"Yes!" The face at the computer screen had a large grin of satisfaction across it. "Yes, yes, yes, YEEEEESSS!!"

Steve Williams, third year Computer Science student at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, knew that his final project was complete. It would revolutionise the whole world, the whole subject of computing theory and science would be significantly affected. Not only that, Steve knew that he would now be top of his year, and receive the coveted Sahanvir Award for it, as well as funding for any doctoral research project he wanted.

He checked his watch. It was half past five in the morning. He could get the work printed out, and get to his tutor first thing, so as to get ideas on how to write the report. While it was printing, Steve had nothing left to do, so he went to sleep for the three hours before he had to leave for the campus.

Steve turned up at the door to his tutor's office dead on nine o'clock. Knocking at the door, he found that he was already expected. Dr John Andersen invited his star student in, and offered a seat. When he saw the large wad of paper that Steve had brought in, the tutor stood up and poured himself a coffee, and offered a mug to the other.

Steve immediately began to recite the work that he had devoted himself to for the last year. Dr Andersen knew most of it already, it was just a matter of seeing where it ended, but for that he needed to remember the entire line of work that had gone into the final conclusion. After an hour, Steve was ready to reveal what he had finished in the early hours of the morning. He was stood by the easy-wipe board, which was already covered in strange diagrams and labels, shaking with the excitement.

Steve blurted it out and, when he saw the lack of reaction on his tutor's face, became immediately terrified that he had somehow messed up the words in his excitement. He repeated it, careful not too rush it. Again, there was very little reaction from Dr Andersen. In fact, the only noticeable expression was a barely visible smile. It was the kind of proud smile that a father would have when watching a child perform in a play.

This angered Steve and he shouted out, "Why the heel aren't you amazed at this conclusion? This is the biggest thing since Einstein's relativity!"

Dr Andersen took this with the slightest of shrugs, and then he extended the tenuous smile as he sat, stroking his beard. He told Steve to sit down again. He nodded conspiratorially at his student, and then leaned over and said in a whisper: "What makes you think that this is new?"

The apparent lack of shock from Dr Andersen's face earlier was more than made up for by the expression occupying Steve's. Dr Andersen waited a short while before elaborating.

"I admit, your work is good, and much more elegant than what we did in the sixties, but it isn't original. But then, we can't accuse you of plagiarism either, because we never allowed anyone to know of our findings.

"We, " the doctor answered before the next question formed on Steve's lips. "We were a small group of postgraduate students, entering into the new and wonderful field of computer science. We were just going through the final stages of our theses, when someone came up with the idea that you came up with just last year. 'Does information, and therefore the driving power of computers, have sub-elementary particles?'

"Of course, there was all this fun over in the physics labs. Some people were breaking open protons and neutrons, and finding that their theories on quantum particles were correct.

"What myself and five others wanted to work out was whether there existed a kind of quantum theory for information. Then, perhaps, we could make our computers faster by understanding the rules of this quantum information. Computers were so much slower back then."

Steve was exceptionally shocked. He could not believe that this had been done before, and not revealed to anyone. That it had been kept from other scientists was truly remarkable. He asked for a reason why.

"Well, think about it. I know they teach a basic quantum class at school now. A chap called Heisenberg had a lovely little rule for the physical quantum world. You could measure the any one property, such as position, of a quantum particle, but in measuring that property you affect all others, such as momentum, acceleration, et cetera, in some unpredictable fashion. The famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

"We found that quantum information had its own uncertainty principle, analogous to the physical one. We could measure the truthness of a particular piece of information, but not the others, such as its validity, and the amount of information in the piece, at the same time. Unfortunately, unlike in physics where they can leave it all to probability, we cannot in information. We discovered that the properties of the information varied not just depending on who looked at it, but who was in the room.

"We decided to leave the theory to rest, but every so often, a bright student comes up with the same theory, and we use it to measure whether he, or she, should join our forum. You are the tenth member of the forum, the fourth to join since we first started the work. You see, we have opened up the work again, and are now working towards a conclusion.

"We can control information to a moderate degree, and will be able to completely, given time. But we need more ideas about it, and that's why we recruit."

Dr Andersen got up at that point to get another coffee, while Steve merely sat back and mulled over what he had just heard.

"But, if information carries an uncertainty principle, then what you may or may not have discovered could well be false, because your knowledge of information, is in fact another form of information, and is therefore subject to those same rules. Of course, going further, the information," Steve stressed the word, "That you have given me is even more suspect, as it is information based on information about information."

The tutor looked round with a wry grin.

"Aahh! Now you're catching on!"