SLSL Douglas Fowler on 'Low-Lands'

[Otto]

Fowler on "the Heisenberg situation" (GR 348.21) and "Low-Lands" (69.18-31).

"The (Werner) Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle of 1927 pointed out that,
due to the inherent size of atomic particles in relation to the wavelenghts
and the striking energy of the light we must use to study their flight, both
the position *and* the momentum of the observed particle cannot be known *at
the same time*: Nature has forever closed that secret against us. In his
story "Low-Lands" Pynchon uses the same phenomenon to introduce a sense of
inviolable mystery to the atmosphere: we may listen to and believe in a sea
story, because "the sea tides are the same that not only wash along your
veins but also billow through your fantasies," but if we try to *create*  a
sea story (not just allow it to visit *us*, as a radio wave visits a  radio
receiver), we will be guilty of "screwing up the perspective of things, much
as anyone observing subatomic particles changes the works, data, and odds,
by the act of observing."

(Douglas Fowler: A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
1980,  p. 175)



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