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<meta content="In the late 1990s popular science writing has gained a prominence not seen since the interwar period of James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and J. B. S. Haldane. This is evident not only in the increased commercial success of the genre but also in its impact on traditional literary culture. John Carey, in his introduction to the Faber Book of Science, claims that science popularizers 'have created a new kind of late twentieth-century literature, which demands to be recognized as a separate genre, distinct from the old literary forms, and conveying pleasures and triumphs quite different from theirs'.1 In April 1999 the Royal Society of Literature announced its decision to invite scientists to be fellows, as 'an acknowledgement of the quality and range of contemporary science writing'." The Cheltenham Literary Festival, in October of the same year, featured over a dozen science popularizers in its programmer'
Creative writers have been quick to explore the possibilities presented by the new genre. Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen, which opened to critical and popular acclaim in May 1998, is only the latest in a series ofliterary harbingers of a new age of harmony, or at least meaningful exchange, between literature and science. Acknowledgements to science popularizers-usually physicists-are becoming a common sight in prefaces to novels and plays. Besides Frayn, one could mention Tom Stoppard, who found inspiration for Arcadia in James Gleick's Chaos, and begins Hapgood, a play centred on a convoluted quantum mechanical espionage plot, with a quotation from physicist and popularizer Richard Feynman;" or Ian McEwan, who acknowledges physicist David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order as a source for The Child in Time, and has a science writer as the protagonist of his Enduring Loue? " name="eprints.abstract" />
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<meta content="Carey (ed.), TheFaber BookofScience (London, 1995), p. xiv.
2 MichaelHolroyd,chairmanoftheRoyalSocietyofLiterature,asparaphrasedin B. Appleyard, 'Mighty Minds that Bridge the Worlds of Science and Literature', Sunday Times, 11 Apr. 1999, sect. 5 (News Review), 4.
3 These were: Dava Sobel, James Gleick, Patrick Moore, John Maddox, Steve Jones, Julian Barbour, Martin Rees, Tim Radford, Simon Singh, Matt Ridley, Susan Blackmore, Heather Couper, and Nigel Henbest.
4 T. Stoppard, Arcadia(London, 1993);Hapgood (London, 1988).]. Gleick, Chaos (Harrnondsworth,
1987).
5 I. McEwan, The Child in Time (London, 1987); Enduring Love (London, 1997). D. Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London, 1982).
The Reviewof English Studies, New Series, Vol. 52, No. 207 (2001)
6 L. EHmann, 'No Holes Barred', Guardian, 25 June 1998, 'Online' section, 1-3: 2.
7 A. S. Byatt, Babel Tower (London, 1996). Byatt and Jones discussed their collaboration as members of a panel on 'Science in Art', a National Week of Science, Engineering and Technology event held at the Science Museum, 21 Mar. 1996.
8 M. Atwood, Cat's Eye (London, 1990); S. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (London, 1988).
9 J.T. Hospital, Charades (St Lucia, Q!d., 1988);F. Capra, The TaoofPhysics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Physics and Eastern Mysticism (London, 1975).
10 G. Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview ofthe New Physics (London, 1979). All further references to this edition are given in parentheses in the text.
11 D. Vanderbeke, 'Physics, Rhetoric, and the Language of Finnegans Wake', in R. M. Bollettieri, C. Marengo Vaglio, and C. Van Boheemen (edd.), The Languages ofJoyce: Selected Papers from the l Ith International JamesJoyce Symposium, Venice, 12-18June 1988 (Philadelphia, 1992), 249-56: 253~.
12 S. Best, 'Chaos and Entropy: Metaphors in Postmodern Science and Social Theory', Science as Culture, 2/11 (1991),188--226: 199.
13 C. Froula, 'Quantum Physics/Postmodern Metaphysics: The Nature of Jacques Derrida', Western Humanities Review, 39/4 (1985), 287-313: 303.
