ARTS
Thursday, June 13, 1985
Page 6
The Michigan Daily
Physicist splits
Quantum Reality: retreated to the laboratory, while
Beyond the New Physics those interested in the nature of
By Nick Herbert reality itself locked themselves in
their libraries.
Anchor Press/Doubleday, For centuries, philosophers and
268 pages, $16.95 scientists grew increasingly reluctant
to cross disciplines, either out of fear,
or ignorance, or both. Scientists were
content to examine and report on
phenomena, leaving for the
philosophers the task of attributing
By Ron Schechter meaning to their findings. In the past
century, however, a handful of excep-
tional scientists have traded their lab
THE ANCIENT Greeks did not coats for togas and begun to speculate
distinguish between science and on the nature of reality.
philosophy. All scholars were called Nick Herbert is one such exception.
philosophers, literally "friends of Along with a handful of other
knowledge," and were expected to physicists, Herbert has been com-
ponder questions of both physics and pelled by the disturbing theories of
metaphysics. As the world became quantum mechanics to speculate on
more specialized, those interested in what they actually mean. Herbert
examining phenomena of nature and friends call themselves realists,
Copycat lands on its back
By By L. Bull numerous other genre films and the
By _Brn_ result-with cobwebbed spaceships,
zombie astronauts, and slimy brain
IN HIS DAY, Charles Dickens had parasites - is schlock.
to contend with entrepreneurs
who stole his works and turned them Most of the production is second-
into books and plays even before rate, the model spaceships on wires
he'd finished serializing them. third-rate. There are a few good
Copyright laws are just a little bit gratuitous gore effects, including a
stricter today, and one has to change great exploding head, if you're into
a few names and minor details that sort of stuff - though hardly
before stealing someone elses enough gimmickry for your money.
product. The makers of Creature, A fair amount of material and effort
the latest low-budget sci-fi thriller, seems to have gone into the sets (for
get away with royal rape in 'an a film of modest resources, mind
unabashed plagarism of Alien. you) though to somewhat
unimaginative ends. A director with
A corporate spacecraft, com- an eye for visual details could have
prised of a small crew of men and put his toys to more impressive use.
women, journeys to Jupiter's
moon Titan in search of a failed Many sloppily executed thrillers
previous expedition. They land work on a crude level by exploiting a
beside a derelict German spaceship, basic human revulsion at the sight of
and exploring its darkened corrid- someone being butchered. But
ors, discover its crew slaughtered by Malone's stilted direction - always
a reptilian alien still prowling, its cutting back and forth between
appetite unsated. Before long the spaceships, throwing the film's pace
creature is feasting on them, in the out the window - just bores one sen-
tried-and-true cat 'n' mouse for- seless halfway through the film. The
mula. cast, made up aspiring extras with
the kind of blandly handsome faces
you see hawking toothpaste in com-
Director William Malone, with~ ~ mercials, are so characterless and
script written by himself and Alan brainless you stsrt to get a certain
Reed, do a facsimile of Alien that satisfaction from their demise.
would do Xerox proud, stealing the
whole narrative from opening Klus Kinski makes one . ofhis
credits to pyrotechnic finale, infamous ten minute cameos
mimicking the film's ambiance, and ing
even copying the smallest set laying a (typically) deranged
details. Granted Alien itselfGerman astronaut who pops in to
borrowed liberally from a couple of spout a few dire portents before
'50s thrillers, but Ridley Scott at aei turned into atzomie, w isf
least did it with panache-good, cold energy he puts into the role u
visceral thrills laced with some '
brilliantstylistic flourishes. No matter how starved you are for
entertainment - even if you've
But Malone is just serving up a taken to watching MTV again, or
cheap remake, his own touches ven if you've considered seeing
being a little ore than steals from , you can do no worse than
Creature.,
atoms and infinitives
as they are concerned with the reality
behind the phenomena.
In opposition to the realists are the
pragmatists, comprising most of the
physics community who believe that
a scientist's job necessarily excludes
speculation beyond the realm of ex-
perimentation. Consequently
pragmatists make no general
statements concerning reality.
Translating the new physics into
plain English is a difficult task, but in
Quantum Reality Herbert does the
job well. He presents colorful and en-
tertaining analogies to illustrate
notions otherwise incomprehensible
to the uninitiated. Although he
periodically neglects to define certain
terms esoteric to the nonscientist, his
explanations are generally clear and
to the point.
Herbert's most imaginative method
of explanation involves a debate bet-
ween the spirits of Einstein and Bohr,
taking place on a baseball field. While
a pitcher throws photons at light
speed to home plate, Einstein argues "
that quantum theory is an imcom-
plete description of reality, and Bohr
politely maintains that it is complete.
Despite Herbert's innovative ex-
planations, Quantum Reality is not
easy to read. It is more difficult to un-
derstand than, for instance, the Tao of
Physics by Fritjof Capra, and Taking
the Quantum Leap by Fred Alan Wolf.
This is partially due to the fact that
Herbert discusses more abstruse
concepts than do Capra and Wolf, and
is more willing to resort to
mathematical formalism. Herbert's
cumbersome style is a further road-
block to intelligibility. The reader is
always aware that the author is a
physicist by vocation, a writer by
avocation. His sentence structure is
in many places awkward and choppy, traveling faster than the speed of universes come into being to accom-
and his natural fondness for splitting light. Such particles, called techyons, modate the other possibilities.
things, namely atoms, carries over if ever discovered, would possess An equally outrageous theory of
into his prose, where he frequently imaginary mass (whatever that is) quantum reality is the Copenhagen
splits other things, namely infinitives. and would commit the mischievous interpretation, championed by Niels
Quantum Reality is a discussion of act of violating causality. In other Bohr, which claims that reality is
physicists' attempts to make sense of words, where tachyons were in- created by observation. According to
the quantum theory. Herbert volved, the effect would precede the Cornell physicist N. David Mermin,
examines in detail eight inter- cause. Physicists are not ready to ac- this means, we now know that the
pretations, refutes each one in the cept the possibility of tachyons, as moon is demonstrably not there
succeeding chapters, and then they threaten the fundamental when nobody looks. Another way of
proceeds to argue for the proposals of assumption of scientific method - looking at the Copenhagen inter-
John Steward Bell,a lesser known namely that cause precedes effect - pretation is, with deep apologies to
Irish physicist. and have consequently dismissed Kate Smith, "you're nobody until
Bell'sargument, known as the in- Bell's theorem as a literal figment of somebody sees you."
fercohnectedress theorem, claims the mathematical imagination. By venturing outside the physics
that reality is non-local. What this The reader does not have to accept laboratory into the dubious realm of
sleans is that an event at one location Herbert's conclusion to benefit from metaphysical speculation, Nick Her-
1he 1 verse cas produce an im- Quantum Reality, since seven other bert has taken a courageous step. 4
ediate effect at a point on "the other interpretations of the quantum theory Hopefully, at least a few philosophers
ide" of the universe. According to are presented in considerable detail. will-reciprocate Herbert's gesture of
erbert, physicists have consigned Some of the other pictures of quantum reconciliation by paying a visit to
Hell's theorem to obscurity because it reality are at least as bizarre and their local particle accelerator. They
deals with reality, not phenomena. He fascinating as Bell's theorem. might even learn something.
claims, the majority of physicists For example, the "many-worlds"
are phenomenalists - whose interpretation, invented by Hugh '
professional world is circum-, Everett and espoused by Paul Davies
scribed by phenomena and (author of Other Worlds), claims that
mathematics. for any situation in which dif- 1 2no sr M dz)
Curiously, however, Herbert fails to ferent outcomes are 14
mention an even more compelling possible. . . all outcomes actually
reason why physicists have ignored occur. In other words, if a coin . -1 L,. t, .'
Bell's theorem. What is particularly comes up heads, it comes up tails in a '' - e-
distrbing about -it, is that it "paralleluniverse,'and every time a ',,_ " - y
hecessigtgsMthegxistence sf partices gamler rolls boxcars, 35 parallel- , ~,~