The Eyes Have It

What my mind sees when someone tries to explain quantum physics.
(Rubik’s Cube, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Remember the Rubik’s Cube? I have a theory that one of the reasons for the world’s ills today was the appearance of this nightmarish puzzle game in 1980. By 2009, over 350 million of these mental torture devices had been sold worldwide, which means that at least five percent of the global population has suffered serious psychological damage trying to match up the colors on the six sides of this “toy.” No doubt some buyers took a hammer to the thing in exasperation after failing to stumble on which of the 43 quintillion possible permutations “solved” the puzzle. Those who somehow restrained themselves from going Rubik in this manner passed the cubes on to others and others and so on ad infinitum. (Forgive them. They knew not what they did.) So theoretically, everyone on this planet could have come in contact with the RC at some point in their lives. I’m thinking the guys who started ISIS must have been among that cohort. Had they not, they would likely have maintained their sanity and the world would be a more tranquil, less deadly habitation. If this is what happened, we should definitely go all Fahrenheit 451 on these things to protect future generations.

But this blog is not about the Rubik’s Cube. I only thought of it recently because my mind (what there is of it) suffered an RC AARRGGGH! moment while trying to understand the quantum physics concept of superposition. Superposition came up during NOVA’s “Rise of the Hackers” episode, which played this week. Don’t ask me in relation to what. That part of the program didn’t stick to my Teflon-coated neurons (not much of anything does).

The one word did stick, though, and set me off to find out more about it. Superposition in quantum physics means, put very simply as I tend to put everything, that things can be in numerous physical locations simultaneously. Put scientifically (skip this–I would), the principle of superposition “holds that a physical system–such as an electron–exists partly in all its particular theoretically possible states (or, configuration of its properties) simultaneously; but when measured or observed, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations.” Let me put it this way. When someone is not looking at you, you, as a physical system in your own right, are simultaneously in all the locations you could possibly be. When someone looks at you, however, you are only in the spot that person happens to be looking. I won’t go into the math of this (as if I could.)

In short, when you look at someone, you put them in their place. Sometimes it’s a good place, as for “Here’s looking at you, kid” Ilsa. Sometimes it’s not in a good place, as in “I Saw What You Did and I know who you are.” Is this sense, your gaze, in the psychoanalytical world (see Jacques Lacan), is not something you use, it’s a relationship you enter into with whomever you fix your eyes on. I guess the lesson here is “Think before you look.”

Hey, imagine that. I actually got something useful out of quantum physics. That makes me feel good. Almost good enough to go find a Rubik’s Cube and give it another shot. Almost.

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Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings