What the !#%*@ Do We Know?

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which we can be certain..

    - W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English writer

On rare occasions I see a movie that begs for another viewing. I think you know what I'm talking about--one that presents so many possibilities that you know you didn't absorb them all the first time you saw it.  What the !#%*@ Do We Know? is one of those movies. It's about quantum physics.

I'm kidding, right? Nope. I'm not kidding. This is not the quantum physics of your high school or college classroom, at least not like you'd remember it. Think Quantum Physics textbook with diagrams, equations and boring hard-to-understand scientific language. Now think Alice In Wonderland with animation, well-acted scenes and erudite but plain-spoken narrators. In this movie you get the latter, an entertaining and thought-provoking story that will tweak your curiosity and perhaps inspire you to see it more than once.

If you'd like to read a well-written review take a look at this one by Stephen Humphries. Humphries does a good job of capturing one audience's reaction to the film:

By the time the staff of the Metreon cinema had finished sweeping up the last kernels of popcorn in the theater aisles, no one had left their seats--over 600 people were buzzing about the independent movie that poses metaphysical questions such as "Is matter real?" and "What effect does thought have on our bodies and our experience?"

It made such an impact on me that I decided I wanted to learn more about quantum theory. A rather heavy subject, yes, but the film simplified it to a degree that I felt I could handle it. A trip to the local bookstore resulted in the purchase of John Gribbin's In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. I finished it tonight and must admit that I'm afraid to look in the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is dead or alive.

The book was a bit of a struggle for me even though Gribbin made a Herculean effort to write so that a layman could understand what he was saying. Alas, my frame of reference where science is concerned made his task virtually impossible. I won't say he failed, but he came up miserably short. 

Faced now with the embarrassment of going back to the bookstore and asking for something more basic, like a quantum physics comic book, or seeing the movie again as a refresher course, I think I'll opt for the movie. It's more fun.

Why don't you check out the film's website? Who knows? You may want to learn a little more about quantum physics too.