“Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.”
A talk by Peter W. Singer, senior fellow, Brookings Institution.
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

“Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking.”
A talk by Charles Seife, physics journalist.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

“Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn.”
Louisa Gilder, science writer.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

“The Evolution of God.”
A talk by Robert Wright, journalist and founder, Bloggingheads.tv.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Center for Science Writings Director John Horgan at John.Horgan@stevens.edu. The CSW is part of the College of Arts & Letters.

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“Any who says he understands quantum mechanics,” Niels Bohr once said, “doesn’t know the first thing about it.” Bohr, a Danish physicist who helped invent (discover?) quantum theory a century ago, presumably excluded himself from this dictum.

Quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of electrons, neutrons, protons, photons and other tiny things, is arguably the most potent and precise of all scientific theories. The theory contributed to the development of nuclear power, computers, lasers and other technologies that underpin modern civilization.

And yet if the theory didn’t work so well, no one would believe it, because it makes absolutely no sense. It implies that an electron can act like a wave or a particle, depending on how you look at it, and it can be in two places at the same time. A cat can be both alive and dead at the same time, as long as you don’t look at it.

Einstein helped found quantum mechanics, but he never really embraced it, and he hoped that it would one day be superseded by a more sensible theory. Einstein was especially upset by a quantum phenomenon he called “spooky action at a distance.” Measure the spin of an electron over here, and you instantaneously determine the spin of another electron a mile or a million miles or a million light years away, through a mysterious linkage called entanglement.

Einstein refused to believe in “spooky action,” which he thought violated the prohibition of special relativity against faster-than-light communication. But all the nonsensical predictions of quantum theory, including “spooky action,” have been repeatedly confirmed by experiments. (Spooky action cannot be used for communication, however, so the ban on superluminal communication holds.)

If you’ve ever wondered about quantum mechanics—how it was discovered, by whom, how modern researchers are continuing to explore its mysteries, what it implies about our world—come to the next event of the Center for Science Writings, to be held at Stevens Wednesday, November 18, 4 p.m., in the Babbio Center, room 122. Our speaker will be the talented young science writer Louisa Gilder. author of a gripping new history of quantum mechanics called Age of Entanglement.

In a review in the New York Times, the Harvard philosopher of science Peter Galison praises Age of Entanglement as “a sparkling, original book,” which “beautifully evokes” the world of quantum explorers. A review in Nature hails Entanglement as a “welcome addition to the popular history of twentieth-century physics.” I can’t promise that by the end of Gilder’s talk you will understand quantum mechanics, because if Niels Bohr couldn’t, no one can. But you will come away with a better sense of just how wonderfully nonsensical the theory really is.

In my last post, I presented 10 responses to the question: “God: Who Needs Him (or Her)?”, which my pal Garry Dobbins and I recently debated at Stevens. One of my responses was this: “Childhood cancer. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. If God is all-powerful and loves us, why do bad things happen to totally innocent people? This is the problem of evil. No theology has ever answered this question adequately. The philosopher of religion Huston Smith calls the problem of evil ‘the shoal on which all theologies founder.’”

I also said that I’m an agnostic. When asked if God exists, the agnostic answers: I don’t know. Believers and atheists often criticize agnostics as too lazy or apathetic to decide one way or the other. My friend Harold Dorn, who teaches history of science here at Stevens and is an atheist and proud of it, thinks my agnosticism stems from my sentimental attachment to Catholicism, the religion of my childhood.

Actually, I have two good reasons for being an agnostic rather than an atheist. One is what I call the problem of fun, which is the flip side of the problem of evil. Life isn’t always painful and unfair. Sometimes it’s, well, fun. Joyful, beautiful, wonderful, exciting, cool–pick your adjective. Just as believers in a good God should be haunted by the problem of evil, so atheists should be haunted by the problem of fun, as well as friendship, love, truth, humor—all the things that make life worth living.

Life is also so dramatic, with such an astonishing story line—from the Big Bang through dinosaurs and Neanderthals right up to life as we find it here in 2009—that I have a hard time accepting that it’s just an accident. Although nobody has come up with a theology that makes any sense to me, I can’t be absolutely sure that there isn’t some plan and hence planner behind this whole crazy show. By the way, the British biologist and religion-basher Richard Dawkins, who’s often called an atheist, once told me that he’s actually an agnostic, for this same can’t-be-absolutely-sure reason.

My other reason for rejecting atheism is that atheists can be just as dogmatic and unyielding as many religious believers are, and I reject this sort of ideological self-righteousness, no matter what the ideology. After all, rejection of religion and adherence to a supposedly scientific worldview aren’t sure-fire ways to achieve salvation. We should never forget that the two most vicious regimes in history, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, were inspired by the pseudo-scientific ideologies eugenics and Marxism. Secular faith can be just as deadly as the religious variety.

Opposing self-righteousness is easier said than done. How do you denounce dogmatism in others without succumbing to it yourself? One philosopher who tumbled into this pitfall was Karl Popper, who railed against certainty in science, philosophy, religion, and politics and yet was notoriously dogmatic. I once asked Popper, who called his stance critical rationalism, about charges that he would not brook criticism of his ideas in his classroom. He replied indignantly that he welcomed students’ criticism; only if they persisted in arguing with him would he banish them from the classroom.

Of course we feel validated when others see the world as we do. But when it comes to the really Big Questions—Does God exist? What’s the purpose of life? What’s the best way for us to live together?–we should resist the compulsion to insist that we have The Answer. Especially since the best answer to these Big Questions is: I don’t know.