The Copenhagen Blues

2024

 

How does the tiny, strange quantum world of complex probabilities assemble the reality that we experience at our large-scale, human level? 

 

Nearly a century ago, Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and others argued the details of what has become to be known as the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum physics.  Those physicists never fully agreed on how to think about the topic, and it remains controversial.  

 

At our human scale, objects have measurable properties such as position and momentum.  A popular version of the Copenhagen Interpretation suggests that a very tiny object such as an electron has no position or even definite existence until it is measured or observed. Until observation the electron exists only as a collection of probabilities.  Other versions of the interpretation disagree.

 

This sculpture features a Jasper sphere, representing an electron.  The arms attached to it move in chaotic oscillation, representing ghostly influences mutually determining the electron's position.  Yet there it sits, keeping its position despite them.  What does it mean?  It's got the Copenhagen Blues.