Schrödinger's Ball
Page 21
Although they acknowledged that much of Heisenberg’s work was accurate, Einstein and Schrödinger never embraced the totality of quantum uncertainty. In fact, it drove them nuts. Einstein muttered his oft-misinterpreted “God does not play dice with the universe.” Not to be outdone, Schrödinger produced an objection guaranteed to be even more grossly misunderstood, deriving yet another popular smash from Heisenberg’s big hit.
In 1935, attempting to prove that there was still something missing from quantum mechanics, Schrödinger created his Cat. To illustrate that the nature of reality really wasn’t a slave to indeterminacy and human observation, he put together a thought experiment with a device with which quantum uncertainty would have to have real-life consequences. He asked us to imagine a box:
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases where quantum physics rebels against common sense. For example, consider a cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat). In the device is a Geiger counter with a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of one hour only one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none. If the decay happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The wave function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
See? said Schrödinger. Now, that’s ridiculous. Only a ninny would think that the cat existed in a state of nonaliveness and nondeadness and aliveness and deadness until the box was opened. Clearly, we need to knuckle down and—
The world, it turned out, was full of ninnies. And that may not be a bad thing. At least, not a bad thing for anyone besides Erwin Schrödinger, who allegedly said in his later years that he wished he’d “never met that cat.” As good as Schrödinger was at explaining things, as vivid and accurate as his allegory is, he never quite realized that what survives and propagates is the story itself, not what the story’s about.
A college professor of mine, the polymathic Daniel C. Dennett, has often pointed out that what we are, the engine of our consciousness, is stories. To paraphrase one of his neater constructs, we are the ape that told the story of the storytelling ape. Certainly, stories mean something, but the meaning can change in useful and important ways (or in harmful and trivial ways). We’re all wired up to understand, enjoy, and interpret stories. To most of us there’s less of a story involved in rules and equations, and that fact is why most people don’t sit around campfires and recite scary formulae at one another. That’s also why the Bible is still a hot seller, while “Papa Ishmael’s List of Things God Wants Us to Do” is lost somewhere in the remainders bin of history.
Still, the real Dr. Schrödinger probably didn’t go to his grave tortured by his Cat and what it had done—to him it was merely a passing annoyance in his fascinating and brilliant career. The weird misconceptions probably didn’t really bother him all that much.
However, if he had even suspected what a large number of people all believing the same misconception could do …
for Jeanne certainly
Acknowledgments
GETTING IT WRONG TOOK A LOT OF HELP.
My early readers: Michael Bernard, Peter Sagal, and above all my wife, Jeanne Simpson. Jeanne heard the first few pages on our first date, and this, coupled with the fact that there was a second date, speaks volumes about her. My agent, Scott Mendel, served as a reader, critic, editor, fan, and friend.
I realize that when authors lavish praise on the editors who selected and shaped their work, in a way they’re really just complimenting themselves. I’d like to thank the stunningly brilliant Stephanie Higgs and her astoundingly ingenious executive editor in chief, Daniel Menaker, at Random House. I’d also like to thank Karen Fink in advance for the fine publicity work that led to all the sales, press, and prestigious awards.
Kent Osbourne drew that wonderful Rube Goldberg cartoon, just when I was at the point where I’d almost given up on the idea. Michael Rizzo at ICM was an early reader and ardent supporter, even though he represents me for Things That Are Not Books. Russell Frost designed the extremely attractive schrodingersball.com.
My eternal gratitude also goes to Mo Rocca, the Felber clan, the Simpsons (neither Jessica- nor O.J.- nor Homer-related), my dear friends at Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, the Bunkdance Film Festival, and, for their extraordinary support, the Lindsay Milligan Society.
But most of all, I must acknowledge the novelist Edith Layton, aka “Edith Felber,” aka “Mom.” Watching her craft her first novels at our kitchen table as three school-age children screamed, snacked, spilled, and clamored all around her taught me the invaluable lesson that the real trick to writing a book is writing. Until you have a book.
About the Author
ADAM FELBER writes and performs for screens of all sizes and resolutions, performs improv and sketch comedy in venues around the country, and can be heard regularly on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me and occasionally on This American Life. His TV credits include The Apprentice, Cameron Diaz’s MTV travel show Trippin, PBS’s Arthur and Wishbone, and Smoking Gun TV, and he has taught humor writing at Princeton. He has had screenplays optioned and articles published, and his political-satire blog, “Fanatical Apathy” (www.felbers.net/fa), has been entertaining visitors since 2002. A native New Yorker and graduate of Tufts University, Felber lives in Hollywood with his wife and cat.
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