The Wave Function
Dana Rozier
Picture the simplest atom, Hydrogen—with its nucleus and one electron—as big as a baseball, hovering above your desk. With your eyes closed, imagine the atom with its seemingly solid core, its electron buzzing around the nucleus at light-quick speed. Pretend your eyes have special powers to freeze the electron as soon as your gaze is upon it. Open your eyes. The electron stills. Call the way the atom appears at this moment in time “A.”
Close your eyes again. You can almost hear the electron whirring in its orbit, shape-shifting the atom into almost endless possible appearances. When you open your eyes this time and observe the atom, call this new picture “B.” Close again. The electron wheels. Open. A different view of the atom: “C.” Close. Zip. Open. Picture “D.”
Now, imagine a friend comes into your room and stands behind you at your desk. Your eyes are closed. She has played this atom game herself and is familiar with the rules.
She asks, “What does the atom look like now?”
You understand her point. With your eyes shut, you can’t say precisely what it looks like at any given moment. So many possibilities exist. Not until you observe the atom could you answer your friend’s question.
Scientists know this atom game, too. While their vocabulary is different, the rules are similar. According to theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger, an unobserved atom lies in a “superposition of states”—an almost infinite amalgam of possibilities—until a human beholds it. Then, at the moment of observation, only one of the possible states is seen.
There’s even a mathematical equation for this atom game. The Schrödinger Wave Equation states that every possible configuration of an atom—A, B, C, D—is true simultaneously. When a person examines the atom, however, the “wave function” collapses and only one picture remains.
While I’m cooking in the kitchen one evening, Wallace Stevens’s book, Collected Poetry and Prose, lies unobserved on my desk.
A Superposition of States
A - Dust Jacket
Stripes of red, white and blue divide the black jacket in half. Above the stripes, Stevens is written in white calligraphic script. In the upper right corner, a photograph of him—white hair combed straight back, fingers laced at chest level, dark suit and tie. Below the stripes, Collected Poetry and Prose is set in Times New Roman font.
B - Interior
The end paper is thick, dark blue. Five white stars arch over an open white book, the image printed over and over. Nine-hundred fifty-one pages of text. A thin navy ribbon sewn to the spine lies between pages 464 and 465.
C - The Sail of Ulysses
Yet always there is another life,
A life beyond this present knowing,
A life lighter than this present splendor,
Brighter, perfected and distant away...
D - ISBN
1-883011-45-0
E - Strings of Code
Books are written in strings of alphabetical code. Authors condense their experience of the world into line after line of words. Readers decode these one-dimensional strings and convert them into the fragrance of lilies, the prick of a pin, someone laughing. One person’s sensations travel by code to another’s synapses and neurons. Memories ignite memories.
F - Long-Term Memory
A molecule dwells in the nucleus of our brain cells. Its purpose is to switch on the genes needed to produce a protein that grooves permanent connections between our brain cells. Without it, long-term memory would not exist. Books and kisses and conversations could not be remembered.
After dinner I walk into my room and see Stevens’s book lying on my desk, open to The Sail of Ulysses. When I glance at the words “Yet always there is another life,” a memory ignites. The wave function collapses.
He quoted me that line in the very first email he ever sent. I quoted him back a line from Mary Oliver. We continued to swap lines from books until we met in person again. Then we swapped lines with our mouths. Once, I remember, we were making love, and my room was redolent with the smell of our bodies. I said that after he went home, I would walk back in here and sniff. “It would be like eating a Madeleine,” I noted. He stopped for a minute. Then his eyes lit up. “Proust!” he said. For a few minutes, we talked about Swann’s Way, and then we started in on string theory until we began kissing again.