The Bay of Today

In a gray bay, white sailboats

curve across what's for their

sailors now and for us past. 

Our Bay of Today is another

matter; it's blue, chipped

by whitecaps. In what seems

to be a sea of quantum

probability, no thing exists,

and all things just keep

happening. The universe

becomes an eventful

occurrence. Well,

everybody's got their

own lifeboat floating

in what seems like

the moment, with 

its carrots, rocks, and sky

and ways of wondering why. 

hans ostrom 2022

Schrödinger's Dog

Schrödinger's dog sniffs
the outside of the box.
That hound can smell
past quantum nonsense.
It knows exactly
what's inside. And hair
at the top of it shoulders
bristles, electric. 


hans ostrom 2020

Quantum Bus Stop

At the bus stop, a man
advised those assembled
in cold rain
that the cells in their bodies
were doing quantum things,
such as disappearing and
appearing at the same time.

"Is it bad reception?" asked
a thin gray woman. "Like
the old days, with TV antennas?"
A young woman wearing
a green hand-knitted cap
said, "I guess everyone
is a physicist today."

The bus appeared, hauling
its exhaustive, Newtonian heft
towards us. "All of its
molecules seem to be
in order," said the young woman.
She put her headphones
on her ears, and I imagined
electrons of music dancing
in her brain. Ups the steel

steps we went, finding our
places in spaces that were
empty in the seats.


hans ostrom 2020

Particular Thief

"With more data, suspected new particle vanishes." Science News, 3 September 2016, p. 13


If scientists had long suspected
the particle, why didn't they take
more precautions? They left more
data in plain sight. The particle
vanished, taking data with it.

This wasn't a case of quantum
hiding, a small physics joke,
or a Schrödinger shuffle. No.
This was theft. Obviously,

the particle thought more data
would reveal too much about
its identity. What exactly
was it trying to keep secret?
Perhaps crimes against
other particles. Maybe a particularly
unsavory past. Hard to say.



hans ostrom 2016

Apples of the Ear

The apple doesn't fall far
from the tree except in quantum summer
when Newton's head doesn't/does
exist and Atom & Eve

know what they don't know,
a good first step
into the wormhole of Paul
Gonsalvez's "Diminuendo/

Crescendo" solo at Newport,
1956, in that momentary era
wherein all the tightly knit
notes of Ellington's orchestra

became/become perfectly tart-sweet
apples in a God's-ear of time.


hans ostrom 2015

The Is-and-Seems Theater Presents

"Electrons will be depicted as clouds of probabilities."

--Rachel Eherenberg, Science News, 13 June 2015


Sometimes seems makes Is palatable. Other
times Is wrecks Seems and levels
dreams to rubble, a lot to be cleared.

Art and science are Seems, despite
their claims to Is. They're our
symbolic social recreation of

material Is, that mystery in
plain site which hurtles
like a meteorite. Sometimes

it seems as if we know
nothing. Even our knowing something
may lead to that conclusion.

There's a profusion of
possibilities, the immanence
of Is, the atmosphere of Be.



hans ostrom 2015

Relatively Astounding

(image, composed of non-local digital particles: Niels Bohr, Danish physicist)





From "A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity," by David. Z. Albert and Rivka Galchen, Scientific American, March 2009, p. 32:

"...according to quantum mechanics one can arrange a pair of particles so that they are precisely two feet apart and yet neither particle on its own has a definite position. Furthermore, the standard approach to understanding quantum physics, the so-called Copenhagen intepretation--proclaimed by the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr early last century and handed down from professor to student for generations--insists that it is not that we do not know the facts about the individual particles' exact location; it is that there simply aren't any such facts. To ask after the position of a single particle would be as meaningless as, say, asking after the marital status of the number five. The problem is not epistemological (about what we know) but ontological (about what is)."

I will avoid an obvious joke and not say that I found this paragraph particularly interesting, except that I did "say" it, but the location of the joke isn't precisely knowable. That said, or not, physics is starting to sound like theology (the latter defined in the broadest sense). If the facts about the location of particles can't be known, then to what extent do we/can we know anything? Of course, we have to pretend we know, or to "know" on faith. When I walk across a street, my self-interest seems served by my pretending to know where the oncoming automobile traffic is. At the same time, the facts about the reality of that traffic may still be unknowable, even as I live my cross-walk life as if they were knowable.

In other word, Oy!

