Character Analysis
Nicky and Johnny Renfrew
Nicky and Johnny are the children of John and Marjorie. John feels himself growing distant from Johnny, in part because of his work but also because his son is simply growing up (10.75). By the end of the novel, these two are living with their cousins in the countryside to get away from the worst of the ecological destruction.
Albert Cooper
Albert Cooper is a graduate student at La Jolla who is working with Gordon as part of his studies. As a student, Cooper doesn't like when their experiment goes into unknown territory, preferring things to stay within the standard, predicted model. As Gordon understands it:
To Cooper, describing an experiment was like field-stripping a rifle, each part in its place and as necessary as any other. He was good and he was careful, but he hadn't the experience to go for the throat of a problem. (6.65)
You can hardly blame the guy, though, as he often finds his candidacy caught in the middle of Gordon and Lakin's political feud. As such, he would rather ignore the background noise and focus on his more conventional data, so he can simply get his degree. And he has every reason to be concerned. At one point, Lakin convinces Cooper's candidacy board to fail Cooper due to the spontaneous resonance phenomenon and Cooper's inability to properly account for it. Yeesh, this guy's got it rough.
Heather and James
Heather and James are the Renfrews' oldest friends. Along with Markham, they are Marjorie's dinner guests for the first of her many dinner parties. Later in the story, they lose their jobs.
Jan Markham
Jan is Markham's wife. Unlike her husband, Jan is the quiet sort and typically lets Markham dominate the conversation. But this hushed nature hides the fact that she can be rather adept at reading other people—for instance, she and Catherine Wickham both recognize Peterson's dislike of women, whom he sees as "inferior beings" (24.46). We last see Jan after Markham's death. Shell-shocked, she is calmly packing in preparation to return to California and wait for the truth of Markham's death to finally sink in.
Isaac Lakin
Isaac Lakin is a full professor at the University of California at La Jolla and arguably Gordon's primary antagonist. Lakin feels he owns the nuclear resonance laboratory where Gordon and Cooper work, and he wants to use the odd background noise found in their experiment to cement the renewal of an NSF grant. As such, he coins the term "spontaneous resonance" (8.25) for the effect and wants to push the data through to publication, despite Gordon's protests that they do not properly understand what the data infers. As Gordon sees it:
Lakin liked it here and he wanted to enjoy the luxury of living in a rich man's town. He would hustle to maintain his position. (8.52)
Unlike Gordon, Lakin knows how to play the political games of the scientific community. When Gordon protests that it's too early to publish anything about their data, Lakin practically blackmails him, saying that without the paper in Physics Review Letters he will have little support for Gordon's promotion to tenure (8.46-50). And when it becomes clear that Gordon's association with Saul Shriffer has tarnished the experiment, Lakin publically dismisses his association with it at the colloquium, stating:
''I do not want my name linked with such, such claims. Let Bernstein and Shriffer make what they want—I do not cooperate.'' (18.20)
While playing the political games helps Lakin succeed to a degree, in the end, he does not rise as high as Gordon, who decided to keep his efforts focused on science rather than politics.
Mrs. Bernstein, a.k.a. Gordon's Mom
Mrs. Bernstein is Gordon's mother. A rather large New York City Jewish woman with a beehive hairdo, Mrs. Bernstein is devoted to her family and friends and attempts to keep them confined and defined by the insular world that is her neighborhood. As such, she is completely old school in her ways and thoughts and resists change like a pro.
When we first meet her, she tells Gordon about the Goldbergs buying a place in Miami and how their son went to NYU, showing that she cannot fathom that her son has moved on from his childhood neighborhood to make a new life with new associations in California (8.53). Her resistance to change is even embodied by her beehive hairdo, "a castle of hair that resisted change" (8.72).
It only gets better when she meets Penny, and by better, we mean worse. At their first dinner, Mrs. Bernstein seems content enough when discussing family and friends from New York, but when the conversation switches to literature, and Penny proves she won't back down from an argument, things get heated. Eventually, Mrs. Bernstein leaves, but not before having this telling conversation with Gordon outside:
"You don't know any Jewish girls in California?"
"Come on, Mom."
"I'm not talking about you taking rumba classes or something." She stopped dead. "This is your whole life."
He shrugged. "First time. I'll learn."
"Learn what? To be a something-else?" (8.89-94)
Clearly, for Mrs. Bernstein, the idea of change equates to abandoning who you truly are. It also seems pretty clear that Gordon's mother has more than a passing hand in developing her son's more conventional social side.
Alex and Mitsuoko Kiefer
Alex Kiefer is the head of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. His institute does research on the diatom clouds, and Alex keeps Peterson up-to-date on their findings.
Mitsuoko is Alex's wife. She has a brief affair with Peterson during his stay in California.
Michael Ramsey
Michael Ramsey is a biology professor at La Jolla, and Gordon seeks his help to decipher parts of the message that seem to deal with biochemistry. Initially, Ramsey believes Gordon has received intercepted transmissions from the Department of Defense, and Gordon decides to let him think it's all cloak-and-dagger if it means Ramsey will help (12.102).
