Good day to you all. How do I begin? When I passed into your reality, I could not imagine that I would ever have the opportunity to communicate so easily with so many people. This Internet thing is one of the benefits your continuum instance has over the one from which I came, or at least the locus at which I left it. Yes, the military had such networks, but we civilians never dreamed of having access to such a marvelous device. You should consider yourselves very fortunate, indeed.
My first instinct, after having been offered this ethereal podium, was to continue with the lectures on quantum physics that I had been conducting at the university again, in my own reality. But I have discovered there exist here in your continuum a myriad of talented and well educated scientists who are more than capable of fulfilling that role. Thus, it seemed logical to me to pause and try to decide upon a different focus, some way in which I could contribute to the general good of society in this reality. But what to do? I and my comrades cannot return to the reality whence we came, and neither can we permit ourselves too much contact with others in this reality. In fact, we are prohibited from having normal contact with anyone in this reality. What to do? How to be of the most use? And I must admit I am getting old. But I still need to occupy my mind.
And then I thought of the children.
I will return to the subject of what I decided to do, but first allow me to tell you a little about myself. My Name is Professor Frederic Dubois. I cannot tell you exactly when or where I was born because the place and the time do not exist in your reality. But if my birth were to have happened in your continuum, it would have been in the 1940’s in France. I attended a very prestigious university, a privilege afforded me because of the notoriety of my father–forgive my being vague here, but there are certain things of which I am not permitted to speak. As I was saying, I had a very good education, and with my father’s help and encouragement, I succeeded in attaining a PhD in theoretical physics by the time I was twenty-six years of age. At that time, Viet Nam was only beginning to struggle with internal schisms, and I was awarded a position as professor of physics at one of its universities. It was there I met my wife, Tuyen. I am afraid I am not permitted to say more about her at this time, however. After the onset of hostilities and the beginning of the War of Reunification, as it was known in my reality, I met a young American pilot, a captain by the name of Matthew Vega, who became both a good friend of mine and, later, a general, as well. Matthew–I would refer to him as General Vega, but he does not serve in that capacity in this reality–is one of the comrades of whom I earlier spoke. We arrived here in a most unusual way, and I cannot here speak about that. Again, I offer my sincere apologies. We are not, and must not be, accessible, and it is for that unfortunate reason that I cannot at this time take comments or suggestions from you, my dear readers. It is my hope that what I do here can in some small way compensate for this lack of hospitality.
As to how I arrived in the United States from Viet Nam, well, it makes little difference since that event was, you see, part of my reality and not yours. Suffice it to say that I began teaching physics at the university, and I supplemented my income by working as a consultant for the Douglas-Grumman Corporation, another fixture which does not exist in your reality. Forgive me, it is now also my own reality, but all this quickly becomes very confusing, as I am quite sure you understand. The conveyance which brought me to this new reality must remain a secret for now, but I can tell you there are but a handful of travelers who came with me. These dear comrades of mine have urged me to find an avocation, and their point is well taken. Dear though they may be, all of us realize that we shall soon tire of each other’s company.
Which brings me back to my idea. I hope to use this outlet for the encouragement and stimulation of young minds, to foster the budding scientist, to generate sparks of interest in all things scientific and to fan those sparks into flames. In the pursuit of this endeavor it is my intention to use but a minimum of mathematics. These skills will be taught in the schools, but from where is the inspiration to come? There are teachers who do a good job of this, but they are few and are, for the most part, limited by time and agendas not of their own making. I have no such limitations. I am free to create my own agendas here, and my goal is to make the journey into science an enjoyable one.
Come with me on this voyage. Perhaps, in my struggles to spark new interests, I will also rekindle those I experienced in my own youth.
