All great truths begin as blasphemies.
George Bernard Shaw
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There is nothing to read here. The content is over there, to your right.
I may, however, at some point, put something here. Some day. Eventually. No pressure.
light fantastic
"Nothing is more important about the quantum principle than this, that it destroys the concept of the world as ‘sitting out there’, with the observer safely separated from it by a 20 centimeter slab of plateglass. Even to observe so miniscule an object as an electron, he must shatter the glass. He must reach in. He must install his chosen measuring equipment. It is up to him to decide whether he shall measure position or momentum. To install the equipment to measure the one prevents and excludes his installing the equipment to measure the other.
Moreover, the measurement changes the state of the electron. The universe will never afterwards be the same. To describe what has happened, one has to cross out that old word ‘observer’ and put in its place the new word ‘participator’. In some strange sense the universe is a participatory universe."
- J. A. Wheeler, in J. Mehra (ed.), The Physicist’s Conception of Nature, p. 244.
Right. This was going to be where I went into this whole spiel about physics and mathematics as being studies more parallel to the humanities than maybe most of us realize. (And spoken about with greater authority by Rebecca Goldstein in this interview - and it's a good read, honest.) But I'll spare you my inarticulate ravings about it and just say yeah, what she said.
All of this was tangentially brought about by a dream I had last night. Monsters and penguins aside, some shadowy stranger kept reappearing behind me, whispering frantically that I would finish the test only if I could discover the Archimedean point. I was getting pissed off with him, screaming that because I was IN the lab-rat maze, I couldn't get to such a place and the best I could hope for was a peanut butter and honey sandwich.
I know. A piece of cheese would have made more sense.
Still, I woke up unsettled, feeling like I had failed in some way or another. Mr. Wheeler's above statement about the universe being participatory gives me a vague sense of relief - if the universe is not just sitting out there, then there is no Archimedean point from which to solve the puzzle, anyway.
We're all in the maze. Right?
Yeah, I'm not taking anymore sinus medication before bed.. crazy ass blue pill. pffft.
more later.
Moreover, the measurement changes the state of the electron. The universe will never afterwards be the same. To describe what has happened, one has to cross out that old word ‘observer’ and put in its place the new word ‘participator’. In some strange sense the universe is a participatory universe."
- J. A. Wheeler, in J. Mehra (ed.), The Physicist’s Conception of Nature, p. 244.
Right. This was going to be where I went into this whole spiel about physics and mathematics as being studies more parallel to the humanities than maybe most of us realize. (And spoken about with greater authority by Rebecca Goldstein in this interview - and it's a good read, honest.) But I'll spare you my inarticulate ravings about it and just say yeah, what she said.
All of this was tangentially brought about by a dream I had last night. Monsters and penguins aside, some shadowy stranger kept reappearing behind me, whispering frantically that I would finish the test only if I could discover the Archimedean point. I was getting pissed off with him, screaming that because I was IN the lab-rat maze, I couldn't get to such a place and the best I could hope for was a peanut butter and honey sandwich.
I know. A piece of cheese would have made more sense.
Still, I woke up unsettled, feeling like I had failed in some way or another. Mr. Wheeler's above statement about the universe being participatory gives me a vague sense of relief - if the universe is not just sitting out there, then there is no Archimedean point from which to solve the puzzle, anyway.
We're all in the maze. Right?
Yeah, I'm not taking anymore sinus medication before bed.. crazy ass blue pill. pffft.
more later.
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