Author: Wombat
Title: Schrödinger's Cat
Rating: PG
Summary: It's re-election night, so why is Josh thinking about theoretical physics?
Disclaimer: All characters and situations are the creative property of Aaron Sorkin - no offence meant or profits made.
Schrödinger's Cat
A lot of people think that my interest in theoretical physics started after I was shot. Apparently nobody would bother looking into the nature of reality or the meaning of life unless they'd recently had a near death experience. A lot of people around these offices think that, trapped in a convalescent bed, my mind was revving with nothing else to apply itself to. A lot of people think they've been abducted by aliens, too.
When I was 14 I came across the autobiography of Richard Feynman in my father's library. It was mid-August, so I took it out to the deck and read it from cover to cover (see - I was an outdoorsman even then). It wasn't the stories of a bongo-playing misfit from upstate New York that had grabbed my attention. If anyone ever asked I'd have talked about his vision of science being a natural response to human experience and questioning everything. Nowadays I might even tell a few close friends about his relationship with his father and the awe and curiosity he inspired in the young Feynman about the world around him. It's all true, as far as it goes - but I wouldn't even tell Donna the real reason. Actually, especially not Donna - it wouldn't exactly fit with my image of the ever questioning intellect and renaissance man. Don't laugh - she can deny it all she wants, but I know respectful awe when I see it. 760 verbal, baby!
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the real reason. It's nothing to brag about, but the reason I picked that book down from the shelf in the first place was the photograph on the back of the jacket. When I first saw it I thought that my father had written a book and not told us. Looking at it closer I saw that it wasn't him but someone who looked remarkably similar, someone who looked just like I wanted to when I was that age. Nowadays, I'm getting a lot closer to that photograph, a little heavier about the jowls maybe, but that's what sitting behind a desk seven days a week will do for a man. It's hard to believe that a life-long fascination began with an accident of genetics, but that's the essential randomness of life for you.
So here I am, hiding in my office, killing time before joining the others. Polling started a couple of hours ago and the first exit poll data ought to be coming out soon. Staying out of the re-election campaign has been one of the hardest tasks of my life. Donna actually re-programmed my phone so that I can't ring out without going through her. That worked for about 48 hours and then she confiscated my mobile. To be fair, Steve did a pretty good job - not as well as he could have done if he'd listened to me on.....sorry, backsliding again. Still, spending half the campaign battling a possible Presidential impeachment and watching the Vice-President defect to run for the nomination himself hardly made his life easy. Twelve months of grinding it out in the West Wing because the country must be governed even while the President campaigns, twelve months of running full tilt into brick walls because those Republican jackasses on the Hill think that we'll be out in November, twelve months of driving Donna crazy because I can't do everything but still want to and this whole election could come down to three votes falling down a crack in Florida. This race is tighter than Kennedy's and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I should be mulling over polling projections, re-evaluating district data even pacing the floor just fretting, but all I can think about is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
Why a principle of modern physics is taking over my life is a long story, so let's take this slowly. Ancient metaphysics postulates a divine truth or perfect order, Newton comes along and offers certain laws of Nature which seem to fit this truth. Einstein muddies the water with relativity but still claims that "God does not play dice with the Universe". In other words, the truth may be a lot more complicated than we had thought, but there is still a truth out there to be found. All is going swimmingly until Rutherford splits the atom and the rot sets in. The closer we look at the building blocks of the universe the weirder things get. The smaller the particles that we can study, the more random their behaviour appears. Quantum uncertainty appears because at an infinitesimal or quantum level, we can't tell what these little particles are going to do next. It's not that we can't work out the rules, it seems that there are no rules. If we can't predict their behaviour we can't suggest laws governing their behaviour and the four thousand years of scientific principles go up in smoke. All our rules or scientific laws are approximations, good enough to build a bridge or a computer, but the search for the absolute truth has hit a brick wall.
Just when you think this can't get any worse Heisenberg steps in and says that the reason for quantum randomness is the fact that we are watching it. He suggests that it is impossible to observe a phenomenon without affecting it however fractionally. Apply this on the scale of the smallest elements of matter and the effect is enough to prevent us predicting their behaviour. Imagine measuring a block of ice with a metal ruler. The ruler is warmer than the ice, so as you measure the ice it melts a little bit, changing the measurement. If you continue long enough, the ice will melt completely. Basically, reality is shy and won't operate normally if you watch it.
