(Unrevised and disjointed) Notes on Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Elementary Particles and the Forces of Nature

Key concepts: gravity/levity, kinesis ("irregular, random" Brownian motion), quarks(/antiquarks), discourse**, (in)divisibility/elementariness, Pauli exclusion principle, relativity + quantum, anti-electron/positron, particle/antiparticle**, annihilation, the four forces, confinement, meson, decay, arrival.

"...Einstein pointed out that what was called Brownian motion--the irregular, random motion of small particles of dust suspended in liquid--could be explained as the effect of atoms of the liquid colliding with the dust particles" (66). This is not only kinesis, but "irregular, random" kinesis--a motion that, as motion, not only disrupts stasis, and therefore prevents or undoes fixity, but also lends a further element of disruption through its irregularity and randomness. This is perfectly in tune, it seems to me, with the rest of quantum physics, which serves to deconstruct notions of knowability, nameability, understanding, and fixity by way of its inherent, fundamental "uncertainty."

The alleged "indivisibility" of the atom (Democritus first invoked the notion of the atom, which in Greek means "indivisible") was first undermined by Rutherford's discovery of the atom's internal structure, namely, the protons and neutrons at its center, and the electrons orbiting its nucleus. Hawking notes that "[u]p to about thirty years ago, it was thought that protons and neutrons were 'elementary' particles, but experiments in which protons were collided with other protons or electrons at high speeds indicated that they were in fact made up of smaller particles" (named "quarks" by Murray Gell-Mann) (67). (Interestingly, he took their name from James Joyce ("Three quarks for Muster Mark!")). Hence, "neither the atoms nor the protons and neutrons within them are indivisible. So the question is: what are the truly elementary particles, the basic building blocks from which everything is made?" (68). The notion invokes yet another intellectual wall inherent in physics, which is this notion of indivisibility. Though the indivisibility of the atom has been disproved, and, further, the indivisibility of the atom's constituent parts has also been disproved, Hawking still holds onto this notion of indivisibility, proposed by Democritus over two millenia ago. How long can we hold onto this notion? It seems pretty clear that what we declare "elementary" is merely the smallest thing we can find at the moment with the means at hand, and could therefore be declared indefinitely, without any definitive arrival whatsoever at anything that might be called purely or "truly" elementary.

We have no doubt all heard the somewhat trippy notion of the entire known universe (known to us, that is) being merely a single atom or molecule in the fingernail of some other being. The seemingly endless discovery of smaller and smaller bits of being suggests that this may not be as absurd as it seems on its face. The sheer smallness of the atom itself (Chown notes that "it would take 10 million, laid end to end, to span the width of a period," p. 6) and the overwhelming and nearly incomprehensible (at best) vastness of the known universe, along with the radical and fundamental uncertainty, unpredictability, and randomness revealed by quantum physics, indeed suggest that what we "know" cosmologically and atomically may very well only be shadows of a reality we cannot even begin to comprehend, much less observe and measure. This, I think, is where Hawking's scientific optimism becomes most questionable, for there seems no conceivable way for us primates--on this insignificant speck of rock, circling an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an insignificant neighborhood of the known (insignificant?) universe--could even begin to theorize, much less determine, the possibility of our universe being some "quark" (or subquark) in the "proton" of an "atom" of a "molecule" in something much more vast. We are, after all, so incredibly much larger than an atom that if we imagine it, for example, as a small solar system, with a species of beings living on the surface of its orbiting electron, it is almost certain that such beings would never ascertain our existence. If things can be so disparately great and small, as the cosmological and quantum worlds evidently are, there seems very little we can hope to know by way of "indivisibility" or elementariness. We are quite laughably insignificant in size in comparison to what we perceive to be the size of the universe, and quarks are absurdly small in comparison to us. Since we cannot (as Hawking admits) incorporate any notion of infinity in any practical way, we can hardly conceive of an order of magnitude that would increase with infinite bigness (beyond the cosmological) in one direction, and with infinite smallness in the other (beyond the quark). If such a scale existed, even if it were finite, we primates could exist at any point on that scale without having the slightest clue about it. The universe, for example, may be quite low on the scale, and its relative enormity to us therefore quite small, or it may be near the maximum, making even us primates quite comparatively large. Whether such a scale exists, or is finite or infinite, the concept of (in)divisibility becomes rather moot, most obviously on the infinite continuum, but on the finite one as well, because the smallest thing we can ascertain (as far as I know, the quark) may in fact be nowhere near the low end of this scale of magnitude. We may be, even in our most grand and far-reaching theories, doomed to a hopelessly inescapable myopia. And we would never know it.

Things get rather interesting when Hawking begins to describe the different varieties (or "flavors") of quarks, which take the form of euphemistic misnomers like "up, down, strange, charmed, bottom, and top" (67). He further notes that each flavor "comes in three 'colors,'" another specious metaphor used for the sake of clarity. It is interesting how the discourse of science becomes more flimsy the more colloquial it becomes, in the sense that it becomes so metaphorical (like "spin") as to be blatantly inaccurate in any understood linguistic sense. At such a point, it seems to me, scientific discourse becomes undeniably postmodern, and flagrantly admits all of the resultant aspects thereof, including Foucauldian notions of discourse and Derridean deconstruction. Indeed, the invocation of colors and flavors compels Hawking to include the following digression: "It should be emphasized that these terms are just labels: quarks are much smaller than the wavelength of visible light and so do not have any color in the normal sense. It is just that modern physicists seem to have more imaginative ways of naming new particles and phenomena--they no longer have to restrict themselves to Greek!" (67). The result, of course, is a new discourse that readily admits, as Hawking's digression attests, to the existence of itself as discourse. Such descriptions are therefore indicative of a (perhaps only tacit, or unconscious) readiness to embrace the poststructuralist notion of a decentered universe, a deconstructive self-reflexivity that incorporates, reflects, and employs the ideational proposals of late twentieth-century "literary theory." The instant at which scientific discourse acknowledges its figurality is the precise moment in which it becomes literary criticism. Combine this with Hawking's definition of "theory" and you have a discourse that can only claim to "read" humanity, the world, the cosmos, and being to the same extent which literature and literary critics (and other constituents of the "humanities") claim to do so. Indeed, perhaps the American insistence on using the term "humanities" instead of "human sciences" is reflective of our reticence to acknowledge what "continental" thinkers seem less anxious about--the fundamentally "human" aspect of science, its figurality, tenuousness, and anthropocentric constructedness.

Hawking makes a similar qualification later in the chapter when he discusses four types of forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear): "It should be emphasized that this division into four classes is man-made [as if it could be anything else]; it is convenient for the construction of partial theories, but it may not correspond to anything deeper. Ultimately, most physicists hope to find a unified theory that will explain all four forces as different aspects of a single force. Indeed, many would say this is the prime goal of physics today" (72). Here again, while being very candid about the constructedness of his discourse, Hawking is still insistent on arrival, on getting to the bottom of things, on discovering the "truth." This of course consists of, as in every other truth discourse, the reduction of multiplicity to a singular, coherent, and unified oneness. Why should this be goal? Wasn't this always the goal, before the advent of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle? Do these revelations really not modify the "prime goal of physics today" any more than Hawking suggests here? If not, how fucking boring is that?

"Pauli's exclusion principle says that two similar particles cannot exist in the same state; that is, they cannot have both the same position and the same velocity, within the limits given by the uncertainty principle" (70). Still not entirely clear on this one.

positrons = anti-electrons. "We now know that every particle has an antiparticle, with which it can annihilate" (70-1). I must admit I LOVE this idea. There is a symmetry to it, agreed, but anything "anti" and/or annihilative turns me on. Furthermore: "There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles" (71). Bizarro?

