-- 149 --

into the surface of a beach ball. We see, therefore, that when a one-dimensional sphere collapses and is replaced by a zero-
dimensional sphere, the topology of the original doughnut, that is, its fundamental shape, is drastically altered, In the context of the
curled-up spatial dimensions, the space-tearing progression of Figure 13.3 would result in the universe depicted in Figure 8.8
evolving into that depicted in Figure 8.7.

Although this is a lower-dimensional analogy, it captures the essential features of what Morrison and I foresaw for the second half
of Strominger's story. After the collapse of a three-dimensional sphere inside a Calabi-Yau space, it seemed to us that space could
tear and subsequently repair itself by growing a two-dimensional sphere, leading to far more drastic changes in topology than
Witten and we had found in our earlier work (discussed in Chapter 11). In this way, one Calabi-Yau shape could, in essence,
transform itself into a completely different Calabi-Yau shape-much like the doughnut transforming into the beach ball in Figure
13.3—while string physics remained perfectly well behaved. Although a picture was starting to emerge, we knew that there were
significant aspects that we would need to work out before we could establish that our second half of the story did not introduce any
singularities—that is, pernicious and physically unacceptable consequences. We each went home that evening with the tentative
elation that we were sitting on a major new insight.

A Flurry of E-Mail

The next morning I received an e-mail from Strominger asking me for any comments or reactions to his paper. He mentioned that
"it should tie in somehow with your work with Aspinwall and Morrison," because, as it turned out, he too had been exploring a
possible connection to the phenomenon of topology change. I immediately sent him an e-mail describing the rough outline
Morrison and I had come up with. When he responded, it was clear that his level of excitement matched what Morrison and I had
been riding since the preceding day.

During the next few days a continuous stream of e-mail messages circulated between the three of us as we sought feverishly to put
quantitative rigor behind our idea of drastic space-tearing topology change. Slowly but surely, all the details fell into place. By the
following Wednesday, a week after Strominger posted his initial insight, we had a draft of a joint paper spelling out the dramatic
new transformation of the spatial fabric that can follow the collapse of a three-dimensional sphere.

Strominger was scheduled to give a seminar at Harvard the next day, and so left Santa Barbara in the early morning. We agreed
that Morrison and I would continue to fine-tune the paper and then submit it to the electronic archive that evening. By 11:45 P.M.,
we had checked and rechecked our calculations and everything seemed to hang together perfectly. And so, we electronically
submitted our paper and headed out of the physics building. As Morrison and I walked toward my car (I was going to drive him to
the house he had rented for the term) our discussion turned to one of devil's advocacy, in which we imagined the harshest criticisms
that someone determined not to accept our results might level. As we drove out of the parking lot and left the campus, we realized
that although our arguments were strong and convincing, they were not thoroughly airtight. Neither of us felt that there was any
real chance that our work was wrong, but we did recognize that the strength of our claims and the particular wording we had
chosen at a few points in the paper might leave the ideas open to rancorous debate, potentially obscuring the importance of the
results. We agreed that it might have been better had we written the paper in a somewhat lower key, underplaying the depth of the
claims, and allowing the physics community to judge the paper on its merits, rather than possibly reacting to the form of its
presentation.

As we drove on, Morrison reminded me that under the rules of the electronic archive we could revise our paper until 2 A.M., when
it would then be released for public Internet access. I immediately turned the car around and we drove back to the physics building,
retrieved our initial submission, and set to work on toning down the prose. Thankfully, it was quite easy to do. A few word changes
in critical paragraphs softened the edge of our claims without compromising the technical content. Within an hour, we resubmitted
the paper, and agreed not to talk about it at all during the drive to Morrison's house.

By early the next afternoon it was evident that the response to our paper was enthusiastic. Among the many e-mail responses was
one from Plesser, who gave us one of the highest compliments one physicist can give another by declaring, "I wish that I had
thought of that!" Notwithstanding our fears the previous night, we had convinced the string theory community that not only can the
fabric of space undergo the mild tears discovered earlier (Chapter 11), but that far more drastic rips, roughly illustrated by Figure
13.3, can occur as well.

Returning to Black Holes and Elementary Particles

What does this have to do with black holes and elementary particles? A lot. To see this, we must ask ourselves the same question
we posed in Chapter 11. What are the observable physical consequences of such tears in the fabric of space? For flop transitions, as