General News
1 June, 2025
Call the Doctor - Felix Ritson
This week, I have written about quantum physics and quantum biology for two reasons.
First, it is profoundly interesting, and as such acts as a source of wonder and marvel. Seeing existence as wondrous helps protect against depression.
Second, the topic demonstrates a common barrier to learning. Many intellectual topics and fields are often described and taught using overly complex language.
Furthermore, science is incomplete and mysterious.
The expectation that even fundamental aspects of reality can be completely understood is unrealistic, such as with gravity, consciousness, time, acidity, and electricity.
Much of what is known about philosophy, politics, physics, biology, and chemistry, etc. is not nearly as complex or difficult to comprehend as is often suspected.
I feel the key to learning is not to be daunted by a topic, and to find an author who doesn't unnecessarily overcomplicate/obfuscate the truth.
I will briefly introduce quantum physics thusly.
Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was one of the greatest quantum physicists of all time, and is most well known for a joke called “Schrödinger's Cat,” in which he satirically pokes fun at a theory that arose following the discovery of the “double slit experiment.”
It is funnier still, that most people actually think he was being serious.
I won't describe the double slit experiment here, but suggest youtubing the Royal Institute of Science’s lecture on it, the institute being the oldest and most reputable scientific organisation in the world.
Sir Roger Penrose (1931-present), professor of Mathematics at Oxford and Nobel Laureate in Physics, is considered the greatest theoretical physicist of our time.
He simply describes the two main theories used to interpret the results of the double slit experiment. One, that observation directly influences physical matter, or two, that multiple realities exist.
Penrose, Schrödinger, and I share the same opinion; a cat cannot be both dead and alive at the same time, and there is nothing to suggest or explain how multiple realities can exist.
Quantum physics is inherently mysterious, and many people develop overly complicated theories in an attempt to rationalise confronting, simple, and inexplicable happenings.
The seemingly magical happenings we see in quantum physics often completely contradict the laws of Newtonian physics.
Until recently, it was assumed that this magic wouldn't really occur in nature outside of extreme situations like, in the sun or a black hole.
Schrödinger, however, theorised that quantum phenomena may occur not just in extreme situations, but also in very complex ones, such as in living tissue.
Over the last 20 years, humanity has discovered that biological life does indeed use this quantum magic.
How enzymes catalyse, and how our sense of smell is generated, is thought to occur through the ability for matter to (for lack of a better word) telepathise with other matter. Birds may navigate via a process utilising atomic (again, for lack of a better word) teleportation.
Consciousness and photosynthesis may happen due to the ability for one thing to exist in two places at the same time.
Existence is wonderfully mysterious, and science is only scratching the surface of its mystery.
Don’t be held back from diving into what is known, just do so with an appreciation that it may generate more questions than answers.
Thankfully, it is questions, more than answers, that inspire.