September 24th, 1997 to September 30th, 1997

QUEER PHYSICS

by Jon-Henri Damski

Nietzsche gave birth to the concept of a "gay science." Little did he know twenty years later, physics would produce quantum a strange and weird offspring that I called queer physics.

In quantum, photons are mysterious, like cats; you don't know whether they are going to come out of the box, dead or alive, until you measure and see. You can measure a particle's momentum, but lose "sight" of its position; get it position, but lose its momentum. A principle of uncertainty operates, and queer things are always happening.

The basic difference between classical physics and quantum physics is that the assumption in classical physics is there is a real out-there that things measure up to, a pre-existing pattern to compare your experiments with. But in quantum, there is not out-there until you get there to measure, no pre-existing pattern.

As in our community, straight lives tend to fit a pre-existing pattern, but queer lives don't measure up to anything: how you relate, couple, marry, live, you know and measure when you are there and get there.

As an amateur, I have always studied physics for comfort. It's a subject amateurs, with a little study, can understand the basics. While experts with all the knowledge there is to know still can't come to agreement or get it all. They, too, fall back on their metaphysics and philosophy of life to come up with a general explanation.

Physics as a subject is a cold mother, stark and pessimistic. Its ideas are beyond one's personal wish or will, or the grasp and clutches of the doctrine of any church. The Catholic Church didn't like Galileo in his day any more than they approve of gays and lesbians in our day. But, eventually, they have to surrender to real things the way they are, not some pre-existing notion of the way they should be.

Physicists tend to write simply and well. Stephen Hawking, Einstein, Galileo, and Roger Penrose all have produced writings and books, non-technical, that an amateur can read and understand. It's a cold, hard subject, but one many popular physicists have been willing to share with the general reading public.

David Deutsch has just written THE FABRIC OF REALITY and I've spent a month reading it, along with friend Vernon Huls in a study group. It's about the new implications of queer physics or quantum.

When I studied Lucretius' DE RERUM NATURA, the ancient Roman epic about atoms, I learned that the universe is full of two elements: body and void. But more void than body. Deutsch can now nail this down. The living universe contains detectable atoms of about 10 to the 80th power. But the multiverse, the vast void beyond, contains another group of atoms 10 to the 500th power.

When we lose"sight," detection of that weird photon, it has not gone anywhere. But into the multiverse. Into the "otherwhere."

In physics there is not only more than meets the eye, but more than meets the mind. What seems like chaos in the universe becomes stability in the multiverse.

In an upcoming column of Metaphysical QTs, inspired by Deutsch's book, I will give a point/counterpoint discussion of his ideas and argument. Here I just want to point out a couple of more things.

Reading Deutsch is a very good cure for solipsism. SOLUS/IPSE is Latin for "alone/yourself;" so solipsism would be the belief that you yourself alone are all there is in the universe. In the universe maybe, but never in the multiverse. You can't contain 10 to the 500th power of atoms in, you little ego-knocker.

Stephen Hawking pessimistically says the human race is "chemical scum." Deutsch understands the point, but also says we have access to intelligence and intelligent life. If I take my melanoma as just the sun's revenge because my mother told me to take my shirt off and get some sun on my back, I'm being petty and solipsical.

Deutsch wants me to use my intelligence and turn this around. Realize in several billion years the Sun itself may expand into a Red Giant then collapse into a Black Dwarf, burn us all away with more than melanoma.

We may be able to take steps to avoid this, if we can kick out of our little self-contained solipsistic universe and use our brain. He turns astrology on its head: "Human affairs can and do influence cosmic events."

I like reading physics, as best I can, because it takes me out of my little old singular ego-based self. queers pride themselves on being able to get down and physical. But to really get physical you have to study physics and get mental.

David Deutsch's new book THE FABRIC OF REALITY is a real trip into reality and queer physics. Stark, brilliant, fiercely arrogant, but exhilarating.

Due to his failing health, Jon-Henri will only be able to submit periodic columns.

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