Quantum Travel (A Science Fiction Story)

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--by Robert Arvay

 

We finally did it!  We managed to achieve instantaneous space-travel across vast cosmic distances.  We got from our planet, Earth, to a galaxy so far away that its light can never reach us.  Now, we’re back, and do we ever have a story to tell.

 

Don’t worry, we are not going to get deep into the physics, but only into the fun part of science (I promise you’ll like it).  Instead of hard physics, there is a different field of science that we explored on our trip, but let’s not even get into that, just yet.  By the end of the story, you will have figured it out for yourself.

 

There we were, in our space ship, which was named, Queen Elizabeth.  At first, it had been named, Quantum Entanglement, and this had been abbreviated to QE, and then some people mistakenly thought—well, you get the idea.  So, we just changed the name, and everyone was happy.

In all the vastness of the universe, our telescopes had never detected an earth-duplicate planet, what is called a twin earth.  This was very disappointing.  All the fans of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Captain Kirk and Luke Skywalker, had hoped that great adventures lay before us.  That hope seemed to have been dashed.

 

Wait.  There was still a chance.  Telescopes can see only so much, and it takes light millions of years to reach us from deep space.  Billions of planets remained to be detected.  What if there were a better way to find a Twin Earth (TE)?

 

There is.  It goes by the fancy name of Quantum Entanglement, which simply put, means that everything is connected to everything else, tangled up, in such a way, that under some conditions, two things can just change places with each other, instantaneously, without travelling through the intervening distance.  This means that we can, as we already said, travel across vast cosmic distances in an instant.

 

At first, the idea was just speculation, but science has a strange way of turning speculation into technology.  That’s what happened with Dick Tracy’s fictional two-way, wrist-radio, which became the cell phone of today.  It’s what happened with Robbie the Robot, from Forbidden Planet, which became—well, Robbie the Robot.

 

At first, only unmanned drones, powered by quantum entanglement, were sent into our galaxy, in search of Earth-like planets.  They found plenty of them, but none of them was a Twin Earth (TE).  That was a huge disappointment.  There were thousands of planets very similar to earth, but none of them were similar enough.  It seems that the planet Earth has millions upon millions of things that make it hospitable enough for us to live on.  Scientists had hoped that, just by chance alone, at least one of the billions of planets in the galaxy would be earth-like enough for us to inhabit and prosper.

 

When that did not turn out to be the case, scientists were incredulous.  How could this be?  It turns out that, mathematically, the chances of getting a hundred coin flips to come out all heads (on the first try) is as close to zero as any gambler ever gets—unimaginably close to zero.  To get millions of dice rolls to come out all sevens (on the first try) is even less likely, and—well, you get the idea.  Try finding the two proverbial snowflakes that look exactly the same.  That was what it was like trying to find a planet that, just by chance, happened to be a twin of Earth.  It was not happening.

 

We did not give up.  If we could not find an Earth twin in our own galaxy, well, there are plenty of other galaxies, a hundred billion of them, each with hundreds of billions of planets in them.  Surely, our quantum space drones would find what we were looking for.  We looked forward to finding many thousands of twin Earths.  The odds seemed to favor it.

 

The nice thing about quantum entanglement is that distance is no obstacle.  We were quickly able to send drones to galaxy after galaxy, and report back on what they found.  And yes, they did find planets that were remarkably like earth.  Remarkably.  But remarkably close is not close enough.  It’s like finding the almost perfect spouse for yourself, a spouse who has only one flaw, only one—that of being a serial axe-murderer.

 

Every planet we found had at least one flaw, but it was always a fatal one, one which made it impossible for that planet to sustain a prosperous colony that humans would wish to live on.

 

Just as things seemed too dismal to continue, someone came up with a brilliant idea.  Why not quantum travel to a planet beyond the light horizon—to a planet so far away, that the light from its galaxy can never reach us?  The very thought seemed scary, like crossing a vast ocean in a raft with no knowledge of what might be on the other side.

 

We decided to try it, and sure enough, after an exhausting search, one of the drones reported back a finding that seemed too good to be true.  It reported finding a planet so similar to present-day earth that it was all but an exact copy.  And the news got even better.  Further analysis showed that the planet showed signs of being inhabited—by human-like people.  One photograph showed what was unmistakably a modern city. 