Later, though, Ramsey discovers the truth, but he isn't too upset since Gordon's information leads him to some extraordinary discoveries. Through his experiments, Ramsey discovers how deadly the herbicides mentioned in the future transmissions are and helps spare this timeline from suffering similar ecological disasters. Along with Gordon, Ramsey later receives the Enrico Fermi Prize for his work.
Clifford Brock
Clifford Brock is Penny's high school friend (with benefits?) who has recently returned from military service in Vietnam. He visits Penny and Gordon one night and clearly displays signs of post-traumatic stress disorder when he cries and tells them of his experiences in the war (13.83). Gordon believes that Penny and he might be having an affair, but Penny denies his accusation.
Saul Shriffer
Saul Shriffer is an astronomer who has a tendency to let his excitement and emotions lead him to conclusions that data might not support. He imagines that the messages are being sent by an extraterrestrial civilization using these things called tachyons. When Gordon provides a bit of healthy skepticism, though, Saul counters that the man is "blind" (14.98). Clearly, Saul is a foil to Gordon, who, with the scientific method, uses data to promote theories rather than the other way round.
While Gordon is hesitant to jump to any conclusions, he does give Saul the go ahead to go public with part of the message. On the CBS evening news, Saul lets known his belief that the messages come from "a civilization beyond our Earth" (14.156). The very same report also lets slip that the messages were part of Gordon's experiment. This association with Saul's theories makes it difficult for Gordon to have his data taken seriously, and Gordon is even ostracized within his own department as a result.
By the novel's end, Saul eventually becomes "one of the biggest names in science […] at least in the public eye" (46.39). The irony is, of course, that it is Gordon's proper science that elevates Saul to the ranks he lands in.
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Maria Goeppert is a professor at the University of California at La Jolla. After Shriffer goes public with Gordon's data, she asks Gordon if he believes in his results. Gordon answers that he does believe something is out there, and she nods with "a serene confidence" and tells him ''Good. Good'' (16.123).
Later in the novel, she wins a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in physics. In fact, Goeppert Mayer was a real life nuclear physicist working at La Jolla during the time the novel takes place. According to the Nobel folks, her prize motivation was for "discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure." She was the second woman ever to become a Nobel laureate in Physics, the first being Marie Curie.
Jacob Edwards
We aren't sure if Jacob Edwards is a professional wacko or it's simply a hobby, but wacko he is. After Shriffer goes public with Gordon's data, he visits the laboratory to help Gordon solve his problem. Edwards believes that aliens are after the magnetism from Gordon's experiment, and they'll take the sun's magnetism while they are at it. Cooper and Gordon shoo him out of the laboratory, but while Edwards is the first to pay Gordon a visit, he certainly isn't the last.
Catherine Wickham
Catherine Wickham is a theoretical physicist in 1998. Her work combines quantum-mechanical super-symmetry and general relativity with some tachyons thrown in because… why not? In more colloquial terms, her work theorizes the existence of multiple universes, some of which may be closed-off within our own (11.138). Her work provides an important piece to the mathematical puzzle Markham is attempting to solve right before his death.
Personality-wise, Catherine is the conversational equivalent of a straight-shooter. She directly calls Peterson out for stealing her files and for being unable ''to see a woman as anything but a mindless lay'' (24.26). Sometime after Markham's death, Wickham disappears and is not heard from again.
Lady Sarah Lindsay-Stuart-Buttle
Sarah is an upper-class dress designer and Peterson's wife. She once had a very public affair with Prince Andrew in 1985 while Peterson and she were married. Since then, it seems as though Peterson and she have been more-or-less estranged. After Peterson is admitted to the hospital for food poisoning, her only known contact with him is in the form of a letter reminding that she is leaving for Cannes on Friday (32.25). Cold.
When Peterson decides to bug out to his country home and ride out the upcoming end of civilization, he briefly bumps into Sarah at a party she is throwing in their home. Peterson leaves and doesn't take her with him.
Laura
Laura is a bookstore clerk at Bowes and Bowes that Peterson seduces. She eventually comes to London to pursue an acting career and meets Peterson at the restaurant she works out. Peterson is poisoned by the food they serve.
Tulare
Professor Tulare is the chairman of the physics department at La Jolla. He informs Gordon that he has been denied for a merit increase, a small promotion that should be routine. A politician through and through, Tulare keeps his discussion vaguely on the subject of scientific credibility and keeps to anecdotal stories and platitudes.
Claudia Zinnes
Claudia Zinnes is a professor at Columbia and one of Gordon's former teachers. Gordon convinces her to set up an experiment similar to his own in her laboratory in order to confirm the spontaneous resonance affect. Eventually, her experiment is able to confirm Gordon's results. Yay.
Bob Hayes
Robert Hayes is a teenager in Texas. While visiting a book depository, he hears gunshots in the floors above. Running to investigate, he discovers Lee Harvey Oswald taking shots at President Kennedy. Bob intervenes and prevents Oswald from getting off that famous third shot. By doing so, Bob changes the past and sends his world into a future different than any we've known.
Oh, and he was visiting the book depository to look for a publication detailing Gordon's work. So, in a way, Gordon prevented Kennedy's assassination, too.
Marsha Bernstein
Marsha is Gordon's wife in the year 1974. Her maiden name is Gould, meaning that Gordon eventually followed his mother's wishes and married a Jewish girl.