And if I read that paragraph from SA correctly (and I probably don't), physics is looping back to philosophy, where it began, in a way, with the pre-Socratics, and where it was picked up again by Aristotle, among others, but also by thinkers in other cultural traditions--including Africa and Asia. I regard this as good news--for selfish reasons: physics is more interesting to me when it admits what it can't know, and/or when it comes close to expressing or at least reinforcing amazement. That's partly because I'm a poet and a reader of poet, I suppose. For poets and readers of poets, amazement is a good thing, especially when it springs from the common--like a particle, for example, or a bee (Dickinson liked bees), a wheel barrow (red, if you have one in stock), a river (Langston Hughes), or a hawk (Hopkins).

The third "key concept" highlighted by "The Editors" in a sidebar to the article:

"This nonlocal effect is not merely counterintuitive: it presents a serious problem to Einstein's special theory of relativity, thus shaking the foundations of physics."

Ouch. I mean, "Cool."

And I was just getting used to how counterintuitive Einstein's theories are in relation to Newtonian physics. To deal with this confusion, I must go read some poetry, which most people (I assume) regard to be about as riveting as theoretical physics.

Hang on to your particles, folks, wherever they're not located.

Quantum Sonnet

Okay, so I was reading about sub-atomic particles last night, and from I gathered (not much more than a few sub-atomic particles of knowledge, alas), scientists used to think light manifested itself in the form of waves, but now they think it manifests itself in the form of particle-bursts, also known as quanta. Apparently, this comparatively new way of think about light has resulted in a redefinition of the atom, which when I was in high school was represented as a kind of planet orbited by moons--all very orderly, circles and dots. Now, because of quantum-theory, there's no telling where those "moons"--or sub-atomic particles-- might be. Then there's this thing called a "quantum leap," which is a term lots of people throw around in all sorts of non-scientific contexts, including episodic television-programming. . Apparently a quantum leap--or jump--occurs when an electron is in one place and then in another place but not ever in the place in between. That's right. It disappears, and then it reappears. I think scientists should be pretty darned careful about accusing spiritual people of believing in things they can't see. It seems one has to have faith in quantum theory.

At any rate, I decided to write a sonnet based on last night's reading. More is the pity.

Quantum Sonnet


Electrons here, electrons there, but no
Transition anywhere. They disappear.
They reappear--a quantum jump--or so
It's been identified--not well, I fear.

For if the relocation were a jump,
The jumping thing would stay in view.
Electrons don't exactly make a whump
When landing after leap. I know it's true

They're ultra-small. Perhaps there is a sleight
Of light in sub-particulated world?
Or maybe God hides in a burst of light--
Photonic God, an energetic whirl

That makes and breaks the rules. Look there, look here,
But note that in-between does not appear.

Uncertainty

Those who cast news often speak of something being surrounded by a great deal of uncertainty. At the moment, the stock markets worldwide are alleged to be surrounded by much uncertainty. It's more likely that they're surrounded by certainty--that things aren't going well.

I don't think I've ever fully understood Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but that hasn't kept me from liking it very much. For one thing, I like the inherent paradox of an Uncertainty Principle. How principled can a principle be if it's an Uncertainty Principle? I think but do not know that the U.P. refers to the atomic and sub-atomic level of reality, which, when studied by humans, can be changed by the studying. Therefore, by studying item X, especially at the sub-atomic level, scientists change what they're studying and consequently cannot reach a definite (certain) conclusion about X. Apparently quantum mechanics support the H.U.P., but you couldn't prove it by me because I'm uncertain about the whole thing. I urge you to contact your local physicist, but there's no rush. Take your time, which is a function of space.

I had a different kind of uncertainty in mind, I think (I'm not sure), when I wrote the following poem. I suspect the poem may be, in part, a response to the sense in which we are pushed and pulled to decide quickly all the time, or almost all the time.


Uncertainty

When in doubt, why not stay there?
Sure, the station claims a train leaves
for Clarity every two hours (or so),
but that city may be ironically named,
like New York, which is neither new
nor connected to York in any substantial
way. When in doubt, enjoy the contours

of uncertainty. Sigh. Stall. Scratch
yourself or a domesticated animal.
Stare out or into a window. Check
your store of provisions. The world's
always in a hurry to urge you to decide.
The reasons for this circumstance may

chiefly be economic and political.
Also, impatience self-perpetuates.
What, in fact, is the rush? I don't
know. I'm not sure. I'm uncertain.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom