whales shared the resources and information equally. Laws were enacted that every new member of their society be taught the history of the world. They had their struggles though; they were not always the dominant species on the globe. There was a time when great battles took place in the deep between sperm whales and a ruthless and massive foe humans refer to as Megalodon. These large fish were the equivalent of army tanks of the prehistoric seas. They were not completely devoid of intelligence and intellect either however their mental Prowess paled in comparison to that of the sperm whale. The sperm whale's main weapon was its mind and its ability to bring crushing sound waves to bear against the blood lust of their main enemies. But that’s a story for another day.

After work that day if you could call what Simon did at the office work, he sat in his car parked in his overcrowded parking lot at the condo complex that was home to him and his girlfriend. Simon sat contemplating talking to his girlfriend about his recent inspiration that to this point he had not vocalized to anyone. He didn't want to seem crazy or like he had finally had a mental break and any minute now he would be in the corner chewing on red Crayola crayons. After thinking for a while, he decided that he would not speak to her just yet about it and would wait for Justin to stop by in the parking lot so he could grab the equipment and a motel room was a better venue for this work.

He came to this conclusion just as Justin pulled into the only open spot in the congested parking lot, they moved the equipment from the trunk to the back of Simon's jeep and Justin drove away as Simon backed out.

Simon started work almost as soon as the do not disturb sign was hung on the door. It was as if he intuitively knew what modifications needed to be made in order to make the system fit its new intended role, he needed to grab a few things but after a few hours of work he was nearly ready for the first test.

Simon got back to the hotel room after going to a local electronics supply store and a home theater store and after some tweaks he placed his newly modified version of the transmitter and receiver in the bathtub, you see Simon had a theory that the way the sound reverberated through the water had an important aspect in the data compression. Simon placed the waterproof version of the transmitter and receiver that he had just made in the water and switched on all the components he ran a beta test, and everything was working well.

Now Simon downloaded sperm whale music and played it while the receiver picked it up in the bathtub water. As the pixels started to illuminate on his monitor, he could hardly believe what he was seeing. It was the most moving thing he had ever experienced; he could feel his heartbeat jumping in his chest, his fingers were alive with electric tingling. He was right all along! A tear started to form in the corner of his eye. What he was seeing could only be described as love itself. Simon instantly knew what it was, he was seeing one individual expressing love and admiration to another individual in a way that felt like sunshine warming your skin on a summer day. Sometimes other individuals would come in and reinforce the magical conversation taking place. It seemed like dozens of Whales were speaking but mainly one particular whale to the other and the information was being relayed with images the whales had seen years ago along with words and video clips of amazing things like the birth of a baby all of this was compressed by the whales themselves and decompressed by Simon’s new discovery. It is as if each tone and beep the whales make contained terabytes of information in the form of audio and visual that played a virtual reality movie. Simon could only experience this in a single basic dimension on his lap top screen, but it was still profoundly moving. Now Simon had found a way for humans to understand just a small portion of the original conversation. As he sat in the hotel room moved to his sole crying with joy, he started to think he needed to make contact with a real live sperm whale. The only thing is how exactly he would go about it.

The oceanographic institute has underwater listening devices installed off the coast that were designed to listen to ocean life. Those listening devices could be reconfigured to transmit sound and also listen for any response. It will be an instance in time that will freeze and solidify from the fluid motion that time itself takes as it flows past each of us. It will harden like a diamond that will pass the test of time like other great moments that came before it throughout history. But few of these moments freeze the name of a completely unknown person but here it was Simon Easting has done more for the human condition than almost any other single individual throughout time. He created a conduit between the hubris that is mankind to the truly great intellects on our planet. These giants can teach us how-to live-in harmony with each other and our planet. They can teach us how to travel the stars, they can tell us how the pyramids were built. And to think all of this time they wanted for us to come to them when they could have wiped us off the planet. Their wisdom is beyond measure because they give a verbal history of the earth to all new whales, and they can relay this information in a matter of hours. Most importantly they teach each other, and they now can teach us love and humility.