Time Off

Chapter Twelve

"Hey, I've got an idea," shared uncle Juan. "You think that time will be different between here and that place in the UK, right?"

"Si," replied Javier as Angel also nodded in agreement.

"So maybe the gravity is different. I mean, you say that this is the basis of red shift, so it means the space is stretched which is just like gravity, right?"

"I suppose so, tio. What are you thinking?"

"You could set up a gravimetric experiment, but you only need to do it here in Rio Grande."

The three of them had flown in that morning and settled into Juan's flat which was a third floor penthouse in a modest looking building. But it had a huge rooftop patio with views of the ocean, which was only a block away. His building was modest but by comparison, it was among the best in town. Unlike other places in Patagonia, which were tourist destinations, Rio Grande was a diverse working town of sheep ranching, electronic assembly, and fishing tourism. There was also a satellite campus of the university of Buenos Aires serving Patagonia and it was this particular fact that made Rio Grande well suited as the location for a small but strategic astronomical and atmospheric research facility. 

It was a barren, windswept  tundra with unkind winters but rather pleasant, mild summers. Javier was overjoyed to step onto the tarmac of the tiny airport on a balmy summer morning, his senses defying his memories of being blasted with cold air and snow while trotting, near blind, over to the terminal building. With the precautions he had now observed in places like Denver or Chicago, with special infrastructure and procedures to de-ice the planes in cold conditions, he wondered how was it possible that a place like "Rio", as they referred to it jokingly, was able to avoid the global spotlight due to plane crashes on take-off. He mentioned it to Juan who had pondered the same question, but had pursued and obtained his answer. "No one comes here in the winter," Juan explained. "If they did, these planes would be dropping like flies. In the winter the planes are as light as feathers. Almost no tourists and not much cargo."

But this was the summer and the height of the tourist season. Juan was practically a celebrity in the town and knew where to go to treat his favorite nephew and the lovely but brilliant Mexicana to the best that Patagonia had to offer. They dined on fresh oceangoing brown trout and coveted sea bass, along with Argentine wine, while discussing Juan's idea in depth.

"If gravity is affected enough, then you should see a difference in weight between the time when we are at the point behind the earth and when we are not. I don't know when that is but I'm sure you guys figured it out."

Angel responded. "It changes seasonally. Like now for instance, five a.m. is the most rarified and five p.m. the least," she explained. "It's a great idea Juan. But what kind of measurement equipment do we need?"

"Tio, it's really worth a try. What about something even simpler like barometric data? The detailed database is probably already there."

"Aye muchacho! How did you get so smart. You must be related to me, hahaha," boasted Juan. "Not only is the detailed database already there, but I am the guy that collects all that data. And honestly I never thought it was of any use. You have the complication that pressure is changing constantly. So if you are always comparing measurements twelve hours apart, you will see some natural variation that creates a lot of noise in your data."

"If we use many years of data, maybe we can see something. How long has the station been operating?"

"The observatory has been running since the mid nineties but the weather data has been collected at the airport for much longer, maybe since the seventies. Let's have a look tomorrow when we go set up your clocks."