14 A. Sokal and J. Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures: Postmodem Philosophers' Abuse of Science (London, 1988), 8.
15 R. Feynman, 'Surely You're foking, Mr Feynman!': Adventures ofa Curious Character (1985; London, 1992), 66; original emphasis.
16 Id., The Meaning Of It All (London, 1998), 115, 117.
17 Intellectual Impostures, 9.
18 N. K. Hayles, Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science (Ithaca, NY, 1990), 3-4. On this subject see also her 'Turbulence in Literature and Science: Questions of Influence', in R. Scholnick (ed.), American Literature and Science (Lexington, 1992),229-50.
19 Gross (a biologist) and Levitt (a mathematician) published a monograph entitled Higher Superstition: TheAcademic Left anditsQ~a"els withScience (Baltimore, 1994),a virulent attack on a range of related approaches to 'science studies' including post-structuralist literary criticism, constructivist sociology, and political criticism. Sokal, a physicist, is the author of 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity', Social Text, 46/ 7 (1996), 217-52 (repr. in Intellectual Impostures, 199-240). The editors of Social Text, a leading US cultural studies journal, failed to recognize Sokal's article as a parody of science studies criticism. The 'Sokal affair' received world-wide media attention and revived the 'two cultures' debate in a new form.
20 Soka1and Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures, 177.
in IntellectualImpostures, 24S-58; see pp. 254-5); D. Alberts, Q!.tantum Mechanics and Experience (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
22 See e.g. Froula, 'Quantum Physics', 305; D. Bohnenkamp, 'Post-Einsteinian Physics and Literature: Towards a New Poetics', Mosaic, 22/3 (1989), 19-30: 2l.
23 Bohnenkamp, 'Post-Einsteinian Physics', 22. As Alan Friedman and Carol Donley note in their Einstein as Myth and Muse (Cambridge, 1985), 140, in relativity theory the dependence of observed data on the perspective of the observer is 'determined by the relation between the reference frame of the observer and of the object, and not by the act of observation'; thus, 'Subject and object are separable in relativity; they are inextricably joined by every act of observation in quantum theory.'
24 For an example of the former, see D. George, 'Quantum Theatre-Potential Theatre: A New Paradigm', New Theatre Qy,arterly, 5/18 (May 1989), 171-9: 174. Cf. George's citation of Paul Davies with the original passage in Davies's popularization Other Worlds: Space, Superspace and the Qy,antum Universe (London, 1980), 12-13. An example of the latter can be found in
P. Warrick, 'Quantum Reality in Recent Science Fiction', Extrapolation, 28 (1987), 297-309:
undisputed: 'If quantum theory is accepted, one must conclude that the world of our commonsense experience is not the only universe. Billions of others exist, some almost identical to ours, some wildly different, inhabited by near carbon-copies of ourselves.'
25 To obtain an arbitrary selection of articles, I took those listed in the MLA Bibliography on CD-ROM (WILSONDISC version 2.5.3), which covers the period Jan. 1981 to Sept. 1994, under the subject headings 'quantum theory', 'quantum mechanics', and 'quantum physics'. Of the thirty-five entries in English, I included only articles (discounting the three dissertations and one book) and discounted the two articles which I knew to be written by physicists. Of the remaining twenty-nine articles, I was able to access twenty-four. Of the writers of these articles, nine used Heisenberg as a source, eight used Zukav, six used Capra, five used Gribbin. Bohr, Pagels, and Herbert were used by four critics, Eddington, Davies, and Bertrand Russell by two.
26 M. K. Booker, 'Joyce, Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg: A Relativistic Quantum Mechanical Discussion of Ulysses', JamesJoyce Qjlarler/y, 27/3 (l990), 577-86: 577, 585.
27 Similarly, most of the citations of Zukav and Capra occur predominantly in articles written in the late 1980s and early 1990s, hence their prevalence is not due to lack of other early texts.
of inspiration, T'ai Chi Master Al Huang: 'Every lesson is the first lesson' (p. 35).
