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Quantum Poetry

Posted by michael on from the holistic-haiku dept.

Slooze writes "Dennis Overbye's essay in today's New York Times, 'No Man, Quark or Electron Is an Island', discusses the possible societal and even metaphysical effects of quantum physics' poetic metaphors. Are notions about mass without mass, it from bit, entangled particles, and supersymmetry, for example, exerting subtle influences on the way we perceive ourselves and our socio-political relationships?" An odd little piece.

6 comments

  1. Amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2
    I got the first post, but then someone observed it, and instantaneously, I didn't have the first post.

    Now that's poetic justice.

  2. Additional quantum poetry by TBHiX · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure if it qualifies in the same vein as the topic, but in The Straight Dope, there is a question posed as to the details of the Schröedinger's cat analogy, along with a similarly versed response. Quite good, I think.

    -TBHiX-
    C++ teaches us patience; we teach C++ tolerance. -- my rephrasing of a Buddhist proverb.

  3. Re:Interesting times... by aarcher · · Score: 1

    Since when did black holes have negative mass?
    I missed something here....

    --
    "Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and you can take or leave it if you please."
  4. Mach's principle by TeknoHog · · Score: 3
    I'd like to explain a bit about this wonderful idea that objects have inertia only due to their relative motion. The classical example of Mach's principle is a merry-go-round; according to the principle of relativity, you could argue that people in it are stationary and the world revolves around them (no pun intended, unless Linus is aboard:-).

    So how do the people in it feel the rotation? According to Mach, it is a valid viewpoint that they are stationary, but the huge masses of the rest of the universe revolving around them causes a 'magnetic gravitational force'.

    The 'magnetic' analogy is useful here: between charged particles there is an electrostatic force, but when they move _sideways_ with respect to their line of separation, there is a magnetic force as well. Similarly, between moving masses there is a 'magnetic gravitational' force perpendicular to their separation.

    --

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  5. Schroedinger's Shaggy Song? by Vuarnet · · Score: 2

    Maybe quantum physics explains the popularity of Shagy's "It wasn't me" song. So when your girl catches you bumping uglies with the girl next door, you can always claim that by her observation, it didn't really happen.

    (There go my karma points. Good riddance!)
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

    --
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
    Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
  6. cheezy haikus by peaceofinfinite · · Score: 1

    this will probably kill my nonexistent points (bad poetry has that inexorable effect) particle moving electron microscope on accuracy gone freaks with equations see nothingness in matter i refute it thus! (re: Berkeley) quantum physics is like politics- check the votes and change the outcome (and now for my descent into anonymity)

    --
    "If I had my life to live over, I'd be a plumber" Albert Einstein