Heart of Brightness

Or the electron whispering

“The mind of man is capable of anything.”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Well, you cannot see me. But I see you.
This is not to say that I spend my time watching you, I have no reason to, but I like to interact with you from time to time. Do you know when you feel the release of an electrostatic charge on your skin? That’s me moving from another place to you and walking all over you and electrifying you. I don’t mean to, it’s my nature: I’m a charged guy. It may seem strange that an electron - an elusive impulse - is talking to you, but don’t stop it. Live your imagination. Let it take you. I want you to know my view of what surrounds you. I am small, very small, but I can see and do things that you do not even notice. Today I’ll shine just for you and enter your mind with extraordinary concepts. Let me, an electron, explain to you what is actually part of you. For you are like me: You are a quantum reality.

Don’t trust me too much, I’m a double guy

First of all, let me say that I am not just a particle. No, no, listen: Forget what they taught you in school. Trust me, I am dual, which means I am both a particle and a wave. This is one of the things I like most about me: Being in two states at the same time, in two situations. It means I can have two faces, two ways of being, two natures. I can be a point or a cloud of possibilities. Do you think you are so different? Do you really think so? You too can be a body but you have a mind that expands into a moving wave. Of course, it is not quite the same, but it is very similar. We are more alike than you think, you and I. You smile, I see you. Your wishes are known only to you. But sometimes I behave like a particle traveling from one point to another, and sometimes I behave like a wave traveling through space. Sometimes I jump, sometimes I vibrate. Are you so different from me?

I don’t live by certainties

You often talk about your certainties. No doubt you have something you rely on, something you are sure of. Your car parked in the driveway, the tree in the middle of your yard, your dog waiting at the door. The intriguing smile you get from a stranger walking down the street. That smile makes you ask yourself a question, the simplest one: Why did that stranger smile at me? Because you need to know, you need certainty. And you have some certainties, for example you think you know exactly where you are and what time it is. A chair and a clock are all you need to fuel your certainties. Well, in my world there is no certainty, and that means that you cannot grasp me, you cannot know my exact location and my speed at the same time. I am elusive to you. I am uncertain. I am intangible. I am the charge on your arm that you cannot control. I’m like your emotions: Where are they? When did they begin and when will they end? Well, you know what? You are not in control of everything.
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle says that you cannot know my exact location and my speed at the same time. If you know exactly where I am, you don’t know how fast I’m moving, and vice versa. This principle introduces an element of uncertainty inherent in my nature in a quantum systems. And whether you like it or not, it is also an element of uncertainty in your existence.

Quantum Leap

When the distance between two points is too great for you to reach, you need roads, paths, bridges. But imagine that you can jump from one place to another without going through the points in between. In the quantum world, I, a tiny, insignificant electron, can do what you cannot: Make a quantum leap. Energy that vibrates. Energy that turns on. Energy that moves into the world in discrete quantities called quanta. In an atom, I can jump between energy levels without crossing the space between them. It is like teleporting from the first to the second floor of a building without using stairs. I bet there’s a smile on your face. Don’t you believe it? What if someday you could do it? Are you not smiling now? Those are shivers of excitement, aren’t they? How many times have you wished you could teleport to “her” or “him”? Or maybe to an unreachable place. Or maybe into space. Or maybe in the past, but I don't want to open too many scenarios. It might be too exciting for you.

The Superposition

You know when you are at a conference, or maybe at work, or even at home, with someone talking over you, or maybe in a state of total wishing you were somewhere else. May be with someone else. Sometimes you wish you could move unnoticed. You wish you could be here and there, to have a way out, but discreetly. This is another fascinating aspect of my life from a quantum point of view: Superposition. I can be in several states at once, as long as you’re not watching me. Imagine you are at the gym. Yes, I’m there with you while you are training; if you could observe the subatomic world, you would notice that as long as you don’t observe me, I can be everywhere around you. It is as if I can be in several places at once. Only when someone observes me do I “collapse” into a single defined state. It is as if I have infinite possibilities and the act of observation determines my ultimate fate. Maybe that’s why I elude you, what do you think?

The Entanglement

You may have heard of a concept called entanglement. When two electrons become entangled, their properties remain linked regardless of the distance between them. So when I’m entangled with another electron, if something happens to me, it immediately affects the other electron, even though we’re at opposite ends of the universe. It is an instantaneous connection that transcends space and time. You don’t believe that? Yet they have demonstrated it, and it is something that even gave Einstein the creeps. Why are you so amazed? Have you never been able to experience what another person is experiencing miles away? I’d say you have. Emotions? Okay, you’re right, I know it’s not good to confuse physical dynamics with the soul or spiritual stuff, but the instant is something that belongs to us. To me and to you. Maybe we should discuss what consciousness is, you and I, but not now. I am already compromising too much by talking to you face to face. So I can’t right now, but we will, I promise.

Heart of brightness

In my world, everything is based on probabilities. There are no certainties, only possibilities. Quantum physics uses wave functions to describe these probabilities. Remember your chair and your clock? They're fixed quantities that don’t exist in a quantum point of view. Or, better yet, they don’t exist together. You can’t fix them at the same time. You can only talk in terms of probability, never absolute certainty. This amuses me greatly when I observe the way you pass by without even noticing me. But I am there. Remember the charge on your skin? Yes, I am there. My existence is governed by principles that defy your daily intuition. But when you observe me – even though I am subatomic – you are observing the burning heart of the universe. For I am the luminous dust that gives currents in the sidereal spaces, illuminating the stars, resonating from the depths of mystery. And since my average lifetime is 19 orders of magnitude longer than the total lifetime of the universe, that makes me a small, shimmering glimmer of eternity.
So listen to me, human, I am part of you. You and I are one. That’s why I tell you: Don’t try to understand quantum physics, just live it.

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Thanks for reading!