I asked my friend Bernie about quantum physics this afternoon. He’s an actually aeronautical engineer but I was sure he’d have some idea of how it worked. He gave me an enthusiastic lecture on the topic; it was as though he had been waiting for someone to ask. The forty-minute spill sounded like the incoherent ramblings of a madman, but I nodded approvingly at regular intervals throughout. Other than the articles and prepositions I understood just a handful of words: waves, clouds, and fields. I imagined a breathtaking landscape, but I fear my thoughts were a distance from the subject at hand. “And that’s about it,” said Bernie, as he brought the speech to a close. “It’s only a theory at this stage, but does have a lot of support.”
“I didn’t really understand,” I said, a little coyly.
“Which part?” asked Bernie.
“All of it actually. You lost me just after ‘quantum mechanics is...’”
“All you need to know is that things at an ultramicroscopic level behave very differently from those at ours. Objects move about randomly, nothing is logically continuous, and things can be in more than one place at a time.”
“So if we were to shrink a human being with a James-Bond-style laser they may start acting more erratically?” I commented, questioningly.
“A crossover of physic theories; that’s an interesting idea,” said Bernie. “Imagine Gary Busey’s behaviour at an atomic level.”
“I didn’t really understand,” I said, a little coyly.
“Which part?” asked Bernie.
“All of it actually. You lost me just after ‘quantum mechanics is...’”
“All you need to know is that things at an ultramicroscopic level behave very differently from those at ours. Objects move about randomly, nothing is logically continuous, and things can be in more than one place at a time.”
“So if we were to shrink a human being with a James-Bond-style laser they may start acting more erratically?” I commented, questioningly.
“A crossover of physic theories; that’s an interesting idea,” said Bernie. “Imagine Gary Busey’s behaviour at an atomic level.”