Questions about relativity and quantum thingummies

Einstein's formulae predict correctly how things will seem from different viewspoints (frames of reference). You can state what is measured from one point of view then feed in variables and calculate how the same event would seem from a different point of view. The idea that reality depended on point of view was and remains shocking but it is true, i.e. it works and accords with observable reality and has been proven by experiment. Although it describes a sort of mutability it is in its own way absolute in that it predicts exactly how events will be perceived.

Einstein's thoughts mainly had to do with things on a grand scale - light, time, planets, people and everyday objects but when it comes to the very tiny world of atoms and electrons, it seems that there is no such predictability. There is a finding called Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that says you cannot properly know about an atomic particle because by observing it you change it. There was a famous conference of the top physicists and theorists at which Einstein presented a thought experiment (an imagined experiment) that appeared to prove you could find out the mass of a particle at the same time as finding out its position, using a specially designed machine. However, on the next day of the conference another great scientist - Bohr? - described a loophole that disproved Einstein's thought experiment.

This troubled Einstein - he didn't accept it - and he spent most of his life trying to work out a way to reconcile his theory of Relativity and the apparently anomalous experimental evidence and conclusions of quantum (smallest possible scale) science. He said "God does not play dice." At other times he confirmed that he was an atheist, but he believed in a universe that follows set laws, rules that could be discovered and documented. He was trying to produce a new theory that would hold true at both the large scale and the quantum scale. Such a theory, one that would comprise a consistent set of rules that hold for all realms of science, is known as a Grand Unification Theory and is still being sought.

It was previously thought that electrons were particles that orbited around the nuclei of atoms but it is now known that they behave as if they are simultaneously all around the atom - smeared. Yet if "observed" or put into use, they will behave as particles. An electron is at the same time a wave and a particle, they say.

It seems to me that there is something in common between these two scientific theories, the conclusion that "different snapshots of the same thing" seem to comprise different realities. On the one hand it seems that X is the case but on the other hand it seems that Y is the case. For example in relativity on the one hand it seems that 20,000 years have gone by; on the other hand (for a space traveller travelling near the speed of light) it seems that only a few years have gone by. In quantum mechanics on the one hand it appears that a photon has gone through one slit in the apparatus, on the other it appears that it has gone through the other slit in the apparatus (in a device that tries to see which route a photon takes, which produces an inconclusive result).

In relativity an event in effect is more than one thing. To viewer A it is something but to viewer B it is something else. Yet there is only one event. In quantum mechanics a photon "is more than one thing". From a pattern seen on the surface of a detector it appears that the photon has gone through both slit A and slit B.

An electron is not in one location in orbit around a nucleus. But what does being in one location consist of for something that is moving - is it ever in one location? No, because it is moving - never in one location. So let us not be surprised that we cannot discover its location, especially as it is travelling at the speed of light - a speed at which time stands still. It is making its way from place to place but in no time. Therefore there is no time interval between it being in one place and the other, which in our terms comprises being in two places (N places) at the same time.

These particles participate in the very weft and warp of what reality is. It should not surprise us, therefore, that they appear miraculous since this whole dream of life is some sort of miracle. That there are elements that are in more than one place at the same time is no more amazing than any everyday event in life - all are equally miraculous. By the way, no matter what rules we can discover and describe, nothing will ever make life one iota less miraculous or mysterious.

The point I want to make is that this uncertainty of position is like relativity, it is a form of certainty, in that we know that these particles will be in more than one place at once. The whole question of where the electron is is an analogy of relativity's multiple viewpoints for the same event, where the electron is the event and the multiple locations are the multiple viewpoints.

Since this electron moves at the speed of light time stands still for it. "To the electron" no time passes, yet it moves from one location around the atom to another and therefore is in both places at once, since there is no time interval, there cannot be at the speed of light - when time "stands still". To the electron it is in more than one place at the same time. We cannot participate in this, so by trying to observe and detect this we disrupt it, effectively crash the electron. All we can see is a blur, which is the blur of a particle that is in the process of simultaneously being in more than one place at the same time.