(Unrevised and disjointed) Notes on Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - The Uncertainty Principle

Key concepts: scientific determinism (Marquis de Laplace), uncertainty principle (Heisenberg), quanta (Planck), Occam's razor, probability, randomness, duality/interference, "sum over histories" (Feynman)??

"The success of scientific theories, particularly Newton's theory of gravity, led the French scientist Marquis de Laplace at the beginning of the nineteenth century to argue that the universe was completely deterministic...that there should be a set of scientific laws that would allow us to predict everything that would happen in the universe, if only we knew the complete state of the universe at one time. For example, if we knew the positions and speeds of the sun and the planets at one time, then we could use Newton's laws to calculate the state of the Solar System at any other time" (55). This is all well and good, Hawking suggests, when the solar system is the object of study. However, when the object of study is human behavior, for example, or even takes place on anything other than a macro, Newtonian level, determinism becomes completely untenable.

In 1900, Planck put forth the idea of what he called quanta: the constituent "packets" in which waves must be emitted (56). In 1926, Heisenberg noticed (as I discussed vis-a-vis Chown) that we could only know the position or velocity of any particle with any degree of certainty. The more certainly we could ascertain the position of a particle, the less we would know about its velocity, and vice versa. This discovery essentially shoots scientific determinism to shit, because we can never "know" the position and motion of any one particle at any given time: "The uncertainty principle signaled an end to Laplace's dream of a theory of science, a model of the universe that would be completely deterministic: one certainly cannot predict future events exactly if one cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely!" (57). Hawking further notes that "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a fundamental, inescapable property of the world" (57). So how does this affect Hawking's search for a "complete unified theory"? Is there no element of scientific determinism inherent in such a quest? None at all?

A fundamental result of uncertainty is that "quantum mechanics does not predict a single definite result for an observation. Instead, it predicts a number of different possible outcomes and tells us how likely each of these is" (58). The discourse of physics, then, becomes one not of certainty, but of probability--not of "complete," unified descriptions, but partial ones. "Quantum mechanics therefore introduces an unavoidable element of unpredictability or randomness into science" (58). Again, how does this jive with Hawking's goal? Is it merely to say that, in theory, a theory which describes the incompleteness of itself can, in this sense, be considered "complete"? If we can predict the level of unpredictability with fairly acute accuracy, have we satisfied our litmus test of predictability?

"Einstein's general theory of relativity seems to govern the large-scale structure of the universe. It is what is called a classical theory; that is, it does not take account of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics" (63). Is relativity then more akin to Newtonian physics, which it completely undermined, than it is to quantum mechanics ("...classical general relativity, by predicting points of infinite density, predicts its own downfall, just as classical...mechanics predicted its downfall by suggesting that atoms should collapse to infinite density," p. 63)? If so, how does one justify the switch from Einstein to Heisenberg at that moment when the backward tape of the universe's expansion crosses the apparently arbitrary boundary between macro and micro, classical and quantum?

(Unrevised and disjointed) Notes on Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - The Expanding Universe

Key concepts: fixity/static, expansion, "finite without any edges or boundaries," general relativity + quantum physics, singularity [e.g. big bang], time/beginning, collapse, Marxism and scientific determinism**, general relativity as self-destructive.

"...our galaxy is only one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes, each galaxy itself containing some hundred thousand million stars" (38). Hubble's observation of these galaxies moving away from us at rapid speeds "meant that the universe could not be static, as everyone previously thought, but is in fact expanding; the distance between the different galaxies is growing all the time" (41). Every galaxy is in perpetual motion (relative, of course, to other galaxies. To suggest "motion" without this relativity is pointless), and every star within that galaxy is in perpetual motion relative to that galaxy's "center," and every conceivable planet in every star's hypothetical "solar system" is in motion relative to that star, and every one of those planets is in motion relative to its own axis, and every atom in existence on, in, and of that planet is itself in motion relative to others, as are its constituent parts relative to its center. Now that's what I call kinetic.

Hawking begins to more thoroughly flesh out his dream of a unified theory in this chapter, suggesting that "when one combines general relativity with the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, it is possible for both space and time to be finite without any edges or boundaries" (47). Here we are implicitly encouraged, of course, to imagine the universe as a sphere not unlike Earth (except, of course, for the somewhat significant addition of a fourth dimension). The surface of a sphere has no edges or boundaries, and can thus be traversed infinitely in any given direction without "falling off" an edge or running into a wall; yet it is finite in extent. Think, then, of the universe's expansion as a swelling, much like a balloon (or the Earth) being inflated; wherever we are on the surface of a hypothetical expanding Earth, any markers we might see--another standing person, for example--would be moving away from us as the Earth was "inflated." This would be true at all points on the surface. Additionally, the greater the distance between any two markers (people in this case), the greater the rate of retreat between them. Imagine, now, that you play this expansion in reverse, and watch it unfold backwards. Such a conception suggests that there must be some "beginning"--the big bang, in the case of the universe--in which time "began." Hawking notes that this can only be described, and has been described for some time, as a "singularity," i.e., an "event" in which every scientific theory or law completely breaks down, even relativity: "...all our theories of science are formulated on the assumption that space-time is smooth and nearly flat, so they break down at the big bang singularity, where the curvature of space-time is infinite" (49). In other words, "any body undergoing gravitational collapse must eventually form a singularity" (52).

***Here again we see the universe's (and thus being's) radical unknowability consistently revealed by contemporary physics. As primates in a three-dimensional world, we constantly rely on metaphors and analogies in order to describe and understand what appears to be the four-dimensional being of the cosmos, groping sprawlingly at the concepts of infinity, eternity, duality, relativity, and other such counterintuitive and mostly unimaginable esoterica.

"There was a lot of opposition to our work, partly from the Russians because of their Marxist belief in scientific determinism, and partly from people who felt that the whole idea of singularities was repugnant and spoiled the beauty of Einstein's theory. [...] I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe--as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account" (53). In other words, "there must have been a time in the very early universe when the universe was so small that one could no longer ignore the small-scale effects of the other great partial theory of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics" (54). Quantum mechanics prevents singularities? But isn't the point at which we have to switch from relativity to quantum mechanics a kind of methodological singularity? Some kind of fudge?

*** "...general relativity is an incomplete theory: it cannot tell us how the universe started off, because it predicts that all physical theories, including itself, break down at the beginning of the universe" (53-4). This is an astounding notion: first, that general relativity necessitates its own deconstruction; it is, in other words, built in. This, I think, is an intriguing and potentially strong contact point between physics and lit crit. Second, Hawking's statement is intriguing because he cannot bring himself to believe that this can be the case--that such a self-reflexively deconstructive proposition could itself reflect a deconstructive ontology inhering (so far as we may admit such a word) in the cosmos. In other words, perhaps self-destruction is, as the poststructuralists seem to suggest, and for lack of a better description, the fundamental aspect of cosmological being.***

(Unrevised and disjointed) Notes on Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Space and Time

Key concepts: stasis/kinesis, (non)absolute position, event, speed of light, mass-energy, space/time relativity, space-time as object (thingness), 4-D, elsewhere**, pastness (of the observable universe), curvature/warp.

Aristotle believed that stasis was the fundamental condition of being: "the natural state of a body was to be at rest and...it moved only if driven by a force or impulse" (15). On this point, it turns out, Aristotle could not have been more wrong. All the evidence, both atomic and cosmological, suggests that the opposite is true; everything is in a constant state of motion. On the atomic level, of course, electrons are in orbit about their respective nuclei, but even in addition to that, the atoms themselves are in a perpetually kinetic state: "The big difference between the ideas of Aristotle and those of Galileo and Newton is that Aristotle believed in a preferred state of rest, which any body would take up if it were not driven by some force or impulse. In particular, he thought that the earth was at rest. But it follows from Newton's laws that there is no unique standard of rest" (17, emphasis added). That atomic motion becomes more frenzied at increased temperatures is well-known; less well-known is the fact that even at so-called "absolute zero," at which point atomic motion is said to halt, there is still a residual Brownian motion--the "jitter" of atoms perpetually in motion.

