‘Schrodinger,’ he said. ‘Ψ is the wave function.’
‘It looks like a vase,’ I said. ‘On a plinth. Or like the staff of Osiris. The pinecone. Does it have a cone fundamental?’
‘No,’ said Overson. But he was in denial. ‘Psi, in Greek, or Ψ, is the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet. It has a numerical value of 700. The origins of the letter are completely uncertain, and it may or may not have been part of the Phoenician alphabet. Early on it looked like a chicken foot. But not now. Now it’s curved and more beautiful. It was continued into the Algiz rune of the Elder Futhark. There it’s a chicken foot, again. In quantum physics it’s always a wave function. But it can denote the paranormal, as well. In a completely different discipline.’
‘Your symbol is a paranormal symbol?’ I said.
‘Yes, but that’s a different constituency entirely,’ said Overson. ‘I mean, it can also represent the rare nucleotide pseudouridilic acid, if you’re really being a stickler. That’s biochemistry. Or, in Astronomy, it represents the planet Neptune.’
‘Why Neptune?’ I said.
‘As in the trident?’ said Yorke.
‘Triple spear. You use it to fight off negativity,’ said Overson. ‘But in physics you just use it to get the slightest sense of where you might find the thing, if there was a thing, at all. I mean, a light thing. A particle. Or an atomie, if you’re Solete.’
‘So the spell summons the thing, if there is a thing to summon,’ I said. ‘What if there isn’t?’
‘If you trap the thing in a box, a one-dimensional box, then you find the quant,’ said Land. ‘But you need a box. Otherwise, no.’
‘The box in Solete’s room,’ I said. ‘It was empty, but he wrote my name on the lid.’
‘Well,’ said Overson. ‘There you are!’
‘He was trapping the thing, if it could be trapped?’ I said. ‘But perhaps it couldn’t. And how do you tell?’
Oh! said Overson. It was quite difficult to tell. Anything at all. The quant was not entirely the thing. Or the particle was not the quant. And you have to go up or down a staircase. You can’t linger between the steps. So, this is true for a light thing in a box. It can only be there or there. You need a confined space, if not an actual box.
‘But you can linger between the steps,’ I said. ‘Can’t you? On the staircase, I mean, you pause, one foot aloft, and you wonder – should I go back. Or forward?’
‘A photon is not a ball,’ said Land. ‘It is a thing, and light is quantised, and a photon is not and never shall be a neat little ball of light.’
‘At one level,’ said Overson. ‘And really, at the most significant level, none of this makes any sense. At all.’
*
Anthony and I shook our heads politely, as if to say, we were sure it did really. But they weren’t cast down anyway.
‘Sense is relative,’ said Land.
‘The antiphotonists are far too worried about these things. They want to ban the word photon altogether. It is too old. On the base of plain ageism and for other more tenable reasons, they are intrinsically opposed. Radiation is not constituted of particles, that’s absurd too, they say,’ said Overson.
‘It’s just another form of extremism,’ said Land.
‘But what, actually, is Light made of?’ said Anthony. ‘Or, failing that, what would it be appropriate to refer to, when speaking about Light?’
‘Einstein spent fifty years thinking about this stuff and realised he still couldn’t answer the question: “What are light quanta?” He added that people who think they know what they are, are optimistic, but foolish,’ said Land.
‘And the speed of light is not even constant,’ said Overson.
‘It’s been speeding up, and now it’s started to slow down,’ said Land.
‘What happens when it slows down?’ said Anthony.
‘Nothing to you,’ said Overson.
Then the screen changed and did this –
Then I realised that light was made of quanta things, and each thing quanta was shaped like this –
I saw the Ψ dust shining in the Ψ light. For all the sterility of the room, the Ψ dust swirled and shone. So beautiful, so Ψ. And the Ψ was also the Ψ of Osiris, and the Ψ of the Pope and the Ψ of Bacchus. And the middle prong extended until it formed a pinecone.
Of course, I shivered. The pineal cone of inner light!
