Solution Geneva part 8

Samantha walked back to her hotel alternating between confusion and frustration. If the NSA had really run an experiment like Young's experiment using the Hubble to observe the pattern after a delay, there would have to be a record of the results somewhere. She knew a few scientists at other institutions who had used Hubble time to run observations of the stars. She could contact them to see if they had heard anything.
And even if the NSA had succeeded in running such an experiment, they could never validate the results. There was simply no other way to reproduce the experiment without Hubble-level equipment. There had been previous experiments of this type that had tried various techniques like photographing the diffraction pattern and then using recorded sensor data to reproduce the which-way data of the waveforms passing through the slits. However, it seems obvious that the knowledge of the which-way information could not be transported somehow _back_ in time, or that the quantum effect of the diffraction pattern should somehow _disappear_ after it had already been viewed. Once the which way data were obtained (even if they were not reviewed), then the diffraction pattern could not be visible because the Schrödinger waveforms had already collapsed.
There was at least one interpretation of quantum effects that proposed a wave of causation that moves forward in time, counterbalanced by a wave of reverse causation that moved backward in time to cancel both waves out. In this way, the effect of a choice ahead in time (for example, a diffraction pattern) could be affected by the which-way determination of the observation at the slits behind. Samantha rejected such analysis as artificial. She viewed this type of reasoning as a mathematical construct that needed to be reflected by something in reality.
It was simple enough physics to understand the diffraction pattern. That was basically a classical interpretation of waves. What was strange was not the fact that the diffraction pattern disappears when you know which slit a particle or photon travelled. What was strange was something like self-interference where a wave of light (or even electrons) was beamed through a single slit while the other slit was open. As long as the light or electrons _could_ interfere, they would behave as if they did interfere. When the other slit was closed the diffraction pattern would stop. This behaviour defies any classical interpretation because the mere _possibility_ of interference could produce the result of interference, even though such interference with its nonexistent self was counter intuitive.
At this point Sam had arrived at the Tarhôtel and determined her course of action. She entered her room and used her tablet computer to change her flight itinerary. The first available flight out of Geneva was early in the morning, which should give her a few hours of sleep. She sent an email to her intern, hoping he had access to read his mail.
_Mark,_
_I am afraid that we might have swapped luggage in the taxi and the during rush at the airport. I would be willing to ship your luggage to an address that you send me, or I can hold on to it until you arrive back at the lab. I will be arriving back home much earlier than I planned, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I would like you to ship my luggage (if you have it) to the University, care of Dean Guthrie. The address is on the campus website if you don't know it. I will be glad to reimburse you for the expense out of my travel stipend._
_Sincerely,_
_S. Griffen, Ph.D._
Sam tapped the send button and looked around the hotel room. She determined that she could take a shower to feel better but wouldn't have any clothing to change into. She also had no pajamas and had never slept naked before. She calculated that she wouldn't have any time to shop for clothing in the morning, nor be able to change into those clothes, shower and make it to the airport in time. The best course of action would be to lay out her clothing so it wouldn't get too wrinkled and take a shower. She would have to sleep in her knickers and hope that she would be presentable for the duration until she arrived back home.
Sam looked at the small feeble lock on the luggage and formulated a strange plan that she implemented before she had properly decided how it might end. She had several Kirby grips attached to a piece of cardboard in her satchel. She took one out and fiddled with it in the TSA-approved access port. After a few minutes of struggling, she had unlocked the hasp and opened the luggage. Inside, she found a lot of men's clothing  and a few pairs of shoes. She couldn't find anything that might fit her so she zipped the luggage closed. Something caught her eye so she unzipped the luggage again and took out a small white USB flash drive. She recognised the logo on the flash drive as the same logo on Mark's headphones.
Sam decided that she might want to listen to some of his music and plugged the flash drive into her tablet. A folder explorer popped up and she browsed the list of folder names by swiping. She paused as she spotted a folder called 'Samantha'. Inside that named folder was a list of folders that mirrored the ones she had stored on her lab computer. She frowned and knitted her eyebrows.
She took out the USB flash drive from her tablet and threw it into Mark's luggage. She tried unsuccessfully to lock the hasp. The TSA-approved device was designed to stay open once the bypass had been activated and required the original key to close it. She shrugged and threw the lock into the trash bin under the desk. Maybe the lock was cut off or broke in transit, she reasoned. It was certainly possible.
She undressed to take a shower and found her smells to be unacceptably bad. She had worn her current clothes on the place and during the day-long meetings and through dinner for at a total of at least 36 hours. Taking off her pants she realised that skid marks were present.
She estimated the grodiness factor at 65% plus or minus 5%. After further analysis, she concluded that the perceived grodiness factor pg as a function of the pants object would scale as the square of the observer's sensitivity function S, times the raw grodiness factor gf, plus some small constant c to ensure the function was never zero. Thus:
pg(p) = S(p) * gf + c
She threw her pants into the bathroom bin and once again opened Mark's luggage. She removed a pair of boys' tighties and measured the elastic against her hips. It was far too small but would have to do for the next 18 hours. She took a shower, then set her alarm, and went to sleep. The boys' underwear fit reasonably well with the elastic band slung down low beneath her belly. It bunched up between her legs which was unusual but oddly comforting.