Kinesis, furthermore, is also the fundamental state of being on the cosmological level. It has become apparent that what is typically thought of as the "force" of gravity is not really a force at all (see Chown, "The Quantum Zoo," Part II). Rather, mass-ive cosmological objects--the Earth, for example--are in a constant state of free-fall (no doubt a difficult concept to process, as "falling" implies movement from "up" to "down," and something that takes place finitely, i.e., with some-thing at the "bottom" on which a falling object eventually "lands"). What keeps the Earth in orbit around our sun is not a "force" of gravity at all; instead, the Earth is merely falling in a "straight line," as objects tend to do--the "straight line" is merely a four-dimensional one, so we end up seeing it as a curve. (Think of a plane flying from New York to London. It takes not a straight but a curved path, because this is the shortest distance in three dimensions, despite the fact that the surface of the Earth is two-dimensional, and therefore subject to the "shortest-distance-between-two-points-is-a-straight-line" characteristic.) This is because the sun, as a large, massive object, literally "warps," or "curves," the space-time around it: "...gravity is not a force like other forces, but is a consequence of the fact that space-time is not flat, as had been previously assumed: it is curved, or 'warped,' by the distribution of mass and energy in it" (30). Therefore, free-falling in a straight line, the Earth orbits the much more massive sun: "In general relativity, bodies always follow straight lines in four-dimensional space-time, but they nevertheless appear to us to move along curved paths in our three-dimensional space" (31). Mindfuck, right? Makes no sense?

"...suppose [a] Ping-Pong ball on [a] train bounces straight up and down, hitting the table twice on the same spot one second apart. To someone on the track, the two bounces would seem to take place about forty meters apart, because the train would have traveled that far down the track between the bounces. The nonexistence of absolute rest therefore meant that one could not give an event an absolute position in space, as Aristotle had believed" (18). To the rigorously practically minded realist, this may seem a nitpicky point. A more serious consideration of this "event," however, reveals a fundamental disjuncture in what we consider to be reality. Both the person on the train, who says the ball hit in the exact same spot, and the person on the bank, who says it hit forty meters apart, have a legitimate, verifiable explanation of this event. The ball did hit the table twice in exactly the same physical spot; it also did hit the table the second time some forty meters from where it had hit the first time. The two accounts are both wholly verifiable and--here's the kicker--wholly incompatible. Does this say something merely about perspective, i.e., Einstein's persistent infatuation with "the observer" or "any observer"? Or is there a useful (at least intellectually) way of removing observers from the situation? Imagine the ball drops from the ceiling of the train and hits the table in the "same spot" (assume, for the sake of useful discussion, that this event can be said to "happen" without a primate in proximity to witness it). If we take this to be as "actual" as anything else we consider to be actual, the ball, in relation to the Earth, has hit the table the second time quite a physical distance from where it hit the first time. That is, relative to the train and to the Earth, the event has two wholly accurate and wholly incompatible dimensions, a "duality" that will later be reflected by the wave-particle nature of light, the basis for Hugh Everett's "many-worlds" interpretation of being. When such multiplicity--in the present case, duality--is clearly so fundamental to being, and all things are in perpetual motion, how is it that Hawking can hope for "a complete unified theory" that describes every-thing in the uni-verse?

Well, as a partial answer to this, there is the speed of light. "The fundamental postulate of the theory of relativity," Hawking writes, "was that the laws of science should be the same for all freely moving observers, no matter what their speed" (20). Ironically, it is this very constancy of "laws" that allows for the radical inconstancy implied by the term "relativity"; it is the relentlessly and unfailingly constant speed of light which allows for the perpetually dual nature of all of being's events in time and space.

An event itself is a crippling mystery. Hawking defines it later as "something that takes place at a single point in space, at a specified point in time," or "something that happens at a particular point in space and at a particular time" (22, 24). However, we now know there is no such thing as an event that "takes place at a single point in space" or "at a specified point in time." Hawking points out that "the choice of coordinates is arbitrary"--the spatial "position" is determined by three figures from an arbitrarily constructed structure, and the temporal "position" is similarly marked by something we made up called a "clock." The fallibility of this system is shown by the later proposition that we should think of events, if we think of them at all, as taking place "in a four-dimensional space called space-time," in which the fourth dimension, which behaves not altogether unlike the other three, is time: "We must accept that time is not completely separate from and independent of space, but is combined with it to form an object called space-time" (23). Hawking's language here is very revealing; he refers to space-time as "an object," providing it with a thingness we wouldn't normally attribute to empty space, and certainly not to time.

As I noted with Chown, mass and energy can be put into equivalence (as in E=mc^2), meaning that mass and energy are not mutually exclusive things. Rather, we might consider the amalgam mass-energy, somewhat like we consider not space and time, but rather space-time. Resultantly, "the energy which an object has due to its motion will add to its mass" (21). This is the reason why the speed of light (300,000 km/s) is often referred to as the "cosmic speed limit" (or some comparably cutesy euphemism): nothing with mass could ever (theoretically--this is obviously not testable) travel as fast or faster than light, for the increasing energy required to get matter moving that quickly would consistently add to its mass, meaning it would require more energy to continue its acceleration, which would add more mass, and so on. Ultimately, there is not enough energy in the entire universe to support the kind of mass-ive acceleration this would require. It is also interesting to note the breakdown of the dividing line between mass and energy, which gives energy a thingness we had originally reserved for the more "material" nature of mass.

"...the future light cone of the event" (26). What the FUCK is this? "Only events in the future of P can be affected by what happens at P because nothing can travel faster than light. [...] Similarly, the past of P can be defined as the set of all events from which it is possible to reach the event P traveling at or below the speed of light" (27). Again, as in discussing space-time as "an object," is this description of time as "actual" as, say, a description of my hand, or of a tree, or even of a discourse? Or is all of this shit purely made up out of whole cloth? The discussions of physics lead me to believe that the humanities' quaint dismissal of anything that might be called real "time" as a complete fiction of the collective mind is severely challenged by people like Hawking and Einstein. But is the character they assign to time, its thingness, "actual"? How the fuck can we get around this?

What I like about the "future light cone," even though I don't entirely understand it, is the following: "The events that do not lie in the future or past of P are said to lie in the elsewhere of P" (27). "Lying in the elsewhere" is definitely something I will have to think very thoroughly and very seriously for this thesis. For example, this is saying that some-thing in the "elsewhere" is (a) not a possible precursor to the event, and (b) not a possible outcome or antecedent to the event. "What happens at such events can neither affect nor be affected by what happens at P" (27). How does this relate to the profound interconnectedness provided by our atomic makeup? Can such events really be said to be wholly unrelated when even Hawking, later in the book, discusses the ever-increasing nature of entropy in the universe, which is always consistently contributed to by all things in all places at all times?

"...when we look at the universe, we are seeing it as it was in the past" (28). The fact that light from distant galaxies has not yet made it to us makes, I think, a strong case for time being something we have to consider "real" or at least "actual."

*** "Newton's laws of motion put an end to the idea of absolute position in space. The theory of relativity gets rid of absolute time" (34). What have we, then? Space-time? Or nothing? It might be said that this is indeed a reflection of what I said (in discussing Chown) about the atom itself being a sort of undermining or obliteration (or at least an aberration from) what we consider to be "space" and "time." Neither is constant. The only thing that is constant--perhaps, the only thing that is actual--is the speed of light. Everything else is tenuous and subject to interpretation, argumentation, conflicting accounts, etc. "Space and time are now dynamic qualities: when a body moves, or a force acts," writes Hawking, "it affects the curvature of space and time--and in turn the structure of space-time affects the way in which bodies move and forces act" (34). The fixity of positions in space or moments in time is a fiction. But does space-time "really" curve, or does our conception of space-time (or space_and_time, for that matter) merely need to be adjusted? Is the curving taking place "out there" in space, or in the minds of physicists? Is this an answerable question?

