“The year is 1977. Dr Teddie Edwards, on sabbatical from the University of Strathclyde, is working at the Creep and Tribology division of the National Engineering Laboratory in East Kilbride, using their Cray-1 computer to model nucleate boiling in thin liquid layers.
One night, she has a vivid dream. She dreams that her consciousness is simultaneously expanding in two dimensions of scale, the microscopic and the macroscopic. At one and the same time she is able to perceive – to feel, to taste to be – the roiling mass of molecules, atoms and subatomic particles which occupy her waking hours: and the full expanse of the solar system, the galaxy, the entire universe, all encapsulated as one vast system, unified, complete, and at peace on every scale.
Waking, sweating and parched, the nylon static of a hotel bedroom crackling through his long blond hair, she reaches for her guitar, and, dazed by the echoes of her vision, strums four chords.