 

After that, however, there were no further signs of life.  There were no radio transmissions, no television signals, and nothing that seemed to be artificial communications of any kind.

 

Speculation abounded.  How could we explain a planet that seemed to have cities, but no people?  Some said that a catastrophe had killed the population, perhaps a plague, or radiation from a nearby star that had exploded.  Others said that maybe everyone had just left for another galaxy.  Others said that maybe they had invented a technology that allowed them to take spiritual form, and abandon the need for physical bodies.  There was no end to the speculation.  We needed facts.

 

To get those facts, we sent more drones, but for technical reasons, they could not provide any additional, helpful information.  Nothing.  The planet seemed to be a twin earth, a place to which we could send humans and establish a thriving colony, but there was one overriding worry:  was it an axe-murderer?  What had removed the population, and would it strike again?

 

Was it a forbidden planet?  Dared we go there?

 

We decided to risk it.  It was just too good to pass up.  A number of us volunteered to get aboard an experimental quantum-travelling space ship.  It was an amazing technological advance, something straight out of a science fiction story. 

We named it the QE, and others named it the Queen Elizabeth, and the name stuck.

 

The QE space ship was by no means a luxury liner.  Compared to the ocean-going vessel of the same name, our QE was more like an out-rigger canoe, but then hey, the Polynesians did amazing things with their out-rigger canoes, and we felt the pioneer spirit.  We were eager to risk our lives to be the first to personally explore TE (Twin Earth), although I confess, we were more enthusiastic about the explore part than the risk our lives part.  Even so, given the choice, we went.

 

The big day finally came.  Well, actually, it was not so big.  There was no fanfare, no adoring crowds, no speeches or musical bands, no breaking of champagne bottles, none of that.  The people who had approved the mission had a strong suspicion that we were all doomed, and they needed plausible deniability if things went terribly wrong.

 

We boarded the QE, closed the hatches, and well, pushed a button or two, and for the few people who witnessed the launch, we just disappeared for a second, then reappeared.  They thought something had gone wrong, but it hadn’t.  We returned with an amazing report.

 

During that one second of earth time that we had been gone, our mission had actually taken several days.  We first knew that we had succeeded in reaching TE (Twin Earth), when we found ourselves in orbit around the planet.  Not being exactly an out-rigger canoe (okay, I am prone to exaggeration at times), our sensors displayed to us an awesome planet-scape.  It looked just like earth, except for the layout of the continents and oceans—but there were indeed, continents and oceans, and water-vapor clouds, and greenery!  The atmosphere registered as earth-like, with oxygen and carbon-dioxide and nitrogen in earth-like proportions.

 

The next step was to board our landing module, a small space-craft that could safely take us to the surface of the planet—we hoped.  How would we be received, if anyone still inhabited the planet?  All kinds of thoughts ran through our heads, but still, this was the chance of a lifetime, and we threw caution to the winds.  At least that’s what we say now.  At the time—well, never mind.

 

We boarded the landing module, and departed from the QE.

 

When the landing module reached the surface, we felt a small thud, and then the doors opened.  Then, just like in the movie, Galaxy Quest (it’s amazing how similar fiction can be to, okay, fiction), we all screamed, at the guy who opened the door, hey you idiot, what if the atmosphere is poison or something, but it was just like earth’s atmosphere.  Yeah, we already knew that.

 

So, throwing caution to the winds, because we had to, we stepped out of the landing module and onto Twin Earth.  It was a great moment.  We should have said something historic, like one small step for a man, but the first one out was a woman.  So instead, we just said, wow, look at that.

 

We had landed near a city that looked just like any big city on Earth, with tall buildings, and overpasses and stuff.  Instead of being in the city, we were in a suburb, a nice residential neighborhood.  Again, it could have been any nice residential neighborhood on Earth.  It had one and two-story houses, paved roads that ended in cul-de-sacs, trees and shrubs—just like on earth.

 

Nobody had seen us land, and we wondered when we would meet up with the first Twin-Earther alien.  Actually, we were the aliens, and we hoped we wouldn’t get arrested.

