At The Rialto
by Connie Willis
Seriousness of mind was a prerequisite for understanding Newtonian physics. I am not convinced it is not a handicap in understanding quantum theory.
I got to Hollywood around one-thirty and started trying to check into the Rialto.
“Sorry, we don’t have any rooms,” the girl behind the desk said. “We’re all booked up with some science thing.”
“I’m with the science thing,” I said. “Dr. Ruth Baringer. I reserved a double.”
“There are a bunch of Republicans here, too, and a tour group from Finland. They told me when I started work here that they got all these movie people, but the only one so far was that guy who played the friend of that other guy in that one movie. You’re not a movie person, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m with the science thing. Dr. Ruth Baringer.”
“My name’s Tiffany,” she said. “I’m not actually a hotel clerk at all. I’m just working here to pay for my transcendental posture lessons. I’m really a model/ actress.”
“I’m a quantum physicist,” I said, trying to get things back on track. “The name is Ruth Baringer.”
She messed with the computer for a minute. “I don’t show a reservation for you.”
“Maybe it’s in Dr. Mendoza’s name. I’m sharing a room with her.”
She messed with the computer some more. “I don’t show a reservation for her either. Are you sure you don’t want the Disneyland Hotel? A lot of people get the two confused.”
“I want the Rialto,” I said, rummaging through my bag for my notebook. “I have a confirmation number. W-three-seven-f ur-two-oh. ”
She typed it in. “Are you Dr. Gedanken?” she asked.
“Excuse me,” an elderly man said.
“I’ll be right with you,” Tiffany told him. “How long do you plan to stay with us, Dr. Gedanken?” she asked me.
“Excuse me,” the man said, sounding desperate. He had bushy white hair and a dazed expression, as if he had just been through a horrific experience or had been trying to check into the Rialto.
He wasn’t wearing any socks. I wondered if he was Dr. Gedanken. Dr. Gedanken was the main reason I’d decided to come to the meeting. I had missed his lecture on wave-particle duality last year, but I had read the text of it in the ICQP Journal, and it had actually seemed to make sense, which is more than you can say for most of quantum theory. He was giving the keynote address this year, and I was determined to hear it.
It wasn’t Dr. Gedanken. “My name is Dr. Whedbee,” the elderly man said. “You gave me the wrong room.”
“All our rooms are pretty much the same,” Tiffany said. “Except for how many beds they have in them and stuff.”
“My room has a person in it!” he said. “Dr. Sleeth. From the University of Texas at Austin. She was changing her clothes.” His hair seemed to get wilder as he spoke. “She thought I was a serial killer.”
“And your name is Dr. Whedbee?” Tiffany asked, fooling with the computer again. “I don’t show a reservation for you.”
Dr. Whedbee began to cry. Tiffany got out a paper towel, wiped off the counter, and turned back to me. “May I help you?” she said.
Thursday, 7:30–9 P.M. Opening Ceremonies. Dr. Halvard Onofrio, University of Maryland at College Park, will speak on the topic, “Doubts Surrounding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.” Ballroom.
I finally got my room at five, after Tiffany went off duty. Till then I sat around the lobby with Dr. Whedbee, listening to Abey Fields complain about Hollywood.
“What’s wrong with Racine?” he said. “Why do we always have to go to these exotic places, like Hollywood? And St. Louis last year wasn’t much better. The Institute Henri Poincare people kept going off to see the arch and Busch Stadium.”
“Speaking of St. Louis,” Dr. Takumi said, “have you seen David yet?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, really?” she said. “Last year at the annual meeting you two were practically inseparable. Moonlight river boat rides and all.”
“What’s on the programming tonight?” I said to Abey.
“David was just here,” Dr. Takumi said. “He said to tell you he was going out to look at the stars in the sidewalk.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Abey said. “Riverboat rides and movie stars. What do those things have to do with quantum theory? Racine would have been an appropriate setting for a group of physicists. Not like this… this… do you realize we’re practically across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre? And Hollywood Boulevard’s where all those gangs hang out. If they catch you wearing red or blue, they’ll—”
He stopped. “Is that Dr. Gedanken?” he asked, staring at the front desk.
I turned and looked. A short roundish man with a mustache was trying to check in. “No,” I said. “That’s Dr. Onofrio.”
“Oh, yes,” Abey said, consulting his program book. “He’s speaking tonight at the opening ceremonies. On the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Are you going?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, which was supposed to be a joke, but Abey didn’t laugh.
“I must meet Dr. Gedanken. He’s just gotten funding for a new project.”
I wondered what Dr. Gedanken’s new project was—I would have loved to work with him.
“I’m hoping he’ll come to my workshop on the wonderful world of quantum physics,” Abey said, still watching the desk. Amazingly enough, Dr. Onofrio seemed to have gotten a key and was heading for the elevators. “I think his project has something to do with understanding quantum theory.”
Well, that let me out. I didn’t understand quantum theory at all. I sometimes had a sneaking suspicion nobody else did either, including Abey Fields, and that they just weren’t willing to admit it.
I mean, an electron is a particle except it acts like a wave. In fact, a neutron acts like two waves and interferes with itself (or each other), and you can’t really measure any of this stuff properly because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and that isn’t the worst of it. When you set up a Josephson junction to figure out what rules the electrons obey, they sneak past the barrier to the other side, and they don’t seem to care much about the limits of the speed of light either, and Schrodinger’s cat is neither alive nor dead till you open the box, and it all makes about as much sense as Tiffany’s calling me Dr. Gedanken.
Which reminded me, I had promised to call Darlene and give her our room number. I didn’t have a room number, but if I waited much longer, she’d have left. She was flying to Denver to speak at CU and then coming on to Hollywood sometime tomorrow morning. I interrupted Abey in the middle of his telling me how beautiful Cleveland was in the winter and went to call her.
“I don’t have a room yet,” I said when she answered. “Should I leave a message on your answering machine or do you want to give me your number in Denver?”
“Never mind all that,” Darlene said. “Have you seen David yet?”
To illustrate the problems of the concept of wave function, Dr. Schrodinger imagines a cat being put into a box with a piece of uranium, a bottle of poison gas, and a Geiger counter. If a uranium nucleus disintegrates while the cat is in the box, it will release radiation, which will set off the Geiger counter and break the bottle of poison gas. It is impossible in quantum theory to predict whether a uranium nucleus will disintegrate while the cat is in the box, and only possible to calculate uranium’s probable half-life; therefore, the cat is neither alive nor dead until we open the box.