Beyond the Edge of the Universe with Bob and Eus (Part II)

Previous Episode: Beyond the Edge of the Universe with Bob and Eus (Part I)

In our previous episode we discovered that hunots, the inhabitants of the anti-universe, have been pilfering our lost and forgettable things for eons. I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, to find myself on top of a mountain of missing socks after a rather violent spin cycle at the local laundry. But this was my first journey to the anti-universe, how could anyone suspect a portal to the other world lay behind the glass doors of the “Bubbles n’ Beads” coin-op laundry?

The first piece of this puzzle is found in Newton, Iowa. In 1948, the Maytag Company opened their Plant Number Two in Newton. In a small corner of this modern industrial building, Dr. Eric Vitterman toiled relentlessly in the Maytag R&D laboratory. He placed the finishing touches on the intricate mechanisms that would forever free the American housewife from the drudgery of the weekly wash. In a few months, the first Maytag automatic washers rolled onto the loading dock at Plant Number Two and the rest is wash n’ dry history. Unknown to anyone but Dr. Vitterman, these washers would also serve another unworldly purpose. 

During WWII, Dr. Vitterman worked with the famous rocket scientist Dr. von Braun at Peenemünde, Germany. After the war, von Braun and his scientists were brought to Huntsville, Alabama, to help kick start America’s nascent rocket program. Dr. Vitterman was the one exception. A deep rivalry had developed between Braun and Vitterman during the war years as both men dreamed of space exploration but had very different ideas for how to accomplish this lofty goal. A mutual attraction for Helga Opel, a young blonde and buxom rocket technician, may have added some fuel to this fire but those rumors remain unconfirmed.

The American military wisely recognized the friction between these two competing geniuses and decided it was best to separate them if there was to be harmony in Huntsville. While Von Braun and his boys built rockets in Alabama, Dr. Vitterman was sent off to improve America’s booming commercial industry in Newton, Iowa. Of course, von Braun’s efforts eventually enabled Neil Armstrong to place his foot on the moon. Incredibly, Dr. Vitterman went beyond this small step for man and took a giant leap to the anti-universe. Unfortunately the latter feat is known to only a few missing Maytag repairmen and most recently, me.

Even in his early days at Peenemünde, Vitterman believed von Braun rockets to be a clumsy brute force method for escaping the gravitational shackles of earth. A brilliant physicist, Vitterman had worked under Dr. Werner Heisenberg before his transfer to the rocket facility on the Baltic Sea. Heisenberg in those days, lead Hitler’s atomic bomb project which fortunately diminished in popularity after he mistakenly calculated that it would take several tons of fissionable uranium to build a bomb.

Unlike von Braun, Vitterman found in Heisenberg a kindred spirit. After long days at the atomic bomb factory, Vitterman and Heisenberg often relaxed and talked about the possibility space travel fueled with prodigious quantities of beer and schnapps. They realized that two major hurdles existed for man to make any significant voyage to the depths of the universe. The first was Albert Einstein’s “Theory of Special Relativity” which sets some pesky limits on speed and time travel. The second was Heisenberg’s own “Uncertainty Principle.” Heisenberg’s principle, a cornerstone of modern physics, roughly states that you cannot know the both the position and momentum of something exactly. In other words, if you loan the family car to your teenager, it is impossible to know with any certainty where your errant offspring is or how recklessly fast they are driving. Hey, all this rocket science isn’t that hard to figure!

Anyway, the evening after Heisenberg’s flawed calculation on the atomic bomb, Werner and Eric retired to the local beer garden to drown their sorrows. The Führer would not be happy with this news and it would be rough sledding at the big bomb works. Helga Opel, who at that time served beer, sat down with her dejected customers. They were the highlight of her evening shift and she had an undeniable crush on the dashing Dr. Vitterman. Werner took a long pull on his beer, looked across the table at Eric and Helga, then Helga, then Helga’s ample Teutonic cleavage. Her bosoms rose from her lederhosen as giant bubbles in a water-submersed atomic pile.

“Ah-ha!” Werner exclaimed, “That’s it! I have the answer! Man CAN travel to the depths of the universe and….BEYOND!”

He quickly sketched the outline and equations for a simple device on a bar napkin and passed it to a perplexed Dr. Vitterman, “It is all so simple, take this with you. My days may be numbered here, go off to Dr. von Braun at Peenemünde and continue my important work!”

Eric glanced at the napkin, ‘Why of course! It’s so simple, so brilliant!”

“I call it the Heisenberg Compensator!” Werner declared.

Helga, not understanding these words or the breakthrough physics on the napkin, could sense at least the gravity of the situation. She clutched Eric’s arm and cried, “Wherever you go, Helga follows!”

(To be continued…)

Cheers,

Colonel Possum