Anthony was unseeing and he looked through the Ψ dust and yet he saw nothing of the Ψ. I felt disappointed and then I saw the dust was hovering around his head, as if it was emanating Ψ within him. Around him the Ψ. And Overson looked at me and cocked his head to one side, as if to say,
You have seen the Ψ.
*
‘You have no idea where the Field Guide might be?’ Anthony was saying. ‘None at all?’
‘In the double slit experiment,’ said Overson, quite calmly, ‘there are always two possibilities. The photons go through both available slits, and so there are always two worlds, if you are a photon.’
‘Two possibilities is fine,’ said Anthony. ‘At the moment, this thing could be anywhere.’
‘But according to the way of logical trivium, you could equally go one of three ways, if you want,’ said Overson.
‘I could?’ said Anthony. ‘I doubt that.’
‘I mean, in general. Philosophically. The mythical numbers are never even, are they? 3, 5, 7. They are odd. The trinity. The spear. The trivium.’
‘Which is what?’ I said.
‘Three paths cohere into one,’ said Overson, smiling happily. ‘It’s the classical route to knowledge. But there’s always the option to reverse it and develop something else – entirely.’
I was left staring at him, in a certain amount of wonder. The room whirred with mechanistic fervour, as if the particle smasher and the time inverter wanted to goad the priests into a confession. The hum was in my head, it was considerable. As the hum got louder, the photons, maligned and even, to some, unreal, were being divided through two slits as usual and then suddenly they went through not two slits but three . . . The double slit experiment was transformed, and became the triple slit, and photons did not merely go two ways and through two slits but now and suddenly Reality divided into THREE.
The photon trinity was among us and each event in time had not two but three possibilities –
But all three were part of the same sole possibility.
*
As we left Land and Overson I saw them nodding at me. Overson had one last piece of advice. I saw him sidling towards me. He said, ‘You might consider it as a microcosm, instead.’
‘Consider what?’ I asked. I was even furious. Everything was asymmetrical. It was completely outrageous!
‘The Field Guide,’ he said, patiently. He put out his hand.
‘I’d like to be of more help, if I can.’
‘But can you?’ I said.
‘Think of it as a thing, not a book. That was what I was trying to say.’
‘But a book is a thing,’ I said.
‘I simply mean, detach yourself from the notion of a perfect text. Try to find something altogether more – Ψ.’
‘Are you speaking on the basis of knowledge?’ I said. ‘Anyway, how would something be more – Ψ?’
Overson laughed, as if this was a foolish question, and walked away.
I felt the breeze shivering along the bank, tousling the hedgerows. Birds moved above, measuring circular paths of flight. Round and round – I was adamant and even fairly furious. Phenomena! Madness! An empty box. Things vanish. They don’t fall apart at all, that was all wrong. Wrong! They vanish instead. That’s the shock. They are, then they are not. An empty box!
*
Anthony and I were standing under the shadow of the quantum slab. It was hard to know what to say. Then, Anthony glanced at his watch.
‘I have to go back to the college,’ he said. ‘Another student. I’m late.’
I smiled and nodded. What el
se could I do? He was always coming and going, this shivering elusive man! I was hoping for some crucial revelation but he just said, ‘At least the mist has receded, that’s good thing.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
*
As I watched him go, I remembered that I was standing at the point where the Cherwell is engulfed by the Isis. This perturbed me as well. Why did the Isis drink the Cherwell and not the other way round? Why didn’t they become a further river, called Acheron, or the New Nile, or Themis? Besides, why did the Ψ look like three rivers flowing into one? Or one river dividing into three? Where was the third river? Dust photons swirled and then I didn’t know what to do. The water was shining in the sunlight. People were even rowing little boats, calling out to each other, their voices drifting on the air. Someone nearly dropped a punt pole, and laughed joyfully. I was beside the river with the traffic thrumming past me in its ordinary reassuring way. There were joggers passing me, looking healthy and purposeful. They were relieved, the sun had dispersed the mist and now the day was salvaged. At least for them!
