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| Dawn over Hundon |
Dawn over Hundon. The sun is skulking below the horizon and will not rise for more than half an hour yet, and well to the right of our neighbour's house. It's incredible how much in life escapes our notice. At this time on a Sunday morning, Ann and Edwin, along with most people in Britain not actually working, still lie abed, yet it's the best bit of the day, and I have it to myself.
Reminded of light, I distract myself by going over old lessons in quantum mechanics. I recorded them some five years ago from a course by David Miller of Stanford, and I've just spotted a typo that no one on the course spotted at the time, including me. Professors of quantum mechanics tell us just to shut up and calculate, because the maths gives us the answers. Yet we can't help but speculate, what lies beneath those equations of Schrődinger? It remains the fundamental mystery of our age: perfect answers with imperfect understanding. Somehow, it is like religion's claims to have perfect answers with imperfect understanding, but unlike religion, it is debated. Is the answer many-worlds, or hidden and unknowable variables, or 'just the way it is' to be accepted without further question like the wave-particle duality of light.
It may lead to lively argument, but – unlike religion – it doesn't lead to cults where one has to accept everything or nothing, or death threats if you deface an image of Bohr. Give me the peace of uncertain science any day, rather than the wars of religious argument.
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