29 R. Sokolov, review of The Dancing Wu u Masters, New York Times Book Review, 17 June 1979,18. To be fair, I should note that Sokolovapplies this description only to 'some of [Zukav's] language', and admits, 'From time to time, Mr Zukav does manage to explain bona fide scientific topics with real clarity.'
30 C. Kemnitz, 'Beyond the Zone of the Middle Dimensions: A Relativistic Reading of The Third Policeman', Irish University Review, 15/1 (1985), 56-72: 58 n. 4.
31 A. Ross, Strange Weather: Culture, Science and Technology in an Age oj Limits (London, 1991), 43.
32 S. Carter, 'Fields of Spacetime and the "I" in Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems', in Scholnick (ed.), American Literature and Science, 194-208: 197.
33 S. Strehle, Fiction in the Q!lantum Universe (Chapel Hill, NC, 1992), 129.
34 C. Buckley, 'Quantum Physics and the Ouija-Board: James Merrill's Holistic World View', Mosaic, 26/2 (1993), 39-61: 40. L. LeShan, The Medium, the Mystic, and the Physicist: Towardsa General Theory ofthe Paranormal (London, 1974).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction
56 The masculine pronoun is employed here in line with Zukav's usage.
57 '0 body swayed to music, 0 brightening glance, I How can we know the dancer from the dance?': 'Among School Children', ll. 63-4, in Collected Poems (1931), rev. edn. (London. 1990), 242-5.
58 Zukav's application of the metaphor to modern particle physics is not new: four years before
The Dancing Wu Li Masters was published, Capra had extensively discussed the Eastern origin of this metaphor and applied it directly to quantum theory: a major theme of The Tao ofPhysics is the way in which the interaction of particles can be represented as a ceaseless dance, which parallels the Dance of Shiva, the Hindu Lord of the Dancers (preface, ch. 15). This precedent is unacknowledged by Zukav (who mentions Capra's text only in two obscure and unindexed footnote references). Moreover, while Zukav emphasizes that the notion of a 'cosmic dance' of annihilation and creation has an ancient tradition in Eastern culture, he fails to mention that this metaphor also has a long tradition in the West. According to Alan Brissenden's Shakespeare and the Dance(London, 1991), not only is the notion of a cosmic dance an ancient one in Western culture, but also the concept of a dance ofatoms has been established since at least the second century (p. 3).
59 TaoofPhysics, 23: 'In contrast to the mechanistic Western view, the Eastern view of the world is "organic" ... The cosmos is seen as one inseparable reality-for ever in motion, alive, organic; spiritual and material at the same time'.
60 OED, 2nd edn., CD-ROM.
62 'Other Worlds, 66.
63 J. Gribbin, In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Qflantum Physics and Reality (1984; London, 1991), 171.
64 R. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory ofLight and Matter (1985; London, 1990), 18.
65 G. Beer, Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter (Oxford, 1996), 149-50, 159.
66 Quoted in G. Beer, Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darann, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1983; London, 1985),69.
67 Ibid. 54; original emphasis.
68 Open Fields, 160. 69 Darwin's Plots, 53. 70 Ibid. 61, 62.
71 'Post-Einsteinian Physics', 24.
72 S. Rose, L. Kamin, and R. Lewontin, Not in our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature (Harmondsworth, 1984),278, quoted in Beer, Open Fields, 159-60.
