It’s often quite difficult to make plans involving my grown-up son, because he usually has lots of interesting options which don’t get resolved until the last minute. Quantum mechanics has a similar problem.
My son is a quantum-like entity,
For over the years I have learned
That his actual physical whereabouts
Cannot be precisely discerned.
It’s as though all the atoms that make him,
Conspiring together, behave
As Max Born proposed, back in the twenties,
Like a giant probability wave.
Such an entity, Born said, could pop up
Nearby, far away, or just here . . .
But there’s no point in guessing the outcome,
Just wait for the thing to appear.
Only then are positions determined,
Only that gets the wave to collapse;
Only then can I know where my son is –
And that’s where I’ll find him. Perhaps.