SUNGLASSES AND ROCKETS Part 1 : New Moon

DR. MASTERTON'S THEORY OF PERSONAL RESONANCE

Nobody would have imagined that behind the eye-catching, heart-shaped frame holding those dark lenses there stood a revolutionary theory about measuring the grade of emotional affinity between people. Nor would they have figured the countless hours of arduous experimentation; but, according to what Dr. Masterton had told us, innumerable journals and four years of exhaustive research had been necessary before such a light prototype was achieved.

It seems appropriate to give a brief overview so that the reader might get an idea about how such cutting edge technology, fruit of the invention of one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, that of Professor Moses Masterton, had come about.

In September 1995, volume 67, number 11 of Applied Physics Letters—pages 1582-1586—there appeared an article entitled "The Photoacoustic Effect in the Analysis of the Thermal Properties of Living Organisms," by Moses Masterton and Kevin Wolff. The abstract gave a concise explanation of the so-called photoacoustic effect: "When a beam of pulsating light is directed on a solid or semi-solid body in a closed chamber, changes in air pressure are created within the chamber; this is due to the variations in the material's temperature as it releases the energy that it initially absorbed in the form of light. The changes in pressure give rise to an acoustic signal: the photoacoustic effect."

The article went on to mention one of the applications of the effect in question: "The photoacoustic effect is the basis for a spectroscopic technique—a technique that uses different types of light—that facilitates the study of solid and semi-solid matter: "the photoacoustic." The photoacoustic signal depends on the optical, thermal, and geometrical parameters of the sample; that is, it yields information with respect to such properties."

Masterton and Wolff's article discussed spectroscopic techniques for measuring the thermal properties of the organs of live animals—mice—based in part on the "Theory of Photoacoustic Effect" developed in 1975 by Allan Rosencwaig and Allen Gersho of Bell Laboratories.

Our article went almost unnoticed—Dr. Masterton was to inform us later, during one of our sessions. In fact, it was too boring, he lamented. But the residual effects of light incidence...That was what really interested me! he was quick to clarify, brimming with enthusiasm.

By "residual effects" Moses Masterton referred to the notable changes in a mouse's behavior once it had been exposed to various kinds of pulsating light. His then research partner, Dr. Kevin Wolff, apparently had not foreseen the possible consequences of such effects; satisfied with the publication of the results of his work, he returned to his peaceful professorship in Biophysics at Cambridge University, England.

However, for a scientist like Moses Masterton—restless, impulsive, and very inclined to obey the dictates of intuition—to stop researching after having discovered the residual effects of light exposure would be as clever as not cashing a blank check.

During the entire year of 1996, the inquisitive scientist continued the investigation—among many others—by himself. By December of that same year, his findings took him much further than the mere photoacoustic and the so-called residual effects. Now he was experimenting with mice, rats, and cats, and, instead of using lasers as a light source he used natural resources; that is, other members of the respective group of animals. On being asked what exactly did he mean by natural resources, the doctor responded, very satisfied, almost laughingly, and as if admiring his own genius: any living organism emits light, but it is an infra-red light, invisible to the human eye... And then he immediately clarified: any given object with barely even a degree of temperature emits infra-red light. Naturally, infra-red light is much less energetic than visible light.

Basically, what the doctor did was analyze one individual's behavior in the presence of another. Both functioned in turn as sources of infra-red light. In other words, the doctor measured the emotional response of one individual before the energetic stimulus of another. He had devised the sensors for such complicated measurements with the help of his friends at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the famous M.I.T.