SLSL Low-land: the Theory of Indeterminacy

[jbor]

A quick crib on quantum physics: Heisenberg's Uncertainty (or
"Indeterminacy") Principle, Bohr's Complementarity Theory, the Copenhagen
Interpretation, Schrodinger's wave theory etc.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp27un.html

Very influential on Pynchon's work.

best


on 7/1/03 7:42 PM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:

> 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)
>