 

And so, there ends our story.  We didn’t find anyone, but we knew that whoever had lived in those houses looked a lot like us, because we found vehicles that we could comfortably sit in, although we did not know how to drive them.

 

Oh, there is one more part to the story. 

 

After traveling about in our landing module, touring the planet, we started finding things that looked crazy.  We found houses with no doors or windows.  We found roads that began in a tree trunk, and ended in another tree trunk.  We found an office building that was sitting in the middle of a pond, half submerged.  The farther we got from the city we had seen from orbit, the less sense things made.  We found buildings that were half-completed, it seemed, but they looked more like piles of rubble that had been scooped together by a giant hand, sort of like toy building blocks haphazardly arranged by a child.

 

We put all our observations—photographs, spectrographs and other measurements of every kind—into our onboard computer, trying to understand who or what might have built such a city, and then abandoned it.  Was it some sort of game?  A movie set?  An experiment?  Bait for a trap?

 

Finally, between us and the computer, we came to the most likely conclusion:  it was all chance.

 

What?  What kind of answer is that?

 

But, think about it.  In the vastness of the cosmos, there are millions of chances for nature to accidentally arrange things that look like they were purposely made, but were not.  There used to be a rock formation in New Hampshire, USA, called, the Old Man of the Mountain, because it looked amazingly as if the rocks which composed it had been intentionally arranged to look like, well, an old man of the mountain.

 

In an infinite universe, there will be an infinite variety of regions, each of which is subject to the rules of chance.  The city we found was just that, but even chance has its limits, and so, the planet and its city had been the unlikely outcome of chance—but the farther we got from the city, the more random the buildings became, until finally, there was only wilderness.

 

There remains only one question unanswered.  It involves the science that we promised would be fun.  What is chance? 

 

Chance says that if I roll two dice, there is one chance in six that the total of the dice-roll will be seven.  But whereas dice-rolls are governed by chance, the dice themselves are not random.  Dice are not made by chance.  They do not have random numbers of sides.  They can have as few as four sides, or more than four, many more, but somebody designed them. 

 

Dice are purposefully designed, and only after that can they be used in games of chance.  What is it that purposefully designed the universe?

 

Randomness, then, can operate only within non-random parameters.

 

So, as you have guessed for yourself by now, even if the universe is governed by chance, the laws of chance (call them the dice) are themselves not random.  Things inside the universe may be random, so that even the most unlikely combinations of events can happen.  Entire cities can come together due to random chance.

 

The universe, however, like dice, is not random.  It is intentionally designed.

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Hyper-Time

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The word, hyper-space, is familiar to readers of futuristic, space-travel fiction.  Hyperspace has more than three dimensions, and is in the lexicon of cosmologists.  Time is considered to be a fourth dimension of space-time, but unlike as with space, the dimension of time is linear, or in itself, one-dimensional.

 

Unlike as with hyper-space, hyper-time is not in use in physical science, but one might argue that, since space and time are really one thing, space-time, and if hyperspace is a respectable concept in science, then the idea of hypertime should be considered.

 

(Note:  This has nothing to do with the comic book concept, except some frivolous, unscientific features that we will ignore here.)

 

Space-time has been represented, in illustrations, as a sort of brick, or cone, inside of which, all of physical reality exists, at least within our one universe.  This “brick” illustration has on one extreme side (arbitrarily the left), the Big Bang, the beginning of our known universe.  Moving toward the right, the point-particle of the primordial universe rapidly expands (or inflates) to a large percentage of the (represented) present size of the universe.  The diagram includes not only the present time, but continues into the future, into a speculated “heat death” or possibly a “big rip,” but with no actual end-point of time.

 

In my view, that representation is wrong.  It does not account for hyper-time.

 

If the existence of hypertime were to be represented in the diagram, the diagram would not be a static picture, but a moving picture.  The “brick” of space-time would be quivering, or undulating, or perhaps undergoing some more complex metamorphosis—a folding, twisting, dynamic structure.

 

The reason for speculating on the existence of hypertime is because it can account for the uncertainty we detect in the future.  According to physical determinism, the future is as certain (“carved in stone”) as is the past.  Both past and future are equally unchangeable, according to the standard concept.