I thought for a moment that I would just keep walking around the rivers and around the city until something occurred to me. But what would occur to me? The sun shone, as if some fetid branch of fate was trying to convince me it was all OK. I didn’t believe the symbolic urgings of the weather. I kept thinking, surely if I just try one more time, I’ll manage to solve the thing. I was completely convinced for a moment that I could still find this single final thing, and even the Field Guide, if I just made more of an effort. I had to find something, and put it in the box. Solete had left me alluring emptiness – and of course, what else do you do with emptiness? You fill it!
Just one thing. I only had to be resolute, or at least altogether more Ψ. With this in mind, I started walking along the banks of the Isis. Around me were clouds of dust, each particle illuminated by the sun, like buzzing particles of fire. They were falling from the skies, fiery dust, and I put up my hands to waft them away. I walked upstream for a while, as the weir curdled the river and roared, and further along as the cows splashed in the shallows and turned their faces towards me, and the sun boiled beneath the horizon, staining the sky red, and now the clouds were bruised and purple. Long slow shadows seeped across the fields. The city succumbed to dusk. I had reached a familiar boat. The deceptively neat sign – and there before me was – Cassavetes.
‘Ah,’ I said. I wasn’t entirely pleased to see her. ‘You again!’
‘You have to stop,’ she said. She was brandishing a boathook in a way that made me quite nervous. ‘Just stop now! Remember the distinction!’
‘What distinction?’
Without clarifying her terms in any way at all, Cassavetes slapped me round the face with the boathook and I fell into the freezing river.
It seemed astoundingly inhospitable. My cheek was burning with pain as I fell and then I got lashed with gelid water. As I descended into the depths, I tried to cry out, ‘WHY?’ But I was too cold to speak and besides my mouth was full of oily scum. Deep down, and the depths were so turgid, I couldn’t see at all, though I opened my eyes and tried to look. Then it was so impossibly cold that I just wanted to get to the surface as quickly as possible, so I started kicking my legs frantically, and struggling upwards, as if I was climbing a ladder, and the gelid water bore down on me and seemed to draw me down again, so I kicked harder and harder –
I emerged into the sunlight, wheezing and coughing up river phlegm. My vision blurred, I saw Cassavetes looming above me. Because there was no other way out of the river, I dragged myself onto the mooring rope and fell shivering across the deck of her boat.
‘Why the hell did you just throw me in the river?’ I said, when I could speak again.
She was drenched in shadows, an unfathomable expression in her shadowed eyes. As I struggled to my feet I was trying to tell her that it wasn’t my fault. Any of it. The premature death of Hypatia, the confusion of the present. The shadows that were spreading. I wanted to tell her, but I was coughing too hard.
‘You needed a ducking, you fool,’ she said. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’
‘I’ve been – er – reading,’ I said, dragging my weary body upright. Oily water pouring from my clothes, pooling on the deck. ‘And meeting experts on reality. And, er, drinking tea.’
‘Hopeless! Solete would be appalled, the way you’ve conducted yourself!’
‘That’s totally unfair! I’m simply trying to understand –’
‘There is nothing to understand! You need to snap out of it! Get a fucking grip! Or, lose your grip on foolish things!’
‘Well, which?’ I said. Shivering and about to throw up. ‘Which is it? Grip or not grip?’
‘Stop gripping the wrong things! You have the wrong grip on the wrong things! Cast it all off! You’ll send yourself mad, if you try to eat everything. Stop eating the universe!’
‘I’m not eating the universe,’ I said. It was madness, to be debating this, while shuddering in a pool of murky river water. Still, if I was going mad, I assumed I should keep moving, because there was no point going mad while being berated for my descent into madness by someone who was half-mad herself. So I jumped off the boat, and nearly fell back into the river again, tore my hands and knees scrambling onto the side and even as Cassavetes called me back I started running as fast as I could. I will not be mad! I cried out. I was sodden and much assailed by the cold and I was shivering, and spitting out protestations to the air, and a few people did look vaguely askance, but still, they were polite and they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. They tactfully averted their gaze as I passed, dripping and fulminating and occasionally saying, ‘The druid! She’s a druid! And yet! I must not succumb!’
