Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Alice and the Quantum Cat

From Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Few works of fiction have inspired more reworkings than Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. From Disney's 1951 animation, Tim Burton's 2010 adaptation. Grace Slick's White Rabbit, Alan Moore's Lost Girls to the definitive Annotated Alice by Scientific American's Martin Gardner, this little Victorian girl's adventures in a world of fantasy have captured the imaginations of millions.

"Why shouldn't Alice's story be brought up to date and used to illustrate the bizarre nature of quantum reality?" reasoned William Shanley, an East-Coast media personality. So Shanley engaged myself and a number of others to refashion Alice's adventures to explicate the mysterious world of quantum physics. Shanley's passion to be all things to all people brought more and more writers into the project each with their own point of view. Every author invented their own new worlds for Alice to explore and the manuscript soon became a giant kaleidoscope of altered states. Shanley sold the script to a German publisher who brought out a version called Alice Zwischen den Welten. Later a Japanese version appeared called Alice's Quantum Space with a beautiful dark blue cover showing a girl and a rabbit looking into outer space.
Alice's Quantum Space in Japanese
After her initial debuts in Germany and Japan, Shanley's brainchild recently found an English publisher in physicist David Peat's Tuscany-based Pari Publishing and yesterday I received a copy of Alice's quantum adventures in English. Because so many writers have contributed to this book, Alice's adventures span many different fields from quantum theory to modern cosmology to art history presented into twenty chapters. Because of its many different perspectives and styles, Alice and the Quantum Cat is not a book to be gulped down in one sitting but is best approached like a box of assorted chocolates to be savored one by one. My favorite chapter is (not surprisingly) one of my own called Queen Rosie--in which Rosie warns Alice about Science's Patriarchal Biases.

See for yourself. Each copy sold buys a can of cat food for Onyx, my very own quantum cat.
Quantum Alice appears in English

5 comments:

Dr. Will said...

Janis may have taken the pills (one too many) but Grace Slick sang the song "White Rabbit" with the Jefferson Airplane (a quantum glitch, Dr.?)

nick herbert said...

Changed Joplin to Slick per your instructions. Thanks, Dr. Will.

Jungle Girl said...

Sounds like a great book!

Isabelle Chauffeton Saavedra said...

Dear Mr Herbert. My name is Isabelle Chauffeton Saavedra and I noticed that you posted the article on Alice and the quantum cat on March 22nd the day of my birthday, the same day I found your article about the Bell theorem proof online which brought me a lot of joy because it helped me formulate what I have felt for many years now and have been trying, without the scientific knowledge, to express in my personal research. I think I just had a 2=1 moment with you! :-)
There is much more I'd like to discuss and share with you. PLease, please don't discard this and give me the chance to talk to you about my research. I am an experimenter of Quantum combat... except I do it for the love... If there is an email address I can email you some of my ideas, I'd love to. In the mean time, you can check my website @ www.survivalofconsciousness.com. You will find my email address there. Thank you!
Isabelle

AliceInBondageLand said...

As Alice, I approve. :)