Anyway, here's where the cat comes in. This is where Donna usually wakes up and I have to start all over again. I don't get very far because I bruise easily, let's take advantage of her absence just this once. The most famous example of the uncertainty principle is the theoretical experiment of Schrödinger's cat. Imagine a box. Put a cat in the box. Put a hat on the head of the cat in the box. Stop reading Dr. Seuss and continue the experiment. Inside the box, you put an atom that has precisely a 50/50 chance of emitting a fatal dose of radiation and then close the lid. If you don't like the atom then put something else in that has an equal chance of killing the cat or not. Don't panic, no-one has ever or will ever try this experiment in real life. I do not have a thing against cats. It's not even my experiment. Right, concentrate. Inside the box, the cat is either alive or dead. There is an equal probability or either, you can't tell until you open the box. One way of looking at it is that the cat is neither alive or dead until you open the box. It exists in both possibilities. Once you open the box you eliminate one possibility and either kill the cat or save it. The act of observing the outcome defines the outcome. Keep the box closed and the cat is safely alive in one of two possibilities. Now do you know why I have a headache?
And that is why on the eve of possibly the most important poll of my political life I'm sat at my desk, staring at the ceiling and pondering theoretical physics. Because I'm in the box. Donna and I are in the box together. We've spent years safe in our possible realities. Keep the box shut and we still have a 50/50 chance. Nail the lid down and I can never blow it. It's safe here in the box - nobody is observing, nobody is defining. Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein and Newton can all go hang. Quantum uncertainty is keeping me sane. If I don't open the box I can come in tomorrow and the index cards will be ready on my desk next to where the coffee isn't. If I don't open the box it won't matter if we win four more years. If I don't open the box I'll carry on dying a little every day.
Take the money or open the box. Cling to a possibility or risk the end. It's a matter of science. It's a natural law. I really ought to manning the phones right now. That damned cat will be the end of me.
Title: Schrödinger's Cat
Rating: PG
Summary: It's re-election night, so why is Josh thinking about theoretical physics?
Disclaimer: All characters and situations are the creative property of Aaron Sorkin - no offence meant or profits made.
Schrödinger's Cat
A lot of people think that my interest in theoretical physics started after I was shot. Apparently nobody would bother looking into the nature of reality or the meaning of life unless they'd recently had a near death experience. A lot of people around these offices think that, trapped in a convalescent bed, my mind was revving with nothing else to apply itself to. A lot of people think they've been abducted by aliens, too.
When I was 14 I came across the autobiography of Richard Feynman in my father's library. It was mid-August, so I took it out to the deck and read it from cover to cover (see - I was an outdoorsman even then). It wasn't the stories of a bongo-playing misfit from upstate New York that had grabbed my attention. If anyone ever asked I'd have talked about his vision of science being a natural response to human experience and questioning everything. Nowadays I might even tell a few close friends about his relationship with his father and the awe and curiosity he inspired in the young Feynman about the world around him. It's all true, as far as it goes - but I wouldn't even tell Donna the real reason. Actually, especially not Donna - it wouldn't exactly fit with my image of the ever questioning intellect and renaissance man. Don't laugh - she can deny it all she wants, but I know respectful awe when I see it. 760 verbal, baby!
Where was I? Oh, yeah, the real reason. It's nothing to brag about, but the reason I picked that book down from the shelf in the first place was the photograph on the back of the jacket. When I first saw it I thought that my father had written a book and not told us. Looking at it closer I saw that it wasn't him but someone who looked remarkably similar, someone who looked just like I wanted to when I was that age. Nowadays, I'm getting a lot closer to that photograph, a little heavier about the jowls maybe, but that's what sitting behind a desk seven days a week will do for a man. It's hard to believe that a life-long fascination began with an accident of genetics, but that's the essential randomness of life for you.
