The Quantum Writer by Trevor Hoyle

Proposal for Radio Feature by Trevor Hoyle

THE QUANTUM WRITER

"In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it." - artin Rees, Astronomer Royal.

They seem to be worlds apart: quantum mechanics on the one hand, contemporary fiction and drama on the other. Yet the bizarre discoveries and predictions of quantum physics, which defy common sense, strike a chord with creative writers and act as inspiration for novels, plays and even poetry.

Some of the novelists and playwrights inspired or at least influenced by quantum theory include Martin Amis (Time's Arrow), Tom Stoppard (Arcadia), Harold Pinter (Betrayal) and Michael Frayn (Copenhagen) . As well as: Paul Auster, Colin Wilson, Gorge Luis Borges, Philip K Dick, and many more. (My own novel Mirrorman and radio play "GIGO" were sparked off by the same interest.)

Going back two or three generations, a case can be made that James Joyce's 'stream of consciousness' technique was to some degree influenced by the newly emerging theories of the particle physicists, as was the experimental fiction of Virginia Woolf: in her 1924 essay 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown' she rejected the tedious surface realism of the old guard (Wells, Bennett, Galsworthy) for what she believed was the true nature of reality, more transitory and elusive - a luminous halo as she called it. And TS Eliot's 'The Waste Land' deals with many of the concepts of time and space thrown into flux by quantum theory.

It isn't necessary for writers to understand the abstruse mathematics and dense thicket of blackboard equations that underpin the structure of quantum mechanics; they don't have to, and it isn't important. What matters are the implications these theories suggest and the questions they pose for the human species; vital and elemental questions such as mankind's destiny and place in the universe; whether we as humans possess freedom of choice or if our every thought and action is pre-determined; and the eternal quest to disentangle subjective truth from objective reality - if, crucially, there is any difference.

Why should creative writers be so fascinated by such a complex and arcane branch of science? For a start let's consider the contradictory and common sense-defying properties of sub-atomic particles. A photon of light, for example, sometimes behaves like a particle, sometimes like a wave, and sometimes both at the same time, which the human brain is incapable of grasping: an object that is two separate and different things in the same moment of time. (As physicist Niels Bohr said, "Anyone not shocked by Quantum Mechanics has not understood it." )

Okay, you might reasonably say, it's odd I grant you - but so what? Why should it affect me in the normal everyday world?

But the implication is profound. If physicists can show, in theory and by actual experiment, that it is not possible to prove the existence of an elementary particle except as a wave of probability (something that might become a particle or a wave or both) this throws into doubt the living reality of the physical world. And if everything around us, including ourselves, is based on a wavefunction, with no objective physical properties, then perhaps life itself is nothing more than a function of consciousness ... as Martin Rees suggests. Just as disturbingly, the arbitrary and insubstantial nature of the sub-atomic world underlying our own calls into question the validity of human philosophy or religious and moral certainty.

One of the most intriguing theories derived from quantum mechanics is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This states that the more accurately you measure an object's position, the more uncertain you will be about its speed, and vice versa - you can measure its position or its speed but not both together. For writers of fiction, concerned with human behaviour and moral consequences, this has a satisfying symmetry to it, confirming their intuitive belief in the essential mystery and elusive, transitory nature of reality - Virginia Woolf's luminous halo.

Another theory, which has entered the popular imagination, is Schrödinger's Cat. This is a "thought experiment" in which a cat in a sealed box might or might not be killed by the release of a cyanide gas capsule triggered by an arbitrary event. Until the box is opened and the fate of the cat revealed, the animal exists in two states - alive and dead - simultaneously. In other words, in a state of probability, similar to the elementary particle mentioned earlier.

Some of the ideas put forward by particle physicists seem to go beyond respectable science into the realms of science fiction. But they are serious propositions. For example, the behaviour of certain particles can only be determined in retrospect - depending on what the experimenter, or observer, is looking for. And even more bizarrely, the object or particle itself doesn't exist until it is looked at. It exists in a state of probability (just like
Schrödinger's Cat, neither alive or dead) until it is observed and only then comes into being..

Aside from the pure theory, many writers (myself included) find the intellectual development and achievement of quantum mechanics during the Twenties and Thirties a thrilling subject in itself, with its intense rivalries and clash of personalities and heated, sometimes bitter debates between Einstein, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Murray Gell-Mann, John Wheeler, et al. (Michael Frayn's stage play and TV adaptation Copenhagen, for instance, deals with the wartime meeting between Bohr and his erstwhile student Heisenberg.)

Can it be purely coincidence that a parallel development and experiment was happening in the literary and art world during the same period? I've already mentioned Joyce, Woolf and Eliot, but there were many more artists and writers - Picasso, Kandinsky, Duchamp, the Futurists, Wyndham Lewis, Kafka, Rex Warner, Dorothy Richardson, Henry Green, and a host more - who sensed and were caught up in the zeitgeist.

The revelations of quantum theory seem to chime with the intuitive feelings of novelists and playwrights, which can be summarised as follows:

Subjective truth vs objective reality - is there a difference? And how do you tell which is which and where the dividing line is?
Truth is ultimately unknowable - that beneath the many layers of reality and human experience lies a profound, insoluble enigma.
Objective reality depends on the observer observing it (the converse of the preceding point).
Moment by moment, reality splits into an infinity of probable futures, any one of which has equal validity with all the others.
Any kind of religious/philosophical belief or set of moral standards is fundamentally flawed and undermined by the fact that the universe is based on probability, ie: random chance and uncertainty. (To contradict Einstein: "God does play dice.")

Man's place in the vast, fathomless universe is so insignificant as to be hardly worth thinking about. And yet the fact that human beings can think about it is perhaps the most significant thing of all. Even, perhaps, that our thinking about it allows the universe to exist at all.

This is the thought that excites writers about quantum mechanics and stimulates their imaginations.

The programme will be researched, written and presented by Trevor Hoyle with contributions from writers who are available. There will be "down-the-line" interviews with Professor Bruce Rosenblum and lecturer Fred Kuttner, both of the Physics Dept, University of California. These two individuals are skilled at explaining the knottier conundrums of Quantum Mechanics in terms the intelligent listener can understand.

Trevor Hoyle is a novelist and radio dramatist whose novels include The Man Who Travelled on Motorways, Vail, and Blind Needle (published by John Calder). He has also written science fiction novels, the most recent being Mirrorman. His radio play "GIGO" won the Radio Times Drama Award. His biographical feature, "Malcolm Lowry: The Lighthouse Invites the Storm" was broadcast on Radio 4 in June 2007.