(Unrevised and disjointed) Notes on Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" - Chapter 1

In the foreword, and repeatedly afterward, Hawking makes no bones about his conception of scientific inquiry. His goal, similar to Einstein's, is nothing short of "a complete unified theory of physics," based on the bold, age-old assumption that "the universe is governed by a set of rational laws that we can discover and understand" (viii). These crucial words--complete, unified, unification, rational, understand--are ubiquitous in his writing. I have no choice but to wonder whether this makes him a kind of "classical" scientist--in the sense that he must somehow find his way around relativity and quantum theory so he can somehow recenter his conception of a radically decentered universe--or if instead relativity and quantum physics are so abstruse for one such as me, and his understanding of it so thoroughly sophisticated, that I simply cannot find a way aboard the unification train, no matter how baldly the evidence beckons me there (which is more likely the case, since, after all, he is Stephen Hawking, for fuck's sake). He later clarifies his conception of a unified theory, however, suggesting that it must necessarily consist of a multiplicity of theories that are unified only in the sense that they overlap when circumstances allow them to, which may or may not be a way of saying that a "complete unified theory" is really a kind of patchwork bricolage of occasionally varied conclusions about the nature of the universe. (I will discuss this in my reviews of later chapters.)

Chapter 1 - Our Picture of the Universe

Key concepts: (de)center(ed), spheres, comfort, eternal/infinite v. temporal/finite, "First Cause"/beginning, antinomies, TIME, event, stasis/kinesis, theory, general relativity, quantum physics, arbitrary/lawful, observer imbrication (Derrida: "caught in the game"), dream of presence.

Supplementary works: Aristotle, On the Heavens; Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica; St. Augustine, The City of God; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

Aristotle believed, "for mystical reasons, that the earth was the center of the universe, and that circular motion was the most perfect" (2). [referencing On the Heavens]. Newton puzzled over why gravity did not cause the stars to collapse into one another, but "reasoned that if...there were an infinite number of stars, distributed more or less uniformly over infinite space, this would not happen, because there would not be any central point for them to fall to" (5). Hawking elaborates, saying that in "an infinite universe, every point can be regarded as the center" (5). Is it safe to say, then, that every point can be equally regarded as not-center, i.e., that the universe is without center? And if so, is it too much to extend this lack of "physical" center to the conceptual understanding of the cosmos, i.e., that it, too, is without a central unifying principle? Obviously, Hawking's writing would suggest that such an extrapolation is wholly without merit.

Hawking notes that before the twentieth century, "[i]t was generally accepted that either the universe had existed forever in an unchanging state, or that it had been created at a finite time in the past more or less as we observe it today," suggesting that these two frameworks may have been attributable to "people's tendency to believe in eternal truths, as well as the comfort they found in the thought that even though they may grow old and die, the universe is eternal and unchanging" (6). Is there a difference between seeking the eventual arrival at a complete unified theory, and the belief in "eternal truths"? Would not a full, complete, thorough description of the universe as it really is constitute an "eternal truth"? That is, insofar as we consider the age of the universe to be, at least in lay terms, "eternal." As Hawking later points out, time begins at the big bang (this is an incredibly difficult concept to contemplate, as we shall later see), and so the universe itself is, to the best of our knowledge, not literally eternal. But, for the average, earthbound, mortal primate, whose life expectancy hovers around 70 or 80 years, 14 billion years may as well be eternity for all practical intents and purposes. We are told repeatedly that even the existence of the human race (perhaps roughly 200,000 years in duration) is a virtually imperceptible flash in terms of biological time, to say nothing of geological or cosmological time, both of which can be measured in billions of years. Is Hawking's quest for a complete unified theory also a quest for "comfort," a substitution of center for center? (Derrida: "...the center also closes off the play which it opens up and makes possible. As center, it is the point at which the substitution of contents, elements, or terms is no longer possible. At the center, the permutation or the transformation of elements...is forbidden. [...] Thus it has always been thought that the center, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure which while governing the structure, escapes structurality" (279).)

The issue becomes further complicated by the well-known Newtonian question of why, if the universe is more or less infinite, and there is a more or less infinite amount of stars, does the night sky not shine bright white with their light? The only tenable explanation seems to be that "the stars had not been shining forever but had turned on at some finite time in the past" (7). This means that light from the most distant stars and galaxies has not yet reached us, which explains the black space between dots of light in the night sky. Hawking points out that this brings up another touchy philosophical issue, that of the "First Cause." Since "[w]ithin the universe, you always explained one event as being caused by some earlier event," it became clear that "the existence of the universe itself could be explained in this way only if it had some beginning" (7). Interestingly, Hawking writes that "Aristotle, and most of the other Greek philosophers...did not like the idea of a creation because it smacked too much of divine intervention. They believed, therefore, that the human race and the world around it had existed, and would exist, forever" (8). This is of course demonstrably wrong, but is useful in thinking about contemporary issues in cosmology, particularly in the "popular" realm, and the kind of religious backwardness concerning a "young" earth and/or universe, which, when laid next to the Greeks, appears a regression of the highest order. [How might this be related to Spanos' Heideggerian reading of the Greeks and Romans? How does Lucretius fit into all this?]

Time: "...the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe" (8). Hawking notes that when the generally accepted description of the universe was that it was "essentially static and unchanging, the question of whether or not it had a beginning was really one of metaphysics or theology" (8-9). This question was "finally brought...into the realm of science" as a result of Hubble's observation of the red shift, which demonstrated that galaxies, including our own, were flying apart from one another--that the universe was expanding (9). This of course suggested that, were we able to rewind the video of the universe unfolding and watch time go backward, all the matter in the universe would fly together into one mass (this will be discussed at length later). Such a shrinking, as we watch the tape backwards, could not possibly go on forever; there must have been one point at which the universe as we know it was, for lack of a better term, "born" (Hawking seems to love the term "created," though it of course smacks of theological preoccupations, which come out quite frequently in his book with his frequent references to God setting this all in motion. The figurality of such descriptions is often tacitly (apparently) denied by the author.) So there was, in fact, a "beginning" of time: "If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences" (9) [land before time, dawn of history, etc]. "In an unchanging universe," Hawking continues, "a beginning in time is something that has to be imposed by some being outside the universe; there is no physical necessity for a beginning" (9). We know, though, that the universe never stops changing--kinesis, for example, is the fundamental state of every-thing, from the smallest subatomic particle (even at so-called "absolute zero") to galaxies comprised of millions of stars. These things are all in motion (relative to each other, of course. Einstein!)

Perhaps the most interesting passage in this chapter is Hawking's discussion of the nature of science and, in particular, theory (**there could obviously be parallels drawn here between scientific "theory" and the sort privileged by literary criticism): "In order to talk about the nature of the universe and to discuss questions such as whether it has a beginning or an end, you have to be clear about what a scientific theory is. I shall take the simpleminded view that a theory is just a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make. It exists only in our minds and does not have any other reality (whatever that might mean)" (10). He goes on to say that "a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation" (10). I find it fascinating that Hawking is so deliberately forthright about highlighting the constructedness and fictiveness of scientific theories in contradistinction to the universe "out there." If he is willing to concede this much structurality, it is perhaps not so great a step to deconstructing his own discourse. Fittingly, he adds that "[a]ny physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it" (10). Candid and humble as this is, he is more than willing as the book continues to cite examples where he "proved" this or that hypothesis in his own work. This becomes particularly problematic in Chapter 11, when he notes the three possible states of his cosmological inquiry:

1. There really is a complete unified theory (or a collection of overlapping formulations), which we will someday discover if we are smart enough.
2. There is no ultimate theory of the universe, just an infinite sequence of theories that describe the universe more and more accurately.
3. There is no theory of the universe: events cannot be predicted beyond a certain extent but occur in a random and arbitrary manner. (183)

It should come as no surprise, given what Hawking writes in his foreword (and at the close of nearly every chapter), that he believes the first possibility to be the most promising. However, isn't such a position radically undermined by what he says of theory in Chapter 1? Is a unified theory really "complete" if it "exists only in our minds"? What manner of completeness is this, and of what use could it possibly be if it has no existence outside the crania of a few physics professors?

