Many years ago, I had a computer store. Every so often, a Rabbi named Balfour came in to have his computer serviced. Whenever he did, he always wanted to discuss religion. I told him, “Frankly Rabbi, you’re wasting your time with me. I understand what you’re saying but I don’t believe it. I believe in the big bang.” His answer was, “Next time I come in, leave some time for me so we can discuss it rationally.” I agreed, (the customer is always right) but he never came in again. He died.
Years later, like now, I got a book on quantum physics from a friend. I’m a college trained scientist and I would have been happy to believe in it if I could understand it. Let me clarify that. I would have been happy just to have a clue what it was about. This wasn’t the first time I was in this quandary. It started with the theory of relativity. Einstein proposed that nothing could go faster than light. If you rode on a lightwave and ran forward on it, your speed would be the speed of light plus your running speed. Logical, no? No. You can’t go faster than light. Ok, that’s bad enough. Then he proposed that time is a dimension like height, width and depth, x,y and z. But time only goes in one direction. So we live in four dimensions he called the space-time continuum. Giving it a cool name doesn’t help. I understand what he proposed but I find it hard to believe.
Now quantum physics appears. The beauty of classical physics is its predictability. Certain things follow certain rules. Tell me where I am, which direction I am going, the speed I am traveling and I can predict precisely where I will be. Quantum physics? Not so fast, fella. Small particles can’t even be located because the act of locating them, moves them. I don’t intend to go into any more detail except to tell you the strange things that make no sense to normal people. In a quantum system small particles behave like waves which kills their predictability. Then there is the proposal that gravity, you know, the falling apple, is a particle. Make sense? No way. A quantum system contains particles in different states at the same time. Which state it’s in is defined by probability. When the system is looked at (I use the word loosely) it collapses. I’ll end with the thought exercise devised by Erwin Shrödinger to demonstrate the absurdity of it all. It is famously called Shrödinger’s Cat, or the paradox in a box. There is a cat in a box which can be killed by poison released by nuclear decay. The cat is in two states at the same time, dead and alive. When the box is opened and looked at, the system collapses and the cat then either dead or alive, not both. Now, doesn’t that make things clearer? One more thing which will clarify it all. Werner Heisenberg whose uncertainty principle is one of the bases of quantum theory deduced and famously once said, “We can never know anything.”
