Recently, I’ve written a few poems with a science feel to them (specifically related to the topic of a Grand Unified Theory and those brilliant minds that have worked on understanding the essence of reality in this universe). Some of this work is out for consideration, but that process takes an age and so I’ve decided to share them here on WordPress as well.
Picture by Em Humble
Towards a Theory of Everything
… or Quoth the Raven (after Edgar Allan Poe)
Jonathan Humble
Heisenberg, Planck and Einstein,
Penrose, Hawking, Higgs and Bohr:
physicists in search of knowledge;
wizards steeped in cosmic lore.
Charm the quark and spin the boson.
Watch the universe inflate.
Search for meaning in a raven
perched upon a wrought iron gate.
Questions seeking many answers:
postulate the parallel.
Magic sought in multiverses:
ride a broomstick, cast a spell.
Heisenberg, Planck and Einstein,
Penrose, Hawking, Higgs and Bohr:
physicists in search of knowledge;
wizards steeped in cosmic lore.
Track the paths of ghost neutrinos,
tie a black hole up with string,
eye of newt in cauldron bubble,
join the laws of everything.
Time’s illusion, now means nothing.
Search for answers evermore.
Overhead the corvid follows:
‘Quoth the Raven “Nevermore”.’
Heisenberg, Planck and Einstein,
Penrose, Hawking, Higgs and Bohr:
physicists in search of knowledge;
wizards steeped in cosmic lore.
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
(after Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr)
Jonathan Humble
On the Midnight Relativity Sleeper Express,
central coach E by the buffet carriage,
window seat facing the direction of travel,
Werner Heisenberg found his reservation.
Rucksack stashed away in the rack,
laser flashlight by his avocado sandwich
on the table with his takeaway latte,
his body distorted unnoticed, as time slowed with the train’s acceleration.
Approaching the speed of light,
Heisenberg prepared to flash his torch
through the window at his friend Niels in the station,
patiently waiting, ready to wave from behind the yellow platform line.
Haplessly however, Heisenberg hesitated,
distracted for a moment, unable to pinpoint
the anachronism in his thought experiment.
He hoped he’d flashed at the right time for his stationary friend …
but he couldn’t be absolutely certain.
Einstein’s Theory of Simultaneity
… or Not Now Albert (after Albert Einstein and Thomas Morley)
Jonathan Humble
It’s about TIME
but now is not the TIME
for it is not how now works.
In fact now is meaningless;
now is a clumsy construct
from Newton’s classical calendar.
Behind the TIMEs,
now is neither here
nor is now there.
For TIME is not on now’s side
and to live for now
would be wasting TIME.
You see, existence transcends TIME
So, there is no now.
Now does not stand the test of TIME.
Now’s not the month of maying
when merry lads are playing,
for participles (past or present) are pointless.
Fa la la la la la laaah
… fa la la la la la laaah.
What’s It All About, Albert?
Jonathan Humble
Let us talk of fundamentals,
chew the fat on flawed reality,
two caffeine fuelled organisms
questioning existence.
Let’s pretend that we are fixtures
and not dodgy synapse constructs,
scribbling madly through the hours
like we feel there’s no tomorrow.
Here I pitch verse at the universe,
seek antidotes to entropy,
focus following the threads
in the patchwork that is spacetime,
while you look for truth in chalkings
of bold metaphors on blackboards,
channel Newton’s classical genius,
contemplating this and that.
In truth, it’s madly tangled
like some tale of autumn messiness
but I’d like to know the answer:
just what is it all about,
Albert?
Arthur’s Theory of Quantum Stiles
Jonathan Humble
Einstein phoned the other day.
Wanted to speak quite urgently
with my dog, Arthur:
said that Arthur’s theory of ‘quantum stiles’
was interesting but lacked empirical evidence
and wasn’t supported by the mathematics.
Arthur disagreed:
described the process of walking with me,
taking the early morning river route
along the side of the Kent under Cumbrian skies.
Every gate and stile a quantum barrier,
separating countless possibilities
of constantly branching parallel universes:
facts on the far side of each wall blurred,
until the stile is crossed
with a new reality created through observation
… and sometimes rewarded with a biscuit.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of E-mails
(after Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg)
Jonathan Humble
I read somewhere, at some time,
that everything and nothing exists
outside the space you’re placed.
Closed doors are quantum barriers
separating the countless possibilities
of constantly branching parallel universes.
Facts on the outsides of rooms
are blurred, until they are moved into
and created through observation.
Interaction through this observation
leads to the destruction of wave functions
Whereby an open set of myriad systems
and infinite possibilities collapses in an instant;
many eigenstates reduced to a single eigenstate
potentiality becoming actuality.
So, ignoring Newtonian classical notions,
where time, space and rejection is absolute,
with eyes shut, many hands over multiple ears,
imagining one liquid crystal screen,
focusing on one mouse click outside this head,
what I hope to see are these words:
Thank you for your poetry submission.
We enjoyed The Copenhagen Interpretation
and would like to publish it in the next issue of
*** insert name of publication here ***
Jonathan Humble 