From dystopian novels to Schrödinger

“I never really liked dystopian novels,” I said. “I am not sure why. But I recently read The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya and really liked it!”

“Oh!” exclaimed Jasmina. “I didn’t like that one at all. It’s too straightforward.”

“What!?” I asked.

Jasmina was silent for some reason.

“I liked the story,” I said. “I think it would be good even without its satirical depth. Actually, it makes you forget at times that it’s a satire, and then it hits you here and there with parodies and analogies.”

“Well, I liked Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin much better,” said Jasmina.

“Oh,” I said. “I read that one recently too. I like it, but I have to say I much prefer the cheerfulness of The Slynx.”

“Now, make us idiots enlightened and tell us finally what this fucking slynx is about,” said Andi.

“Well, most people died in an event known as the Blast,” I said. “A few of those who survived became immortal. They are called Oldeners. Others, those born after the Blast, are grotesque mutants or, at best, half-normal human beings. Benedikt, the main protagonist, is almost normal; he just has a small tail. But then there’s Vasiuk the Earful, for example, who is covered in ears.”

“Oh, wonderful!” exclaimed Andi. “Is there someone who’s covered in cocks as well?”

“Andi, you’re such an idiot,” said Edvard.

“And of course you can guess what Vasiuk the Earful is a metaphore for,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Jasmina. “That’s why I say it’s too straightforward.”

“I didn’t mind that,” I said. “It describes Russia’s political history wonderfully through a seemingly simple story. And it’s not just Russia; you might find something similar everywhere in the today’s world. For example, in our world, my dear idiots. People after the Blast lost pretty much all knowledge, they only have birch bark booklets with excerpts from books written before the Blast. Nobody understands anything. Nobody knows where these excerpts come from. Well, in fact, they think they are written by their great leader, Fyodor Kuzmich.”

“A dictator who is supposed to invent pretty much everything this civilization knows,” added Jasmina.

“Yeah, that’s what people with huge power starts to think about themselves,” said Andi.

“Except for the Oldeners,” continued Jasmina. “Oldeners still have the wisdom and knowledge they acquired before the Blast. They know Fyodor Kuzmich is a fraudster. But the Oldeners are the minority.”

“I don’t agree people today are dumber than they used to be,” said Janez. “There are always wise people and stupid people.”

“Not sure if the novel wants to say that,” I said. “It’s just that a huge part of the culture has been lost. But I’m not saying the Blast isn’t happening here right now. Our high-tech world is making us forget history and literature.”

“Says the bloody fachidiot,” said Andi.

“Isn’t Animal Farm somehow similar?” suddenly asked Norton. “A criticism of communism?”

“Fucking Norton!” exclaimed Andi. “It’s not a critisim of communism; it’s a criticism of people. But ... you know George Orwell, dude? Congrats! Or are you one of those fucking smart-asses who cite Orwell without reading it?”

“Very few satirical novels can be compared to Animal Farm,” said Jasmina. “But you surprise me every single day, Norton! And The Slynx is indeed a criticism of communism, no matter what Andi says.”

“Don’t underestimate Norton,” said Edvard. “Physicists are a rare breed. I recently read the biography of Erwin Schrödinger, and I was surprised by how much he was interested in the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch Spinoza.”

“Like you know who Schopenhauer and Spinoza are,” said Jasmina.

“I don’t,” smiled Edvard. “But I was impressed nonetheless.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Andi said. “Just think of Bertrand Russell. Or if you go back in time, about fucking Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But today is fucking different; there are just fucking specialized robots everywhere.”

“The funniest thing in the book is, however,” said Edvard, “when Schrödinger arrived in 1933 in Oxford, where the atmosphere was predominantly homosexual, and it was kind of strange to have a wife. Well, Schrödinger had kind of two wives: Anny Schrödinger and Hilde March. Technically, Hilde was a mistress, but Schrödinger had a daughter with her and treated her like a second wife. She was actually married to another physicist, a colleague and friend of Schrödinger—Arthur March.”

“Yeah, exactly,” said Jasmina. “These are the things you guys are most interested in!”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Andi. “Fucking wonderful! I definitely need to read Schrödinger’s biography! What a guy!”

“Dude,” said Jasmina. “I’ve rarely seen you this excited.”

“If I am being serious,” said Ervin, “one of the most interesting things I read in the book is something Schrödinger said about the size of the atoms. He said physical laws are determined by chaos on a small scale. For example, diffusion can be modeled as a highly ordered process, but it’s caused by the random movement of atoms and molecules. If the number of atoms is reduced, the behaviour of a system becomes more random. But the interesting part is—he says this is the reason atoms are so small: because we need a lot of them to have order. If atoms were bigger, there would be fewer of them, which would mean our system would be more random. We wouldn’t have physical laws.”

“Yeah,” said Norton, “but Schrödinger himself later said this might be too naive.”

“Exactly,” said Ervin. “He later wrote in his book What is life that such a view is a mistake, as incredibly small groups of atoms—much too small to display exact statistical laws—play a dominating role in the very orderly and lawful events within a living organism.”

“There we are, lads,” said Jasmina. “We started talking about a novel and ended up with physics.”

“This book, What is life,” said Norton, “had a tremendous impact on biology. It’s said that Schrödinger brought physics to the attention of biologists and biology to the attention of physicists. James Watson and Francis Crick, of DNA structure fame, were both known to be influenced by Schrödinger.”

“What do you want to say?” asked Jasmina. “That biology is closer to literature?”

“No,” said Norton, “nothing like that.”

“Anyway,” said Jasmina, “this thing about atoms was quite interesting.”

“Cool,” I said. “That means if we don’t succeed in transforming ourselves into normal human beings, we will at least convert Jasmina to a fachidiot.”

“Shut up, dude,” said Jasmina. But she gave me a smile, and we could conclude our dystopian part of the meeting and continued simply with physics.