*
Dark figures everywhere. Dusty old shadows of the gargoyles above. The towers, casting a long line of blackness. The grimy shadow-stained rivers. Onwards, to the shadowy ocean. Darkness made the city even stranger. Things seemed partial, there were intermissions, or I was shuddering with the cold and kept fading out. Despite all that, I thought I had to get back to Mesopotamia. I had to get out of the cold. I couldn’t go back to my house – too far. I couldn’t go to the college because the gargoyles leered – that was completely illogical. I passed Folly Bridge where Roger Bacon once sat in his tower, manipulating shadows, and then I saw the silhouette of Aristotle Hall so I thought of Locke and his dreams of white rooms, the celestial beyond, I almost succumbed to such enticing blankness. I heard the splash of oars on the river, and drifted into alertness again, I saw people moving alongside me, and I nodded towards them, even as they recoiled. I raved and squeaked around the edge of Aristotle Meadow, looking up at high blank windows, experiencing tremors of uncertainty, while I thought the fabric of the ordinary might disperse and reveal – something deep and ancient and formidable –
I shook that off again!
*
Nightingale Tower was pointing to the sky. I ran over to the door and hammered for admission. Only the porter’s voice, asking what the hell I wanted.
‘Depths of the night,’ he said, informatively.
‘Yes! Precisely!’ I said. ‘As soon as you see – Yorke – will you tell him? I’m going to Mesopotamia. Can’t wait, or I’ll freeze! Will you pass the message on?’
I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I started running along the old henge, the humming all below me, around me. I got to the Parkland, coughing violently. I saw people moving under the trees, embodied memories, shadow-forms. I heard the rustling of old tired voices, or it was the wind-blown leaves skittering in circles on the path. The bridge arched its slippery back, and I almost fell, I was so damp and frozen and my hands had seized up entirely. I was so sad about the dead and I missed Solete. I missed my father more. I wanted to wail lamentations to the darkness. The black river below, the light fading entirely and when I passed into the shadows of the trees, I could barely see at all. I expected any moment that something, someone, wou
ld come, I was on the island, and I felt tendril roots below me, tripping me, so I stumbled, lost my balance, landed hard. Birds fluttering their wings above me, cascading into the trees. Again, I dragged myself up and thought, there’s nothing to worry about! For some reason, you are wet, but that’s not so bad. Soon, you’ll be warm. At least dry. I ran into Solete’s house and turned on all the lights. Shadows receding, like snakes coiling into the undergrowth. A flicker of something, I dismissed it, a flicker of consciousness, dream matter, wafting, shadow strands. In the living room I found a coat and a blanket, and then I walked around the house, trying to warm myself up, shuddering and moaning.
I was disoriented by the cold, and by much else besides, but it seemed as if I had descended into a limbo state, something that was neither sanity nor madness, reality nor unreality. Something further along, or beyond entirely. I kept trying to get back to one side, or the other. And yet, I was adrift, I was far beyond the consoling parameters of normality. But that was an illusion, I thought. The biggest one of all! Reality – whatever the hell is around you – doesn’t fall into neat little categories – Light/Shadow. Right/Wrong. Good/Evil. Dead/Alive. Reality is aligned somehow with Light but you don’t know what light is and no one else does either. Whatever they pretend! However many equations they thrust upon you! So therefore reality is multiple and even still unknowable – and you seek to bind it and confine it at your peril. And yet, you keep trying! You want the thing, the single thing! The grail! And yet, reality is myriad and legion. And – you are destined to fail.
It has failed and yet I am glad.
*
Even as I wondered at – everything – I became aware that Robert Grosseteste was sitting beside me, wearing one of his great clerical gowns and nodding in sympathy. Then I was relieved, because if this was the final region of insanity and the great shadow then it was kindly and quite familiar. Really Grosseteste spoke in the most beautiful and gentle voice, and he explained that later I would see the constellations of the lesser realm. I was trying to ask him if he minded about being so constitutionally and entirely wrong, so much of the time, and perhaps always, but he ignored me and stood up. He even walked away and so I hurried along to keep up with him, as he went along the corridor, towards the pinecone. The swoosh of clerical robes, on the slate slabs.
A Field Guide to Reality Page 13