Books as Portholes

Alice had her rabbit hole. We in the 21st century have to content ourselves with books as our portholes to a whole new world:


Of course, the porthole experience can only be had if one takes the Peter Birkenhead approach to choosing which books to read:
“If a book can’t disorient me just a little bit, if it can’t get me some kind of lost, I won’t stay with it for very long.”
As an example, he cites books by “(Richard) Feynman, (Stephen) Hawking, (Brian) Greene, and their ilk”:
“Their books may be my least favorite to read, but as I do, and the universe they describe grows curiouser and curiouser, I become more intrigued.”
As someone who has read all 3 authors, I would say amen to that.

Of course, this porthole experience isn’t limited to physics alone. Birkenhead again:
“Literature provides passage toward the self, not away from it, promising escape only from the temptations of escapism. It makes visible a world that exists in the spaces between things: book and reader, author and page, “I” and “Thou.” Another dimension. The novelist and the cosmologist are ultimately engaged in similar pursuits. Literature doesn’t depict, it observes. It observes a reality that it conjures into existence by observing it, just like, well, like Schrödinger’s goddamn cat.”

Never thought one could mix literature and quantum mechanics in the same train of thought…but there you are!

Comments

  1. KumarJuly 5, 2013 at 3:14 PM

    Interesting. If as you quote, if "the universe they describe grows curiouser and curiouser", it is natural that quantum mechanics and chocolate pudding will have to become buddies!

    By the way, where can I meet the Schrödinger’s cat? Would I be both alive and dead when I will be seeing him and not-seeing him simultaneously?

    ReplyDelete

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