Preface

An open notebook on a dark table, both pages covered in drawings of lines, nodes and crossings like an unknown alphabet, a pen in the gutter.

Some things can’t be explained with a formula. They can only be lived.

This book is a story. With real people who make mistakes, get scared, fall in love, and make choices that determine more than just their own fate.

Behind it stands a question that has haunted me for years: what if the thing we call divine is an engineering problem? One we haven’t found the tools for yet — because we didn’t know it could be posed.

Maybe you’ll think I’m fantasizing. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe — and this is the most uncomfortable option — I’m right, but I can’t prove it yet. A scientist with an unprovable hypothesis is the worst thing that can happen to a scientist; and I, unfortunately, ended up in that position — which is what made me sit down and write this book.