I have posted about quantum mechanics previously in my post on Schroedinger’s Cat. My introduction to quantum mechanics was at Oxford whilst studying Engineering Science. The mysteries of the quantum world involve the dual nature of light in which it can behave as both a wave and a particle, and that sub-atomic particles only have a probability of being in a particular place. The whole concept is very difficult indeed to get my mind around, and I take some comfort that Einstein thought so too. Thankfully my introduction to the subject was via the Lectures on Electrical Properties of Materials by Solymar and Walsh. They quoted an exchange of Limericks between two Oxford Scholars concerning whether a tree in a college quadrangle might have wandered off to another college if nobody was actually watching it. George Berkely put the question thus:
There once was a man who said “God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the Quad.”
The other scholar replied:
Dear Sir,
Your astonishment’s odd.
I am always about in the Quad.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
God
I read an interview with Jon Suchet, just before I was interviewed by him at the Dartmouth Book Festival. He had been studying philosophy until there was a discussion about whether a coffee table was actually there if there was nobody around to see it, and at that point he switched to journalism. The other scholar was Ronald Knox, the very same Ronald Knox who compiled the Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction and The Three Taps