cosmology

“You can send a wave function through the Internet!” (.wav function?) “Yeah, you can send it searching through the whole Internet to determine exact particle position.”

The waving of the long, neatly tied, dark dreads on the guy talking loudly at the next table is hypnotic. Its not like I’m trying to listen. The ocean’s roar of conversations at Dosa and the tiny tables placed 10 inches apart make it so you can’t help overhearing every word... precisely. It's a gorgeous weekday evening in the Mission, and the warm weather and late sunset have tempted us out for dinner.

Not to mention this conversation is way too bizarre to ignore.

I take a healthy sip of my wine, and make the mistake of catching the incredulous, quizzical expression of my partner sitting across from me. The bubbles rise inside and surface in a small, uncontrollable moment of hysteria. My partner grins. I choke on my spicy chicken pieces. He leans across the table and whispers, “Is it just me, or does that conversation not make any sense at all?” I compose myself, barely, (eyes streaming with tears from alleged spicy chicken) and nod agreement. It’s too loud in the restaurant to have a normal conversation without shouting at each other, and it seems less fun to try to compete with the "cosmology" guys sitting next to us anyways.

“Yes, it’s a mathematical expression…our study of cosmology…Oh her? We were seeing eachother, but it didn’t really work out because she’s one of those women. You know, she always tries to act all hard, but really she’s got issues. She used to be with men who have taken advantage of her, or treated her badly and she carries that around with her as baggage. Plus, she’s got her career on faculty and she’s busy with work. So it didn’t work out between us.”

My eyebrow rises involuntarily. Touche. These last few weeks before my 30th birthday I sure am feeling reflective. Random things seem applicable or seem to carry more loaded meaning than usual, even though they’re probably not/don’t. Or maybe they do/are, and I just wasn’t paying attention before. The universe probably speaks to you all the time, the only difference is whether you’re listening or not. I’m sure the cosmologists sitting next to us would appreciate that drugstore philosophy.

“Sometimes particles have a great attraction and sometimes they are utterly repulsed by eachother. “

True. But the miracle is that in this vast universe, particles actually do collide and have the opportunity to figure out which one it is...attraction or repulsion. But do particles require time? Is this duality of attraction/repulsion something that happens instantaneously, or is it predetermined (something the universe knows), but the particles have to work out?

“Sometimes the particles have a dark velocity which you have to sweep under the carpet,” the dreads wave. The guy sitting across from the dreads emphatically agrees.

And, again, on this last evening in my 20’s, I am feeling extremely reflective. And for good occasion: it has been a whole 10 years so I feel entitled to a little reassessment. The first part of the 20s was excruciatingly slow growth (by means of pain) ...but with exact clarity of location. The latter part was just a blur of unwitting speed into adulthood. Are we there yet, or was there a regression somewhere? Heisenberg applies – the more you know about a particle’s momentum, the less you know about its location (uncertainty principle).

But as I tear off a piece of my tasty dosa I agree emphatically. Sometimes you do have to sweep that dark velocity under the carpet.