Quantum Man!

© O. Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.

"Quantum!

The description 

that theory 

the physical 

properties at 

in nature 

mechanics 

fundamental 

scale particles 

physics 

atoms is 

and of 

subatomic  

provides."

Translation:

I am both a wave AND a particle! 

 

Another Sticky Note Inspired Poem

BONUS Animated Gif:

Gavin asks classmate Eli about the Quantum Physics lecture in their previous class at University:

Gavin:
So… what did you think of the quantum lecture?

Eli:
I’m happy to report the cat is both fine and deeply inconvenienced.

Gavin:
That bad, huh?

Eli:
Not bad. Just ambitious. Any metaphor that requires a sealed box and a morally neutral shrug feels like it’s trying too hard.

Gavin:
You looked stressed.

Eli:
That was concern for the cat’s work-life balance. Also mild suspicion of anyone who says “don’t think about it too literally” while building an entire theory on it.

Gavin:
You don’t like Schrödinger’s cat?

Eli:
I respect it. I just wish it hadn’t been recruited without consent.

Gavin:
So quantum physics makes you anxious?

Eli:
Actually, Quantum physics is fine. It’s the PowerPoint that worries me.

Eli Mercer sits through lectures like a man attending a very polite magic show. He knows there’s a trick coming, and he’s already halfway amused by the attempt to disguise it as math. His notebook is full of careful diagrams interrupted by little asides in the margins. This seems suspicious. Ask later. Poor cat.

When the professor introduces Schrödinger’s cat, Eli doesn’t panic. He performs anxiety, the way one might raise an eyebrow at an overconfident metaphor. The cat-in-a-box routine feels less like existential dread and more like academic slapstick. A creature neither alive nor dead until observed? Eli imagines the cat filing a formal complaint.

He tells his classmate the analogy made him anxious, but the word lands with a soft thud of irony. It’s his shorthand for a specific irritation: science pretending it’s not doing theater. He’s unsettled not because he’s fragile, but because the metaphor is doing too much work and knows it.

Eli has a fondness for ideas that wobble. He enjoys paradox the way some people enjoy puzzles, with patience and a sense of humor about the missing pieces. Empathy comes naturally to him, but he wears it lightly. He doesn’t clutch uncertainty to his chest. He lets it wander around the room and knock into furniture.

In discussions, Eli is the one who deflates tension with a sideways comment. Not to derail the conversation, but to remind everyone that the universe doesn’t require solemn faces at all times. He’s deeply aware that humans use metaphors because reality refuses to fit neatly on a slide deck.

Privately, Eli is amused by how seriously people take not-knowing. He finds comfort in the idea that the universe is improvising just as much as the rest of us. If a cat has to exist in a quantum limbo for the sake of a thought experiment, Eli hopes it at least gets good snacks.

If Eli continues studying physics, it won’t be out of a hunger for mastery. It will be for the jokes hidden inside the equations, the humility baked into uncertainty, and the quiet relief of realizing that even at the deepest level of reality, things are a little absurd.

He leaves lectures smiling, not because everything makes sense, but because it doesn’t. And somehow, that feels like the point.