73 S. Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (1980; Harrnondsworth, 1983), 76.
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Creative writers have been quick to explore the possibilities presented by the new genre. Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen, which opened to critical and popular acclaim in May 1998, is only the latest in a series ofliterary harbingers of a new age of harmony, or at least meaningful exchange, between literature and science. Acknowledgements to science popularizers-usually physicists-are becoming a common sight in prefaces to novels and plays. Besides Frayn, one could mention Tom Stoppard, who found inspiration for Arcadia in James Gleick's Chaos, and begins Hapgood, a play centred on a convoluted quantum mechanical espionage plot, with a quotation from physicist and popularizer Richard Feynman;" or Ian McEwan, who acknowledges physicist David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order as a source for The Child in Time, and has a science writer as the protagonist of his Enduring Loue? " name="DC.description" />
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<h1 class="ep_tm_pagetitle">Knowing Quanta: The Ambiguous Metaphors of Popular Physics</h1>
<p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><span class="person_name">Leane, Elizabeth</span> (2001) <xhtml:em>Knowing Quanta: The Ambiguous Metaphors of Popular Physics.</xhtml:em> The Review of English Studies (New Series), 52 (207). pp. 411-431. ISSN 1471-6968</p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"></p><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><tr><td valign="top" style="text-align:center"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2386/1/ElizabethLeane.pdf"><img alt="[img]" src="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png" class="ep_doc_icon" border="0" /></a></td><td valign="top"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2386/1/ElizabethLeane.pdf"><span class="ep_document_citation">PDF</span></a> - Full text restricted - Requires a PDF viewer<br />1230Kb</td><td><form method="get" accept-charset="utf-8" action="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/cgi/request_doc"><input accept-charset="utf-8" value="3079" name="docid" type="hidden" /><div class=""><input value="Request a copy" name="_action_null" class="ep_form_action_button" onclick="return EPJS_button_pushed( '_action_null' )" type="submit" /> </div></form></td></tr></table><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block">Official URL: <a href="http://res.oxfordjournals.org/">http://res.oxfordjournals.org/</a></p><div class="not_ep_block"><h2>Abstract</h2><p style="padding-bottom: 16px; text-align: left; margin: 1em auto 0em auto">In the late 1990s popular science writing has gained a prominence not seen since the interwar period of James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and J. B. S. Haldane. This is evident not only in the increased commercial success of the genre but also in its impact on traditional literary culture. John Carey, in his introduction to the Faber Book of Science, claims that science popularizers 'have created a new kind of late twentieth-century literature, which demands to be recognized as a separate genre, distinct from the old literary forms, and conveying pleasures and triumphs quite different from theirs'.1 In April 1999 the Royal Society of Literature announced its decision to invite scientists to be fellows, as 'an acknowledgement of the quality and range of contemporary science writing'." The Cheltenham Literary Festival, in October of the same year, featured over a dozen science popularizers in its programmer'
Creative writers have been quick to explore the possibilities presented by the new genre. Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen, which opened to critical and popular acclaim in May 1998, is only the latest in a series ofliterary harbingers of a new age of harmony, or at least meaningful exchange, between literature and science. Acknowledgements to science popularizers-usually physicists-are becoming a common sight in prefaces to novels and plays. Besides Frayn, one could mention Tom Stoppard, who found inspiration for Arcadia in James Gleick's Chaos, and begins Hapgood, a play centred on a convoluted quantum mechanical espionage plot, with a quotation from physicist and popularizer Richard Feynman;" or Ian McEwan, who acknowledges physicist David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order as a source for The Child in Time, and has a science writer as the protagonist of his Enduring Loue? </p></div><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" cellpadding="3" class="not_ep_block" border="0"><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Item Type:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">Article</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Subjects:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/420300.html">420000 Language and Culture > 420300 Cultural Studies</a><br /><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/400000.html">400000 Journalism, Librarianship and Curatorial Studies</a></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ID Code:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">2386</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited By:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><span class="ep_name_citation"><span class="person_name">Scholarly Publications Librarian</span></span></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited On:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">06 Nov 2007 15:30</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Last Modified:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">09 Jan 2008 02:30</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ePrint Statistics:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a target="ePrintStats" href="/es/index.php?action=show_detail_eprint;id=2386;">View statistics for this ePrint</a></td></tr></table><p align="right">Repository Staff Only: <a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/cgi/users/home?screen=EPrint::View&eprintid=2386">item control page</a></p>
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