"The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe" (11). Again, Hawking admits that such a beast must necessarily take the form of "a collection of overlapping formulations" (even though he stresses "single theory"): "...we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers" (11). Oddly, and perhaps most interestingly, Hawking adds that "[i]t may be that this approach is completely wrong." Despite this, contemporary physics relies on two theories: general relativity and quantum mechanics, which, according to Hawking, "are known to be inconsistent with each other--they cannot both be correct" (12). Mmm...k? Soooooo...?

"...if you believe that the universe is not arbitrary, but is governed by definite laws, you ultimately have to combine the partial theories into a complete unified theory that will describe everything in the universe. But there is a fundamental paradox in the search for such a complete unified theory. [...] [I]f there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it!" (13). Pretty Po-Mo, no? In other words, we are inextricably enmeshed in that which we observe, and can therefore never be able to observe the universe from the outside (in fact, there is only quite a small portion of it we can even observe from the inside). He goes on to say that even though "the search for the ultimate theory of the universe seems difficult to justify on practical grounds," most of us higher order primates "have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world." Thus, "our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in" (14). Is this realistic, tenable, believable? Does the desire for order--for central organizing principles, the dream of presence--constitute a justification for the continued search for it? Does our desire to find order and connectedness wherever we look have any bearing whatsoever on whether such order is "really" at work? Surely, this is where the sciences and the humanities (or at least those of a poststructuralist or postpoststructuralist leaning) part ways.

Special Theory (XII-XVII)

XII. "The Behaviour of Measuring-Rods and Clocks in Motion"

"The rigid rod is...shorter when in motion than when at rest, and the more quickly it is moving, the shorter is the rod" (42-3). For the observer on the embankment, the rod in motion on the train is moving as he is measuring it, such that the end on the left (assuming the train is moving to his right) moves closer to the end on the right as he measures. But I still don't entirely understand why time has to be factored in here...

"...in the theory of relativity the velocity c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can neither be reached nor exceeded by any real body" (43). Matter, in other words, can never travel as fast as light.

"As a consequence of its motion the clock goes more slowly than when at rest" (44). I understand these conclusions, but not entirely how he arrived at them (because I don't understand math). Why, in even more simplistic terms, are length and time relative in this way?

XIII. "Theorem of the Addition of Velocities: The Experiment of Fizeau"

???

XIV. "The Heuristic Value of the Theory of Relativity"

- LORENTZ/galilei

Again, the principle of relativity AND the constant c are entirely compatible.

*Is Einstein saying that laws hold relative to the system, i.e., that the same laws govern each system, but not both together--that while the same laws hold within each system of co-ordinates, no laws can govern the macrosystem which includes both K and K'??

XV. "General Results of the Theory"

*Einstein's primary goal, really, is to simplify, unify, and reduce multiplicity--to domesticate Being in/and the world (52).

In practice, the effects of velocity on measurements are too negligible to be of any use (these velocities are too diminutive compared to c). Atomic motion, however, is rapid enough that these calculations have enormous ramifications (52-53).

Conservation laws (of mass and energy) were previously thought separate. Relativity proves their unification/inseparability (54). This goes along with Everett and the two-slit experiment, in which mass behaves as both matter AND energy: "the inertial mass of a body is not a constant, but varies according to the change in the energy of the body" (55). These laws, then, become "identical." But how, exactly??

Again, this has never been important to classical physicists because its effects are too small to be noticed on the macro level. Atomically, though, it becomes crucial, as we see later with Everett and his many-worlds conjecture.

56-57: "instantaneous actions at a distance" - Huh??

XVI. "Experience and the Special Theory of Relativity"

Electromagnetics and the study of "fixed stars" confirms the Maxwell/Lorentz propositions and the theory of relativity (58-59). I still don't understand, though, exactly what Maxwell and Lorentz said/did.

Beta-rays consisting of negatively electrified particles (electrons) moving at high velocities: Common sense would say that electrons should be going willy-nilly as a result of their own repellent forces--the nature of like charges to repel one another. And yet they are held in orbit. Ergo, there must be "forces of another kind operating between them" (60). This is posited as gravity.

62- aether-drift (???) (62-64)?

XVII. "Minkowski's Four-dimensional Space"

We live in a 4-D space-time continuum (65): SPACE=3D (x,y,z); TIME=1D (t). Physicists previously had treated time as "independent" and "absolute" (66). But relativity shows that this is not the case: "the time co-ordinate plays exactly the same role as the three space co-ordinates" (67).

All of this is hotly contested, of course, at least in the humanities. We often insist that time is "made up," fictive and abstract in a way the physical world (SPACE) is "real" and tangible. But what if this isn't true? What if spacetime exists, and not only exists, but "bends"? How can we conceive of this in a field that has assumed time as a singular abstraction, autonomous at best and fictive at worst?

There is also the fact that relativity, as Einstein conceives of it, is a "purely formal addition to our knowledge" (68). He says that "the natural laws satisfying the demands of the (special) theory of relativity assume mathematical forms" (67). Indeed, his entire theory is mathematically conceived, numerically constructed. Disciples of Foucault and Derrida may consider this highly suspect, as it is (despite mathematicians' protests, and claims to objectivity) a kind of signification system which is inherently and fundamentally detached from that which it is meant/assumed to signify. That being said, is overdetermining this constructedness any less ridiculous/unnecessary/counterproductive than overdetermining linguistic constructions? Can't we discuss these principles seriously and still acknowledge the limitations of the system (as the poststructuralists indeed do)? It seems to me that we can "accept" these constructions, as we do language, as a system of practical utility and not one of absolute "truth." Are Einstein's mathematically derived assertions any less "real" than the assertions of, say, Derrida, simply because they don't ceaselessly fetishize their own constructedness? Einstein does, after all, begin his book with a fairly full-throated acknowledgment of the tenuousness of his system of signification (very much in the spirit of Saussure).

Special Theory (VII-XI)

[WIKIPEDIA: "the principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations, describing the laws of physics, have the same form in all admissible frames of reference." This is what Einstein recasts in his special theory. "Any principle of relativity prescribes a symmetry in natural law: that is, the laws must look the same to one observer as they do to another." Conversely, "The special principle of relativity states that physical laws should be the same in every inertial frame of reference, but that they may vary across non-inertial ones."]

VII. "The Apparent Incompatibility of the Law of Propagation of Light with the Principle of Relativity"

Of course, "the propagation of light" is the touchstone for Einstein, the constant "c." He is insistent that light's velocity (c) "cannot depend on the velocity of motion of the body emitting the light" (21). The 'common-sense' view, as he annunciates it:

"If every ray of light is propagated relative to the embankment with the velocity c, then for this reason it would appear that another law of propagation of light must necessarily hold with respect to the carriage [of the train, in which Einstein's hypothetical man is walking in the direction of the direction of the train]--a result contradictory to the principle of relativity." (23)

In other words, it would seem as though either the principle of relativity OR the constant propagation of light (c) must be accepted; but NOT BOTH. Since, Einstein says, Lorentz's work with electrodynamics has demonstrated that it cannot be c that we discard, that leaves the principle of relativity to be abandoned. However, he demonstrates the compatibility of the two in the next section:

"...in reality there is not the least incompatibility between the principle of relativity and the law of propagation of light, and that by systematically holding fast to these laws a logically rigid theory [can] be arrived at." (24)

But is this merely scientific idealism? Is there such a thing as a "logically rigid theory"?

