In the beginning, there was a finely-balanced quantum world. It was a tiny, micro-nuanced bubble, just one garden wide, one garden wide and one garden high. In the garden there was a man, a woman, his ex-wife Lilith, a snake, a lot of trees with nutritious and non-universe-transforming properties... and an apple.
The moment Adam chewed that apple was the significant one. Up to then, the singularity that would cause an anthropomorphically-principalled universe to spring into existence from the fluctuations in the background quantum field had not been enacted. The Pauli exclusion principle, that among other things predicts that you never see the comedian Jo Brand and the journalist Jon Sargent in the room at the same time, stood on tip-toes waiting to see when the thing that was, and never should be - the munching of that apple by Adam - would take place.
As it did, the quantum field shifted and, in an entirely scientifically plausible way, the wave-form ripped out of the garden, spewing energy and matter out across the now-forming universe which propagated in front of the quantum tidal wave. In its natural lowest-energy search for stability, it went back into the farthest reaches of space-time to a new, more coherent point of singularity - the Big Bang - and forward through unimaginable aeons of time to the Universes's eventually demise, as a heat-death blancmange.
At that one singular moment, all the history of the birth of the Universe, the condensation of suns and planets, the explosions of dying stars that created the heavy elements and the evolution, rise and demise of the dinosaurs came together in a story that is, if nothing else, is a bit more plausible than the normal narrative about how cosmology and science are totally wrong. All those creatures and people up to 4,004 BC had now lived their lives, loved, eaten each other and died.
The new Universe was vast, scary, and laden with a new menace - death. Where till now there had been no "outside" to be thrown into, Adam and Eve could now be shown a door that actually led somewhere, and told to sling their hooks. Out there, East of Eden, their sons found their wives from the people that the moment with the accident had so excitingly back-formed.
These days, we've got past blaming Adam or Eve. We are all, after all, all victims. So we blame the apple. It looked all attractive and rosy - of course it was luring them in. So, to teach the whole of apple-kind a lesson, at this time of year we smash all the apples up and make cider. Revenge truly is sweet.
The moment Adam chewed that apple was the significant one. Up to then, the singularity that would cause an anthropomorphically-principalled universe to spring into existence from the fluctuations in the background quantum field had not been enacted. The Pauli exclusion principle, that among other things predicts that you never see the comedian Jo Brand and the journalist Jon Sargent in the room at the same time, stood on tip-toes waiting to see when the thing that was, and never should be - the munching of that apple by Adam - would take place.
As it did, the quantum field shifted and, in an entirely scientifically plausible way, the wave-form ripped out of the garden, spewing energy and matter out across the now-forming universe which propagated in front of the quantum tidal wave. In its natural lowest-energy search for stability, it went back into the farthest reaches of space-time to a new, more coherent point of singularity - the Big Bang - and forward through unimaginable aeons of time to the Universes's eventually demise, as a heat-death blancmange.
At that one singular moment, all the history of the birth of the Universe, the condensation of suns and planets, the explosions of dying stars that created the heavy elements and the evolution, rise and demise of the dinosaurs came together in a story that is, if nothing else, is a bit more plausible than the normal narrative about how cosmology and science are totally wrong. All those creatures and people up to 4,004 BC had now lived their lives, loved, eaten each other and died.
The new Universe was vast, scary, and laden with a new menace - death. Where till now there had been no "outside" to be thrown into, Adam and Eve could now be shown a door that actually led somewhere, and told to sling their hooks. Out there, East of Eden, their sons found their wives from the people that the moment with the accident had so excitingly back-formed.
These days, we've got past blaming Adam or Eve. We are all, after all, all victims. So we blame the apple. It looked all attractive and rosy - of course it was luring them in. So, to teach the whole of apple-kind a lesson, at this time of year we smash all the apples up and make cider. Revenge truly is sweet.
Personally, I prefer mine on the dry side of medium.
ReplyDeleteBitter's normally good by me.
DeleteI saw Jo Brand and John Sargent on the same television programme together; they were on opposing teams in QI. Someone asked if they were related!
ReplyDeleteWe're lucky the universe didn't end then and there.
DeleteDoes a Quantum Apple have anything to do with Steve Jobs (late of this world)?
ReplyDeleteBecause if we are going to blame anyone, it shouldn't be the saviour of technology. Why note Microsoft founder and windoze and internet exploder William (Bill) Gates and Paul Alan.
All the ills of the world and internet can be tracked back to them. They are the modern day Adam and Eve who made us eat the forbidden fruit of windoze and the outcome has been internet meltdown, spam, hackers and viruses.
The Quantum thingie should be laid squarely at the foot of Richard (I may be an atheist but like Anglican Liturgy) Dawkins, who along with Dr Rowan Williams has brought the study of science in religion or religion in science into disrepute. The hot air that they have jointly expelled is responsible for global warning, environmental pollution, natural disasters and worldwide hunger and poverty.
Bring back Tom Wright immediately as he has the answers for everything due to his direct pipeline to heaven.
"Does a Quantum Apple have anything to do with Steve Jobs"
DeleteNo.
So, it seems, we have a quantum superposition of a young earth creationist universe and an ancient big bang one, but scientists have opened the box and it turns out that Schrodinger's dinosaur died millions of years ago.
ReplyDeleteOf a surfeit of apples, I'll be bound.
Delete