You’re a scientist, you have a degree in physics I saw.
Eh, yes. I’m not sure I’d call myself a scientist, but, my degree is in physics, yes.
It’d be logical for a physicist to write science fiction, and not fantasy. How did you come to fantasy and not science fiction?
Because I write what I want to write, really, but I’m not certain I’d say that it would be logical for a physicist to write science fiction. Are you aware of the paradigm [and now I finally know how to correctly pronounce that English word] called Schrödinger’s Cat?
No.
[This guy just lost all respect I could possibly have for him, and it’s getting worse.]
It’s a mind test in a way, really. If you can wrap your mind around it in the right way, believe it, then you are ready for higher physics. Imagine a cat, sealed in a lead box, and there’s no way to look into the box. Inside the box there is a flask of cyanide gas. Attached to the flask of cyanide gas is a Geiger counter. The Geiger counter is pointed at an atom. The atom has a 50-50 chance, in any given second, of decay. Now tell me, is the cat alive, or is the cat dead?
He’s fifty-fifty.
No, no, no, is the cat alive, or is the cat dead? I’m not asking you to give me odds. Is the cat alive, or is the cat dead?
Ah, he’s alive.
No.
Why not?
If you’re an engineer…If you have an engineering mindset, you’ll say that the only way to do it is to open the box and check. If you have the mindset that could take you into higher physics, you’re willing to accept that the cat is alive and dead, both, and will be fixed in one state or the other when the box is opened. But until the box is opened, the cat is alive, and it is dead, simultaneously.
Yeah, that’s fifty-fifty.
No, it’s not a fifty-fifty chance. A fifty-fifty chance says that it’s fifty percent chance that the cat is one way, and fifty percent that it’s the other way.
So it’s either way.
No, the cat is not either way; it is both. It is 100% alive, and 100% that the cat is dead, and both things are true. And must be acceptable as true. If you cannot accept this as true, then you are not ready for quantum…for the most basic quantum physics, much less getting into anything beyond.
But the thing is that if you can wrap your mind around Schrödinger’s cat, you can also wrap your mind around fantasy. As a matter of fact, the thing that I find very interesting is that…I don’t really follow theoretical physics to any degree now, and haven’t for more than twenty years. But when I find myself talking to a theoretical physicist, I sometimes get stuck on panels with theoretical physicists. I’m always afraid that I’m going to be left way behind because I haven’t kept up in the area, but I find that I can keep up quite nicely. As long as…while they’re discussing theoretical physics, I discuss theology. And ah, I find myself able to keep up quite nicely, talking about the same thing.
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