VIII. "On the Idea of Time in Physics"

Here Einstein questions the concept of simultaneity. Thinking ahead, I'm assuming this is because space can bend time in such a way as to deconstruct and delegitimize our assumptions about simultaneity--MATTER (in space) can bend time (this is spacetime); the observations made at any two positions are therefore contingent on this disfiguration--SPACE DISFIGURES TIME (26).

An observer on the embankment at point (M) witnesses lightening strike the track at points (A) and (B)--both of which are equidistant from him--at the "same time." He then says that these strikes are "simultaneous." However,...

IX. "The Relativity of Simultaneity"

The lightening strike, if simultaneous relative to the rigid embankment, must, BY DEFINITION, be in fact asynchronous relative to the train in motion on the tracks (30-31). While the observer at point (M) will see lightening strike points (A) and (B) "simultaneously," an observer at point (M') on the train, which is moving AWAY from (A) and TOWARD (B) will see the lightening strike point (B) FIRST, and THEN point (A). This is because he is moving away from the light at (A)--in the same direction--and toward the light at (B). In other words, he will hasten to 'meet' the light from (B) BEFORE the light from (A) is able to 'catch up' to him:

"Every reference-body (co-ordinate system) has its own particular time; unless we are told the reference-body to which the statement of time refers, there is no meaning in a statement of the time of the event." (32, emphasis added)

Hence the relativity of time. And, hence the compatibility of (c) AND the principle of relativity: While time in this scenario was relative to the two reference-bodies involved, light itself was moving at the same velocity (c). In other words, the observer at (M') didn't see lightening strike (B) first because the light from (B) was traveling faster than the light from (A); it was his own movement toward (B) that caused him to see it first. Light rays from both (A) and (B) were traveling toward the observer at (M') with the exact same speed (c).

X. "On the Relativity of the Conception of Distance"

*invokes the physical measuring "rod" again...

"...if the man in the carriage covers the distance (w) in a unit of time--measured from the train--then this distance--as measured from the embankment--is not necessarily also equal to (w)" (35). But why? Why must time be a factor in measuring length???

XI. "The Lorentz Transformation"

Assumptions of classical mechanics undermined by this demonstration:

"(1) The time-interval (time) between two events is independent of the condition of motion of the body of reference.
(2) The space-interval (distance) between two points of a rigid body is independent of the condition of motion of the body of reference." (36)

According to Einstein, Lorentz proved there was a way to establish "a relation between place and time of the individual events relative to both reference-bodies, such that every ray of light possesses the velocity of transmission c relative to the embankment and relative to the [moving] train" (37). It is possible, in other words, to calculate the place and time of an event relative to a reference-body in motion by knowing its place and time relative to the reference-body at rest (the "rigid" embankment). Lorentz did this (p. 39).

p. 38 - x, y, z, t = (4D spacetime). According to Einstein, x=ct AND x'=ct' --> this means that the propagation of light remains constant despite the relative motion of reference-bodies. The "Apparent Incompatibility of the Law of Propagation of Light with the Principle of Relativity," then, is unsubstantiated.

"The Special Theory of Relativity" (I-VI)

Blogger's note: These are my notes, jotted hastily while/after reading. They may make little/no sense.

*Is Einstein an ardent formalist? Or is he a prepoststructuralist poststructuralist?

I. "Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions"

Einstein overdetermines the tenuous validity of systems of measurement and observation at the very outset, declaring unapologetically the self-reflexivity/referentiality of any system of scientific thought (in this case, (classical) mechanics). This is reminiscent of Derrida's disclosures of language writ large, in that words lead not to the things themselves, but rather to other words--a closed system of endlessly circular self-reference, an eternal circle, Sisyphus, never arriving at truth. Einstein acknowledges that the "true" is only true insofar as it is consistent with our system for making truth, i.e., in classical mechanics, the "system of co-ordinates to which we adhere." In this sense, there is nothing true outside of whatever system we attempt to generate, which means that we must have some degree of allegiance to an all-inclusive, blanket system. While Einstein seems to admit that such a system is needed, he hints that he will later undermine this conception by his recasting of the "principle of relativity" that has been handed down to him through science past.

Furthermore, Einstein is eager to acknowledge the tenuousness of perspective in arriving at the truth via any system. He insists that perspective is an absolutely determining factor in what we assign to 'reality'; in other words, even at its truest, what is true is often only true relative to one's position in space (and time). While he is quick to qualify these things as delicately as possible in his discourse, his qualifications denote a certain level of anxiety about the fallibility and constructedness of the system(s) to which he is predisposed: "relative position of practically rigid bodies" (3). He suggests, then, that despite his scientific will to power, all his "theory" is only "true" insofar as it conforms to a "practical" realm, which is itself constructed and "represented" (re-presented) through assigned symbols (numerical, scientific, linguistic, or otherwise).

He also acknowledges the inherent relativity between the instrument of measurement (particularly the privileged EYE) and the things themselves. These "observe"-ations are only true/accurate insofar as we admit the system to which these instruments belong, which they create and by which they are created. One must be diligent/consistent in one's allegiance to/acceptance of/mindfulness of this constructedness. Based on "incomplete experience," the "truth is limited," and we must always be mindful of "the extent of its limitation" (4), which is obviously quite substantial. This incomplete experience may in fact be the intransversible distance between signifier and signified (Saussure), or the "system of co-ordinates" and the objects under observation (the things themselves).

II. "The System of Co-ordinates"

Einstein uses "rods" to measure distance--applies a physical form of measurement as opposed to less concrete (less rigid) forms, such as abstractions like length or meters or numbers (for now). He then substitutes for the rod a number, which is used in place of "designated points of reference" (i.e., physical space)--**the physical description therefore becomes entirely and irreconcilably removed from the physical space--i.e., NO PHYSICAL SPACE IS NECESSARY; the things themselves have their identities stripped away and are nullified and destroyed (Heidegger's river, WCW's immediacy of the things themselves). *[...as Henry DeTamble is PHYSICALLY REMOVED from his present...] This violence is achieved "By means of optical observations...taking into account the properties of the propagation of light" (7). The characteristics are thus determined by optical means (the EYE) which are then translated into numerical form. EYE and NUMBER are the principle elements, NOT space, or the things themselves. These are the "indirect means" (8), the "incomplete experience." Also, "the properties of the propagation of light" are themselves not light; these "properties" are also part of this arbitrarily assigned system, though numerology does perhaps have more to say than linguistics (or does it? "Three" is a word, and "one" is a word, but "three" apples is always "one" more than "two" apples, whether we're around to count them or name them or not. Aren't they?).

-p. 8, "three plane spaces" of the Cartesian plane; not 4 (no "spacetime")**

"...events in space" necessarily require a system of referents to 'exist' in 'reality' for us, i.e., for us to describe them "truly." Events in space, insofar as we can conceive of them, are referentially constructed.

III. "Space and Time in Classical Mechanics"

Einstein's use of metaphor (sometimes quite vivid and elaborate) - declares the commonsense view of mechanics as wrong...But how???

Here begins the detailed talk on perspectives (vis-a-vis the railway train and the embankment); these are two incongruous perspectives, reducing the same event to incompatible optical re-presentations. To better describe what takes place here, Einstein suggests ditching "space" in favor of "motion relative to a practically rigid body of reference" (10)--practically, rigid, reference. In other words, the "system of co-ordinates" is itself not continuous; it changes from one "rigid body of reference" to another.