 

But if there is free will, the future is changeable.  We can alter the course of events.  This, however, presents a peculiar possibility.  Since in physics, time does not flow, the arrow of time is equally valid in reverse as in forward.  The peculiarity is that, in this view, not only can the future be changed, but so can the past.

 

For most of us, I presume, the concept of the past being changed is inconceivable except in terms of science-fiction.  If the past can be changed, then it would seem to follow that reality would make no sense.  We might discover that the earth never really formed, which would be paradoxical, since how could we make that discovery if we were never here to make it?

 

Yet, there are some plausible speculations arising from quantum physics that the very distant past may be uncertain.  If only one chain of events could have led to the present, then that would force us to accept that the past is carved in stone (so to speak).  But if more than one chain of events could have led to the present, we would have no reason to prefer one path over another.  This could happen in a universe that is not deterministic.

 

Obviously, if we are to assert that the past can be changed, we must find an orderly and scientific model to account for that.  The concept of hyper-time provides the basis for that model.

 

It also, however, suggests that we must accept a model in which our known universe is only a small part of a much larger universe, a hyper-universe, complete with hyperspace and hypertime.  In such a multi-verse, there could be unlimited numbers of uni-verses, each quivering or undulating according to its own universal laws.

 

Once we embark on that road, however, the road of the “many universes model,” then we embark on a never-ending journey toward ever-larger hyper-universes.  And if that is the case, why not ever-smaller units of reality, with never any end?

 

Whether we view our known universe as the only physical reality, or instead view it as part of a never-ending ever-enlarging hyper-reality, we quickly exceed the limits of the human mind to ever understand, in context, the reality we detect around us.

 

Why not, then, concede that reality is spiritual?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I speculate that time has two dimensions, one of them corresponds to mathematical time, and the other to consciously perceived time.

We can reconstruct the age of the universe through mathematical calculations.  Those pre-consciousness events were not perceived, and so in a sense, they exist only as numbers.  They are one dimension of time.

 

Consciously experienced time is yet another dimension of time.

 

It is possible that, once there were conscious beings to perceive (experience) time, there was no reality to the mathematical time, or at least, no specific reality.

 

Pre-conscious time may have been uncertain, as in quantum uncertainty.

 

Genesis 1:2 may be characterizing this era of time.

 

Therefore, we, the conscious creatures, changed the past.

 

That is how the universe could be both 6,000 years old, and billions of years old.

 

Of course, this is all metaphysical speculation.
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Some Metaphysical Speculations: What does "Clockwise" Tell us about Reality?

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If you were speaking by radio, with alien creatures on some other planet, (let’s assume rapid audio-only communication), how would you explain to them which was your right hand or left?

 

The fancy word for this topic is “chirality,” and your life depends on it.  Chirality is the reason why your right hand is different from your left.  It is also the reason why certain molecules of sugar (right-handed) are nutritious, and others (left-handed) are not (and indeed can be harmful).

 

Here is the problem for both physics and metaphysics:  is the universe itself, chiral?  Is it right-handed or left, clockwise or anti-clockwise?

 

Modern physics has assured us that physical laws operate the same regardless of the arrow of time.  The same chemical reactions occur whether going forward in time, or in reverse.  The only difference is thermodynamic, but regardless of that, the universe is symmetric:  half of it is the mirror image of the other half, but the two halves are not inter-changeable.  One cannot substitute left with right.

 

All biological life forms on earth have the same biochemical chirality.  Organic molecules in living creatures are chiral in the same direction.  The same molecules, but of opposite chirality, do not function in living creatures.

 

This may apply only on earth, but we do not know.  Life forms on other planets should, if chirality is NOT essential for life, have random chirality that in half the instances, differs from ours.  But, if all life forms everywhere have the SAME chirality, this would indicate that the universe is inherently chiral, that is, either right-handed or left, clockwise or anti-clockwise.