Turning back to the idea that the multiple locations might be thought of as multiple observers of the electron, imagining that at several locations around the nucleus tiny observers could be placed who would have their impressions of where the electron was, they would all receive the same impression, that it was at their location all the time. What I want to ask is this: for these tiny imaginary observers observing the electron moving at the speed of light, and setting the speed of the observed object equal to the speed of light, will we not find that the laws and formulae of relativity do indeed apply and produce the same result for every tiny observer?

Whether or not the existing formulae apply, is it not the case that a set of formulae could be worked out that would correlate the multiple location impression, i.e. quantum uncertainty, with the "definite uncertainty" of relativity where what different observers will perceive can be calculated exactly? In effect is this not just a change to the variables to where the event is moving at the speed of light and the observers are located in an orbital path of the event such that they all receive the same impression, despite their different locations. Can this quantum scenario not be derived by some transformation of Einstein's equations?

First published in the Willesden Herald, that great big organ of science

Radio Éireann anseo agaibh

My grandfather Peter Moran was a radio and music hall singer at one time. He subsequently lost most of his eyesight and was registered blind. He worked most of his life as a basketmaker. The picture shows a newspaper cutting of the schedule for Radio Éireann on Saturday, June 25th 1938, the day of the installation of Douglas Hyde as the first president of Ireland. I will transcribe some it.

12.40-1.30—Ceremony of Installation of the President. Commentary from St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle, and from the G.P.O., Dublin.

1.30-3.0—Gramophone concert.

5.30—Kathleen Burke's Trio in Light Music, and Peter Moran (baritone).

Trio—Merrie England (German) (Chapell).
Peter Moran—Ireland, I love you Acushla Machree; My Fairest Child; Because (d'Hardelot).
Trio—Elfin Reigin [etc.]
Peter Moran—The stars that light my garden (Russell); Beautiful Isle of somewhere (Fearis).
Trio— [etc.]

You can see the rest of the schedule by clicking on the image. It returns to the installation of Douglas Hyde from 9.10 pm to 9.30 pm with a "Commentary from the state reception in St. Patrick's Hall" and closes with the national anthem at 11 pm.

All My Trials

a painfully good video. i thought pauly was a bit o.t.t. at first but fair do's - having listened a few times - he's bang on.

dog songs #13

this was going to be another session but mercifully the battery ran out. this was recorded about a week ago. the usual silliness starts about 2m 30s.

10 tracks not to slash your wrists by (on YouTube)

There is a cd called "Tracks to slash your wrists by" (apparently). So I thought why not an opposing list? Just from a quick browse through my YouTube favourites:

1. Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
You don't have to be tall

2. Eloise - Paul and Barry Ryan
You don't have to be cool

3. My Perfect Cousin - The Undertones
You don't have to be intelligent

4. Itchycoo Park - The Small Faces
You don't have to be able to dance

5. Anthem - Leonard Cohen
You don't have to be cheerful

6. Angel Flyin' Too Close to the Ground - Willie Nelson and Shelby Lynne
You don't have to be with someone

7. For My Lover - Tracy Chapman
You don't have to be sane

8. The Harder they Come - Jimmy Cliff
You don't have to be rich

9. I Dreamed A Dream - Susan Boyle
You don't have to be young and beautiful

10. Baby I Need Your Lovin' - The Four Tops
The defence rests

the helplessness in fugue between fleetwood's late drumbeat, mcveigh's unrequited bass drive and christine's prismatic love

Fleetwood is a quintessential English type and John McVeigh is a hero for carrying the torch for Christine through it all, even when she sucks up to that abominably cheesy guitar virtuoso interloper. It's a "blues Abba" with Mick, John, Christine and Stevie. I love the way John clutches Christine at about 1:04 into this. You have to realise he's carried a torch for her forever and she's in with the glib mother's boy guitarist interloper whose name I've happily forgotten. She's the biggest eejit for that but she's also mother earth and all the rest.