IV. "The Galileian System of Co-ordinates"

The law of inertia also only applies relatively--i.e., Earth's "system of co-ordinates" has stars in constant motion, circling the fixed ("rigid") Earth; the law of inertia relative to the universe asserts the stars' relative fixity.

V. "The Principle of Relativity (In the Restricted Sense)"

The principle of relativity in its restricted sense refers to consistency between relative systems--though they are "relative," they are still governed by the same basic laws; i.e., relative systems are not irreconcilably inconsistent. This is relativity in the classical sense (according to classical mechanics), and is something Einstein will prove untenable. While he admits that the principle of relativity is perfectly adequate within "the domain of mechanics," he is troubled by the fact that it can be so exact in explaining/predicting the behavior of heavenly bodies, but so grossly and hopelessly inaccurate in other "domains" (such as the atomic).

An object/perspective in motion relative to a rigid body (Earth) (such as that of Einstein's train traveler) is less subject to "simple laws" of mechanics ("less simple laws would hold" for a system of co-ordinates in motion than one fixed, p. 17). As he points out, the relative motion of a source of waves (sound or light, for example) greatly affects the character of the waves. Since these waves are what we measure, both with the EYE and with instruments, our relative position plays an enormous part in determining the measurements we receive. This "diminished simplicity" is what Einstein is attempting to bring to the fore, in order to show that even slight alterations in position can alter the applicability of classical mechanical laws. Imagine, then, how much these laws could be transformed or found wholly inadequate when going from macrophysics to microphysics.

Ansiotropic??? (18)

VI. "The Theorem of the Addition of Velocities Employed in Classical Mechanics"

The velocity of a man walking in a moving train, in the direction of the train (w) plus the velocity of the train (v) should equal the man's actual velocity (W). But, Einstein says, this is not the case. How not?

I guess this is his cliffhanger...

Favorite Records From The 90s

Quantum Thesis Part III: Reading Subatomically

So, I'm thinking maybe something along the lines of "Reading Subatomically: Toward a Quantum Literary Criticism." Too pretentious? Of course it is! I'm still working on digging up the (probably enormous amount of) literary criticism that (already) deals with what I'm attempting to articulate.

Hey--if we can do it with Darwin, we can do it with Einstein. And Everett. And Schrodinger and Heisenberg. And so on.

In the meantime, some more ruminations (from this morning):

The "participant observer" notion (which Professor Bartine connected to my last transmission) is indeed integral to quantum physics (so far as I understand it after two weeks of reading about it). The assumption Everett most notably sought to address was that of Bohr and other proponents of the Copenhagen interpretation, which, among other things, accounted for the oddly potential "superposition" of subatomic particles by suggesting that they "collapse" into one of their possible states only at the moment in which they are measured (observed). Everett notes a lecture he attended in which Einstein expressed his doubts about this interpretation by saying that he wasn't inclined to believe a kitten could change the workings of the universe simply by looking at it.

There is a strange thing going on with this issue of the observer. In classical physics, is was generally assumed, of course, that the observer was passive, disinterested, and had no active role in "what happened" amongst and between the things he was observing. Then the Copenhagen folks come along and say that the observer is in fact in a direct causal relationship with the measured behavior of that which is being observed (though only, that is, on the subatomic, quantum level). Then we have Einstein's relativity and Everett's many-worlds, both of which suggest (in different ways) that the observer's perspective is undoubtedly a factor, but only within an "objective" system of laws. In other words, the universe follows certain laws, but these are in fact laws of probability, certain only insofar as they are uncertain, which leaves the observer both subjected to them and, in some strange way, unable to observe them. So I'm still not sure if quantum theory on the whole asserts that nature is a construct and completely a matter of subjective interpretation, or if it is systematic in a way we simply cannot understand, or if it is somehow relatively objective and objectively relative.

At any rate, there are some issues here I find worth pursuing. I'm presently halfway through a book called Other Worlds by Paul Davies, which is essentially an attempt to put all of this stuff into layman's terms. I'm intrigued by the potential for a kind of literary criticism here--sort of reading literature subatomically. Most (though not all) of the criticism I'm finding that tries to incorporate physics in any way is basically attuned to issues/themes of "the bomb," which is not what engages me here. Again, while the postmodern issue of "doubling" is indeed a possible path, I'm more interested in the issues arising out of things like Einstein's theory of relativity and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle--specifically in how they have the potential to recast our perceptions/assumptions about time, not just in a quantum physical sense, but in a historical and bodily sense (Everett would figure heavily into this as well). I'm not sure what would come of it, but I think it would be interesting to put these quantum interpretations in direct conversation with more familiar literary ideas such as Keats' negative capability (particularly with regard to Heisenberg, and also to the discovery of the subatomic particle's ability to maintain a "negative energy") and, more pointedly, Foucault's conceptions of time, history, and the event, and the body's place within these. And hey, why not some Heidegger, too?

Quantum Thesis Part II: Spacetime

I'm presently reading a book called Other Worlds: A Portrait of Nature in Rebellion (1980) by a fellow called Paul Davies. Davies is essentially trying to describe the oft-ignored or unrealized implications of the very existence of the field of quantum physics, and attempting to do so in such a way that a layman (like me) can understand it. I'm only about 50 pages in, but he's recently introduced Einstein's theory of relativity (heard of it??), suggesting of course that time and space behave quite differently for one observer than they might for another, depending on the location and motion of each. Davies has introduced Minkowski's suggestion from 1908 that "we cease thinking about space and time altogether, and think instead about spacetime." Davies assures us that this suggestion "is not just a four dimensional monstrosity invented by mathematicians to confuse people, but a much more accurate and indeed simpler model of the real world than Newton's" (43). To demonstrate this, Davies proffers the following explanation:

[Spacetime's] significance is revealed by simple examples such as the spacetime extension of the human body. It obviously has extension in space (about six feet) and duration in time (about seventy years), so it therefore has extension in spacetime. What makes this statement more than a truism is that the two extensions, spatial and temporal, are not independent...viewed from a rocket, on Earth a man might look three feet tall and live for one hundred and forty years. . . It turns out that a change of speed acts rather like a rotation in spacetime; specifically, by altering one's velocity, one rotates one's four dimensional body away from space into time or vice versa. Thus, the Earthman's spacetime extension remains unaltered when viewed from the rocket; he merely has three feet of his bodily length twisted into seventy years of his life! (43-4)

Even though Minkowski postulated spacetime in friggin' 1908, and even though I have heard the term "spacetime" before, I have never once been prompted to consider space and time as this sort of intermingled monstrosity. In fact, this seems, to me, to be in absolute opposition to the way space and time are conceived in literary studies (at least in the "relatively" (get it?) small chunk of it I've encountered). Think, for example, of the modernists, who (generally speaking) sought to undermine temporality by overdetermining the fixed spatial image. In other words, the two have seemingly always been at odds with one another, placed in an ever-reversing binary opposition for each generation of philosophers, artists, and critics to flip or unflip according to the mood of the day. I'm interested, then, in exploring the literary ramifications of not man's physical place in the world, nor his temporal position (that is, his be-ing), but rather his spacetime dimension. I'm also fairly certain that Mr. Davies here will soon tie this stuff to Hugh Everett's theory in a way that will allow me to pursue that as well. Sounds fun, right?

As per my discussion with Mr Shawn Jasinski some time ago, perhaps I should take a closer, more critical look at The Time Traveler's Wife (which I have long loved for almost purely narrative and sentimental reasons) and see what turns up. I'm guessing that particular novel has been "beneath" the lofty radar of literary critics thus far, so it might be a good place to make a mark.

Onwards and upwards!