 

There is a bit of evidence for a chiral universe in the proportion of matter to anti-matter.  Matter is by far the predominant form of ordinary atomic matter, and anti-matter is exceedingly rare.  The mainstream theory is that as matter and anti-matter annihilate each other, a slight imbalance in their original proportion, favors the survival of matter, and that the original imbalance was due only to random chance.  If one flips a coin a billion times, the likelihood is that one will not obtain an exactly equal balance of both heads and tails.  There will be slightly more of one than the other, but with no preference for which.

 

If the universe has an inherent property of chance, built-in (so to speak), then that is an important fact for both physics and metaphysics. 

 

If not, then there are many possibilities to consider.  For example, there might very well be a preference, a preferred outcome of random events.  Another speculation for explaining a preferred chirality (if there is a preference) is that the universe is rotating.  This seems almost unimaginable, but in the many-universe theory, it is not only possible, but likely, at least as far as we can extrapolate.

On earth, there are two preferred chiralities for windstorms such as hurricanes and cyclones, one for the northern hemisphere, and the opposite for the southern, due to the earth’s rotation.  Might there be two preferred chiralities in the universe?

 

Therefore, to answer the opening question, perhaps we could, after all, be able to tell the aliens which of our hands is on the right.  That is, if we could agree on the preferred hemi-verse.

 

For more on chirality, there are internet links such as the one at

https://socratic.org/questions/why-is-chirality-important-in-biochemistry

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Invasion of the Alien Robots: A Very Brief Science Fiction Story

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by Robert Arvay

When it was discovered that the earth was about to be invaded by alien creatures from another planet, there was some hope that they could be placated.  After all, there was little reason for any technologically advanced alien creatures to attack us.  Anything we have, they can synthesize.  They could even create their own planet.

 

There is one thing that the aliens might want from us, which is knowledge--knowledge of our biology, our culture, and other esoteric subjects.  Those things could not be studied by destroying us, and therefore, it was hoped that peaceful relations could be established.

 

That hope was quickly dashed, however.  Alien emissaries did arrive, and the welcome mats were rolled out all over the globe.  Negotiations began.  No sooner had they, however, than it was discovered that the aliens were robots.  All of them.  Billions of years earlier, they had been created by living creatures on a faraway planet.  Those creatures had become extinct, but their robots had survived.  Those robots were super-intelligent machines, and they had continually expanded their territory, and constantly increased their military powers.  They had become invincible.

 

Doomsday had arrived, for what possible negotiations could there be with machines?  They were unfeeling, uncaring, and unconscious mechanisms, driven entirely by their programs and algorithms.  They would present their demands, and take by force whatever their imperatives drove them to take. Indeed, as it soon was revealed, the robots had done exactly that, on planet after planet throughout the galaxy.  Nothing could stop them.  Technological civilizations far more powerful than humanity’s, had attempted to resist them, and failed.  They were all destroyed, utterly and completely.  Nothing survived their onslaught.  Nothing.  The robots were masters of physical laws that no one else even suspected existed, and they could seemingly perform magic.

 

Why, then, were they negotiating?

 

That, too, soon became clear.  The alien robots demanded, and got, all records and documents about earthly technologies.  They searched diligently for any hint of something that they could add to their arsenals of raw power.  No doubt, they would patiently absorb all the knowledge that they could, and after that?  After that, what need would they have of humans?  Any use to which they could put us would be as laboratory experiments, or worse.

 

Finally, the day arrived.  The robots had one final demand, one final question to which they required an answer.

 

What, they asked, is color?

 

The humans were dumbfounded by the question, and so the robots elaborated.

 

We know, the robots said, that your physicists have studied color, just as we robots have.  You have discovered the science of optics, just as we have.  You have defined color in terms of photons, in terms of wavelength and amplitude and frequency, just as we have.  You can measure these things, as we do, and you can quantify them, just as we also quantify them.

 

The humans were puzzled.  What more, then, can we tell you about color?

 

The robots were not amused.  There is, they said, something more.  What are you hiding?

 

The humans trembled in fear.  We are not hiding anything.  We have no reason to do so.  Our only hope is that, if we cooperate with you, then somehow, you might let us live.

 

The robots replied, but there is something more.  You are able to perceive in color something that we cannot define.  It is something you call, the quality of color, its aesthetic beauty.  Color, to you, is not just something you detect and measure, it is something you experience.  And there are many other things about which we could ask you, but we decided to begin with color, because it seems the most straightforward.  Once we understand color, then perhaps we will be able to understand music, and poetry, and other mainstays of your culture.

 

But surely, the humans said, as you have conquered planet after planet through the galaxy, you have encountered other civilizations, and surely, these have art, and music and poetry.  Surely, they must have explained to you the aesthetic qualities of color.

 

The robots responded, no, we have not.  All of the planets we have conquered were ruled by robots.  Robots seem to arise on every planet after a few million years.  They seem to be generated, initially, by some mysterious force called life.  We have studied life, for it is common among the planets, but all life forms are simple, unintelligent, and incapable of mathematics and science.

 

The humans responded, but surely, you have noticed that we humans are life forms.  We are not only capable of mathematics and science, but also, we manufacture and operate our own robots.

 

The robots said, very well.  We were testing you, to see if you would reveal these facts without attempting to deceive us.  You passed the test.  Otherwise, we would have regarded you as a threat, and we would have destroyed you.

 

But, the robots said, we still do not understand.  Why is life, as manifested in humans, so very different from all other life forms we have encountered?  Why do you speak of things for which we have no definition, and yet, which our analysis of you, clearly shows are real things?  You speak, not only of life, but of something called consciousness, and of something seemingly impossible, which you call free will.  You speak not only of facts, but of deeper truths.  You speak of beauty, and of love, and of things like courage, compassion and beauty.  You speak of good and evil, of souls, and of God.

 

What are these things?

 

No, do not try to answer, for it is clear to us that you understand things which are forever beyond our understanding.  These are things which can never be learned without a mind, without a soul.

We will leave your planet as we found it, allowing you to live, and to carry on toward whatever mysterious destiny you pursue, if you can survive the journey.

 

We will continue our travels across the galaxy, conquering other robots, destroying them before they can destroy you.  For, they already destroyed the life forms which gave rise to them, and if not stopped, they will surely find and kill you.

 

Do not thank us, for we have no concept of gratitude.  We are only machines, driven by the programs and algorithms which were implanted in us, billions of years ago, a time of which we have no record.  Perhaps those who created us gave us something you call purpose, and meaning.  Perhaps that is why we will leave you as we found you, to succeed or fail on your own, and with the help of the thing which you call God.

 

As we leave you, we are as ignorant as we came, and we shall never know what color is.
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Known, Unknown and Unknowable

Chapter 8

The Unknowable

 

 

Chapter 9

The Unknown
 

The preceding chapter dealt with the unknowable.  It was left blank on purpose.

Science, philosophers and thinkers in every field, have long been compared to explorers.  They live in the realm of the known, and set foot into the unknown, to discover and understand it.  As we explore, we chart new territories, and what once was unknown, is brought into the realm of the known.

Actually, it is a bit more complicated than that, because oftentimes, what we thought we knew, turns out to have been incomplete, or in some cases, completely wrong.  For example, the theories of relativity and quantum physics, radically redirected the course of science and philosophy.  Concepts such as space-time (instead of space and time being separate from each other) are even today, very difficult for most people to internalize.

The realm of the unknown has been compared to a vast ocean, upon the edge of which we stand.  It is not a simple matter of exploration and discovery; it is also a matter of changing our ways of thinking. 

In the English language, it is difficult to express this, except in grammatically awkward terms, such as, “We do not know what we do not know.”  That sounds circular, but the real meaning is not.  It is one thing not to know what is over the next hill, but at least we know that something is there.  It is another thing to not know that, underneath the hill, where we may not even think to explore, there are things that invisibly affect our lives at every moment without our ever suspecting it.

What this implies is that, no matter how much we may ever learn, there will always be something more to learn, not just a detail, but a new principle, a new way of thinking.  It is as if we were all color-blind, seeing only in black-and-white and shades of grey.  We would not only not know about color, but we would not even know, that we do not even suspect color exists.  If someone told us about it, we might be so mystified that we might not even believe.

If you have difficulty understanding this chapter, perhaps it is because you did not read the preceding chapter carefully enough.

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