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that in Alicia’s view this was shamefully not always the case. She tried to encourage that openness among her students, along with a sense of fun and adventure also not common among her profession. She fancied her office a breeding ground for young talent, with an odd kaleidoscope of thick felt-tip penned equations covering one white wall, a reward to creativity in students. Not just any old brilliance, but daring and imagination were the criteria for this privilege.
    ‘Write your favourite equation up – one that’s meaningful to you,’ she’d say .
    And if the offer baffled, clearly they were not, at least yet, of the chosen. Some needed encouragement not to write shyly, but in large and bold characters, and this was her spur to those she felt may benefit from such a declaration. Many were even given repeated opportunities. Similarly , there was evidence of the mass of fondness for the same equations. E = mc 2 was written several times over, in different colours and scripts. As was also E 8  E 8 – string theory, an d x  p ≥ h /2 – the uncertainty principle. Indeed, Einstein’s oft-quoted formula had rather poetically found itself in one instance at the centre of the wall scrawled largest of all in multiple colours, a spectrum of imagination and potential she sought to foster, mirroring the brightest of young students of her science.
    Among the plethora of wan, consumptive scientists occupying the floor that was the physics department, Alicia lived a relative aloneness she relished. The irony of her criticism of science was that her inner rebel dictated others would never meet her standard anyway. Far from wan herself, Alicia boasted a style reminiscent of the philosophy or religious studies departments with a head of wildly curling red hair and a fashion sense of gypsy proportions. Despite the staid environment of the university, it was as any other in the Western world a place of diversity, as indeed universities had always been; the oddest mixture of conservative and liberal. Anything goes.
    ‘You know, that’s not at all sound theory. Just guess work at this point , I really feel.’
    Dryden Cooper leant in the door of Alicia’s office. He was Head of Programmes in the physics department and had come to respect Alicia’s teaching ability. He was one of the few scientists on the floor who was friendly with her, one other even refusing to enter the lift at the same time as her and preferring to wait for another. Bollocks to you, she would say to herself, even as she would voice a determined and polite greeting, and always making them be the one that had to wait for the next lift. Not my bloody issue.
    ‘Oh and you would know. Don’t be so arrogant! You should be looking to every new development from such auspicious sources as Alain Aspect and his team. They’re not beneath any of us. See what happens, I say. And see what the international commentary is. You might be surprised. He’s not without respect and esteem among the World’s best.’
    ‘I’m not being arrogant. You’re making huge leaps of faith. No one in their right mind will think Bell’s theorem has gone west yet. The Paris trials are only one set of experiments. And anyway they’re French – can’t trust ’em. And someone’s got to live in the real world, Alicia – we can’t all be travelling through time like a Tardis now, can we?’
    They both grinned and Alicia pulled a face. She was used to Dryden’s teasing.
    ‘It’s not about travelling through time. It’s about communication; influence, synchronicity, and even those words don’t describe it. Look, it’s an equation okay, like any other hitherto unfathomable piece of physics we now take for granted, just some simple – well, no it’s not simple – but anyway it’s just maths, numbers on a page. And those numbers deserve our consideration, our response, whether respectful or not.’
    ‘You don’t believe that for a second. You don’t care about the