Quantum Thesis Part I: Initial Ruminations

I've spent the past few days trying to articulate what it is my master's thesis will attempt to address. Being the obsessive Eels fanatic that I am, I recently watched the episode of Nova called "Parallel Lives, Parallel Worlds," which follows Eels frontman Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) in his quest to piece together the history of his sometime-quantum-physicist father, Hugh Everett III. Hugh's 1957 doctoral dissertation ("Theory of the Universal Wave Function") has been at turns lauded and ridiculed in the scientific community (for its thought-provoking departure from orthodox scientific inquiry, on the one hand, and its seemingly preposterous practical implications on the other). I started thinking about how I might incorporate this into some kind of literary criticism, and I (very hurriedly and tentatively) came up with this:

"This study would employ as its point of departure the view that Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man is fundamentally an attempt to deconstruct the metaphysical American conception of history by undercutting its claim to a divinely sanctioned "origin" by which its trajectory is determined. The novel portrays the Confidence-Man's avatars as "beginnings," events so drenched with potentiality as to be wholly immune to subsumption into the dominant unilinear history. As opposed to proffering or affirming any kind of fixed historical "origin" for either the (assumed) character of the Confidence-Man or for the faulty dispensation he discloses through his "masquerade," Melville's genealogy purposefully admits the kind of illogical, anti-paradigmatic "events" that are normally violently subdued or neutralized in the dominant history discourse of the West--ruptures in time that grant the Confidence-Man recourse to an infinite reserve of ideational and identical possibilities. His amorphism confounds the construction and identification of self, identity, origin, and indeed history itself--perhaps even "America" as we (think we) know it. More specifically, though, this study will take these "events" one step further, analyzing them in light of Hugh Everett's theory of quantum mechanics, which posits the existence of multiple worlds or universes that account for any and all possible outcomes of any given "event." Thus the novel will be considered not as a linear series of avatars and interactions, bound by the privileged perspective of the progression of history, but rather as an event occurring simultaneously in multiple realities. Hardly an element thrown in for curiosity's sake, then, Everett's theory is precisely what most thoroughly capitalizes on the potentiality of an event, for it suggests not simply the occurrence of one of many possibilities, but literally all potential beginnings. The study will therefore engage The Confidence-Man in an attempt to discover what issues/complications/ideas/subversions arise in the blending of Everett's conception of "many worlds" with Foucault's and Said's considerations of ours."

Now, I conceived this having never read so much as a word of Everett. In fact, my formulations relied almost entirely on the Nova episode and, sadly enough, what I'd read of his theory on Wikipedia. Following a trip to the Science Library (ugh), a chat session with Prof. David Bartine, and some focused reading of Everett and a guy called Bryce DeWitt, I jotted down the following (with some dismay):

"While it seems radical and exploding with possibility on its face, Everett's theory is really an attempt to be all-inclusive--to subsume all aspects of experiential life, both on the macroscopic and microscopic levels, into a "universal" system of quantum mechanics. As the Copenhagenists and others knew, or at least thought they knew, there is some kind of disconnect--in fact, discontinuity--between the macroscopic and microscopic worlds. This is of course the basis for the field of quantum physics: Why is it that things on the quantum level do not follow the rules and laws of the macroscopic, "classical" level of physics? How can we account for these differences, and is there a way to glean a set of laws out of the quantum universe as well--to map it as Newton and others mapped the classical realm? In effect, Everett's theory does away with these concerns by attempting to make discontinuity an impossibility. By extrapolating the phenomenon of the "superposition" in quantum mechanics--whereby a foundational piece of matter (an electron, for example) is able to occupy more than one space at one time, or to spin at more than one velocity at one time, etc--Everett forces all the phenomena of being, from the quantum to the cosmological, into one "universal" system of laws. Hence, what appeared to me at first to be an affirmation of the singularity of the "event" through a radical potentiality for different outcomes--that is, the many-worlds interpretation of reality, in which other possibilities are not merely suggested, as in Foucault's notion of the event, but that they all actually happen--is actually a formalism of the most staunch order, allowing for no interruptions/discontinuities whatsoever. Where the event appears to explode, where there appears the most illogical, discontinuous occurrences, this is precisely the point at which there is no room for any such errancy. What I had originally thought, in my ignorance, was a perspective that allowed for the radical singularity of the event is in fact a full-throated attempt to domesticate such singularities, to coerce them into a universal system that forbids such errancies from ever taking place. Everett's theory, despite seeming erratic and borderline whacko in a philosophical sense, is really about as relentlessly and violently logical as it is possible to be [I could cite numerous examples of his cow-eyed invocation of the "logical" in his thesis]. The problem, of course, is that he belonged to the one branch of science that not only admits the singular, the anti-universal, the illogical and errant, but indeed revels in it. Of all scientific pursuits, only in quantum physics, it seems, can an espousal of the universal be the radical, peripheral position."

While this element of his theory is interesting (at least to me), I wasn't satisfied with the idea that I would have to dismiss his theory out of hand because of its universalizing formalistic tendencies. So I thought about it a bit more and tried to formulate a kind of rudimentary apology for Everett. It went something like this:

"And yet if we know (so far as observing scientifically is "knowing") that each proton and electron in an "object" (such as a human body) is behaving, relatively speaking, in accordance with its assigned wave function, is it so bizarre, or (to invoke the word pejoratively) so "formalistic" to assume that an amalgam of particles so behaving, being composed entirely of such particles, would behave in the same way? If an electron in my arm is physically in two places at once, and my arm is largely made up of untold numbers of such electrons, each occupying two different positions in space, then how could the macroscopic sum of said electrons possibly not be in two places as well? Is it even thinkable to postulate a tangible, physical whole that is entirely independent of--and in fact operates in absolute opposition to--the physical state of its constituent parts? Is Everett's position really a fetishistic allegiance to a formalistic logic, erroneously believed to be beyond the constructedness of truth and scientific discourse, or does it contain germs of philosophical merit? Can the measured behavior of such particles really be dismissed as merely an invention of the observer, whether a human or synthetic measurement apparatus, thereby negating the veracity of the claim? It seems to me that Everett's particular brand of (for lack of a better word) "formalism" is only undeserving of serious consideration at that point in which we take linguistic deconstruction to its furthest, afunctional extreme.

Everett's theory, furthermore, provides what amounts to a particularly useful indictment of one of the long-revered and seldom questioned aspects of scientific pursuits. I speak here of the privileging of the Observer, the detached and disinterested supersubject who gazes panoptically and objectively upon a system from the outside. Foucault, in a completely different manner (obviously), has convincingly dismantled this privileged position as well, a position which man has fallaciously assigned himself in art, philosophy, science, history, and nearly every other conceivable pursuit since time immemorial. In the article accompanying the publication of Everett's abridged theory in the July 1957 edition of "Reviews of Modern Physics," John Wheeler (Everett's adviser and the director of his dissertation) writes that Everett's theory radically suggests that "the ultimate observing equipment" in the classical dispensation that in Everett's day (and probably even now) determined a great deal of the perspectives held by many quantum physicians "still lies outside the system that is treated by a wave equation. As Bohr so clearly emphasizes," Wheeler continues, "we always interpret the wave amplitude by way of observations of a classical character made from outside the quantum system" (151). However, unlike virtually every other scientific perspective up to that point, Everett's theory treats acts of observation as "normal interactions that occur within a system, not as a new and different kind of process that takes place from without" (151). In other words, Everett's characterization accounts for the discontinuity bred of the subjectivities of observers, rather than offering up the observer's perspective as one completely and inherently disinterested. This is undoubtedly a valuable side-effect of his (otherwise disconcertingly objective-sounding) dissertation."

A bit wordy. The question now is. . .How the hell am I supposed to incorporate this into a piece of literary criticism?