John McVeigh's explanation of the pull of their music is that the bass leads the way and Mick Fleetwood's drumbeat follows a couple of microseconds (or whatever) behind, which gives it that distinctive flavour (drum usually sets/is on the beat) and empathy with a love scene in the court of a jester king (Fleetwood). (I don't know if I'm making any sense.)

Morning sun

Antony and the Johnsons-You Are My Sister

another version of this. (that was Boy George duetting there of course.) don't know if all the models are transgender - hardly matters. they're beautiful anyway.

...and here's another glorious bit of music:



- certainly agree with most of that. not totally sure why he's quite so angry about "another man under their father's sheets", slightly not on the same plane as the other "offenders". it's art so can't go too analytical though. isn't that picture an art piece as well - sorry haven't got the credit for that.

Office dogs

Office dogs
Originally uploaded by Willesden Herald

They don't do much typing but they are great receptionists

What I read in Willesden gallery with Dwayne Foster

I read the following edited extract from "The End" at a very pleasant event in the art gallery in Willesden library centre. I was there as part of Willesden Green Writers' Group supporting the main person, Dwayne Foster, who gave a marvellous peripathetic performance from memory of two of his discursive and virtuosic poems, plus an encore that was slightly spoiled by two people in the front row who talked all through it. I edited the excerpt below from the text of my story that was published in 2004 and I was horrified at how clumsy it was and how the dialogue clunked. I have attempted to correct some of the problems in this version.

_____________________________________________________

[...]

In the house where their friend had a basement flat there was a vacant bedsit on the top floor. It overlooked a mews. The landlord was trying to clear the house and so the top floor was not let. They decided to stay in the empty room.

Connie got a printed tiger fur blanket and they convinced themselves that sleeping on the floor was good for their backs. The room had a gas fire, an Ascot ‘geyser’ over the sink for hot water and a cooker. The gas meter in the room was open, so one coin served forever and nobody came to collect. Their furniture was a borrowed small table and two discarded chairs picked up from the street.

Their mirror was a gift from one of Connie’s ex-boyfriends. It was imprinted with a different sexual position to illustrate each sign of the Zodiac. They worked their way through the signs. He liked Scorpio, which involved carrying her, and she liked Virgo which involved nearly breaking him.

The room was under the roof of a once grand terraced house near the river, within the sound of Big Ben. Their neighbours in the other room on the top landing were a female couple from the Philippines. The girls’ room had a bed, and a shrine decked out with candles and the Sacred Heart. In the middle of the shrine was a picture of a Home Office minister; to whom they were praying for permission to stay in the country.

The other floors of the house held a Spanish car mechanic and his family, an Italian waiter with a Filipina wife, a fat bloke from Belfast who worked security in a department store, and Joseph’s friend who and his Indian girlfriend. They were all refugees of one kind or another.

[...]

In Tachbrook Street market on a Saturday in December, Joseph stood back from the stalls, admiring the steaming barrels of beetroot, lobsters twitching, all that exotic and everyday abundance arrayed there, but most of all Connie’s command of shopping. No list was needed; she ordered her ingredients instinctively, as fast as they could supply, and human-chained them back in plastic carrier bags to him.

She would have carried more things if he let her, though their baby was already overdue. She selected the world’s largest watermelon and the plastic carrier bags cut into his fingers. His only part in shopping was as a pack animal, to lug her chosen items.

After they returned from shopping, Connie was working at the tiny draining board beside the sink when what looked like a slew of black beetles came skittering across the floor.

‘What the hell is that?’ said Joseph. ‘Are they cockroaches or something?’

The water melon had been so ripe that when she slashed it the seeds flew out.

As usual they talked almost all night, or rather Connie talked and Joseph answered. It would take many years to bring him up to date, before he could ever sleep properly again. At one point he got up to get a drink of water and had to step over her.