So here I am, hiding in my office, killing time before joining the others. Polling started a couple of hours ago and the first exit poll data ought to be coming out soon. Staying out of the re-election campaign has been one of the hardest tasks of my life. Donna actually re-programmed my phone so that I can't ring out without going through her. That worked for about 48 hours and then she confiscated my mobile. To be fair, Steve did a pretty good job - not as well as he could have done if he'd listened to me on.....sorry, backsliding again. Still, spending half the campaign battling a possible Presidential impeachment and watching the Vice-President defect to run for the nomination himself hardly made his life easy. Twelve months of grinding it out in the West Wing because the country must be governed even while the President campaigns, twelve months of running full tilt into brick walls because those Republican jackasses on the Hill think that we'll be out in November, twelve months of driving Donna crazy because I can't do everything but still want to and this whole election could come down to three votes falling down a crack in Florida. This race is tighter than Kennedy's and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I should be mulling over polling projections, re-evaluating district data even pacing the floor just fretting, but all I can think about is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
Why a principle of modern physics is taking over my life is a long story, so let's take this slowly. Ancient metaphysics postulates a divine truth or perfect order, Newton comes along and offers certain laws of Nature which seem to fit this truth. Einstein muddies the water with relativity but still claims that "God does not play dice with the Universe". In other words, the truth may be a lot more complicated than we had thought, but there is still a truth out there to be found. All is going swimmingly until Rutherford splits the atom and the rot sets in. The closer we look at the building blocks of the universe the weirder things get. The smaller the particles that we can study, the more random their behaviour appears. Quantum uncertainty appears because at an infinitesimal or quantum level, we can't tell what these little particles are going to do next. It's not that we can't work out the rules, it seems that there are no rules. If we can't predict their behaviour we can't suggest laws governing their behaviour and the four thousand years of scientific principles go up in smoke. All our rules or scientific laws are approximations, good enough to build a bridge or a computer, but the search for the absolute truth has hit a brick wall.
Just when you think this can't get any worse Heisenberg steps in and says that the reason for quantum randomness is the fact that we are watching it. He suggests that it is impossible to observe a phenomenon without affecting it however fractionally. Apply this on the scale of the smallest elements of matter and the effect is enough to prevent us predicting their behaviour. Imagine measuring a block of ice with a metal ruler. The ruler is warmer than the ice, so as you measure the ice it melts a little bit, changing the measurement. If you continue long enough, the ice will melt completely. Basically, reality is shy and won't operate normally if you watch it.
Anyway, here's where the cat comes in. This is where Donna usually wakes up and I have to start all over again. I don't get very far because I bruise easily, let's take advantage of her absence just this once. The most famous example of the uncertainty principle is the theoretical experiment of Schrödinger's cat. Imagine a box. Put a cat in the box. Put a hat on the head of the cat in the box. Stop reading Dr. Seuss and continue the experiment. Inside the box, you put an atom that has precisely a 50/50 chance of emitting a fatal dose of radiation and then close the lid. If you don't like the atom then put something else in that has an equal chance of killing the cat or not. Don't panic, no-one has ever or will ever try this experiment in real life. I do not have a thing against cats. It's not even my experiment. Right, concentrate. Inside the box, the cat is either alive or dead. There is an equal probability or either, you can't tell until you open the box. One way of looking at it is that the cat is neither alive or dead until you open the box. It exists in both possibilities. Once you open the box you eliminate one possibility and either kill the cat or save it. The act of observing the outcome defines the outcome. Keep the box closed and the cat is safely alive in one of two possibilities. Now do you know why I have a headache?
And that is why on the eve of possibly the most important poll of my political life I'm sat at my desk, staring at the ceiling and pondering theoretical physics. Because I'm in the box. Donna and I are in the box together. We've spent years safe in our possible realities. Keep the box shut and we still have a 50/50 chance. Nail the lid down and I can never blow it. It's safe here in the box - nobody is observing, nobody is defining. Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein and Newton can all go hang. Quantum uncertainty is keeping me sane. If I don't open the box I can come in tomorrow and the index cards will be ready on my desk next to where the coffee isn't. If I don't open the box it won't matter if we win four more years. If I don't open the box I'll carry on dying a little every day.
Take the money or open the box. Cling to a possibility or risk the end. It's a matter of science. It's a natural law. I really ought to manning the phones right now. That damned cat will be the end of me.