Deflating Hyperspace

[Monte Davis]

Daniel Harper wrote:

> The 
>absence of quantum theory, for instance, is _at least_ as importance as the 
>absence of relativity....
>
Fer shure: early on, Merle's photography highlights the interactions of 
light and matter (i.e., the experimental root of all quantum theory) as 
portentous, counterintuitive, somehow thrilling. He's walking the Planck.

For the uninitiated, quantum theory embraces equally what happens when a 
photon strikes a silver halide ion in the film emulsion...

What happens when atoms of the developing solution swap charge with the 
silver halide to turn it to metallic silver in the negative or print...

What happens when ambient light passes through the negative or bounces 
off the print...

...and what happens when that light is transduced into nerve impulses in 
your retina. So it covers *all* electromagnetic interactions, not just 
visible light -- and it's what makes sense of the chemical bonds that 
hold atoms and matter together... or that un-bond when all that nitrogen 
in dynamite goes gaseous again...

Also, of course, it was not special relativity but another publication 
of Einstein's annus mirabilis 1905 that would win him the Nobel in 1921: 
on the photoelectric effect, in which light generates current according 
to rules that only make sense in terms of quantum theory. Light meters, 
automatic door openers, IR remote controls, the plumbicons and CCDs in 
every video camera.