‘Don’t you know you must never do that?’ she complained. ‘It’s bad luck to step over somebody, especially if they’re pregnant.’

Next day she was checking into Westminster Hospital. He stayed with her all that Sunday, and they talked about names for the baby. He thought ‘Mark’ would be best, because it sounded hard. When Connie accepted his opinion easily, it made him feel like a grown man, almost for the first time.

That afternoon a nurse told them they were going to induce the birth. Connie was taken into the delivery room. Midwives were doing their thing, monitors were bleeping, and Joseph was doing the handholding, through four hours of pain.

‘Can I have a word?’ said the doctor, and ushered Joseph outside into the corridor. The doctor said it would be best to deliver the baby by caesarean section. The whole world disappeared, leaving only their two voices and shapes in the corridor.

‘She wants to have it naturally. Is that not possible?’

But the baby’s heartbeat was beginning to indicate distress, the doctor said, and he thought an operation would be safer for both mother and child.

‘I can only go by what you say. I just don’t know. If you’re sure it’s for the best?’

‘Yes. Would you have a word with her, and reassure her?’

They went back inside.

‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t care how long it takes.’

‘The doctor says it’s for the best,’ he told her.

She grasped his hand tightly.

‘It’s up to you. Will you let them?’

She puckered her mouth and eyebrows like a child about to weep, and nodded agreement with a whimper. He looked at the doctor. She fretted fearfully, squeezing his hand until he had to let go as they wheeled her away.

Knowing that your wife is being C-sectioned and your baby being born, you do not wait like a bored visitor. You pace, you picture the surgery as clearly as if you were in there with them. You check for news from any passing nurses. The time seems to go very quickly. After about ninety minutes a team appeared with a small transparent cot on a trolley. A man in a white coat said, ‘Congratulations, you have a baby boy! Don’t worry, Consuelo is doing fine.’ They stopped to let him look.

‘Is he okay?’ was Joseph’s question.

‘He has all his little bits and pieces.’

His baby is here, five minutes old with gauze gloves and black spiky hair. He is looking straight at his father. Joseph says ‘Hello,’ and the baby makes a noise as if to answer.

When Connie comes back from theatre she is too shattered to mind the baby. Her caesarean wound is stapled. Mother and child are put in the recovery room together. Joseph wants to hold Connie’s hand, but it looks painful with a drip in place. She reached out, but now she has fallen asleep. He pulls up an armchair and tries to stay overnight with them. After midnight one of the nurses insists on taking the chair away and makes him go home.

It is the third week of December. Joseph still has to work up to the Christmas holiday. When he shows a picture of his newborn baby to Solomon Junior all he says is ‘Well you have a Chinese baby!’ and hands it back.

The hospital has decided to keep Connie in for a few days because her wound has developed an infection. After work, he walks from Pimlico across Vauxhall Bridge Road and down through the red brick canyons of the Peabody buildings. A sleety north wind steals through the playgrounds and high railings. He is still wearing summer clothes, because money is tight.

When Christmas Eve comes the infection is no better. Connie and the baby have to stay in hospital over the holiday. The doctor says it’s unlikely she can have any more children. The fathers are allowed to stay late tonight. Near midnight, the ward sister turns down the lights and a choir processes around the ward carrying candles for torches, and begins to sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

On Christmas morning, a visiting colleague of Connie’s brings the baby a toy music box, a blue plastic cube that winds up with a pull-string. They are in a public ward, with baby Mark in his Perspex cot, busily kicking off his coverlets already. At the other end of the bed, Connie is chatting with her visitor. Joseph pulls out the string of the music box, which is hanging on the side of the cot, and an unfamiliar tune begins to play. The song must have started in the wrong place, only now he recognizes it.

Believe me if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly today…

Alone as he watches his son shadow boxing to the music, from a deep wellspring a few tears overflow, the silent kind that only know themselves why they flow.

[...]