Do you still study physics?

No.

What’s a gluon?

A conceivable notion.

Is it a force or a particle?

A particle. Although at that scale the distinction is not so clear.

What does it do?

It carries the news from quark to quark. It’s not that complicated. An atom is composed of smaller particles. Nucleons. And these particles are composed of quarks. Generally three. The quarks have dumb names. Top quark and bottom quark. Up and down quarks. A positron is made of two up quarks and a down quark. A neutron is made of two down quarks and an up quark. And so on. It all works. No one is quite sure why. But the gluon is what keeps the particles informed.

Why is quantum mechanics called quantum mechanics?

Because it explains mechanisms. Among physicists the accent is on quantum. It states the type of mechanics that it is. It’s not quantum mechanics.

All right.

You look dubious.

No. It’s all right. Why is it so weird? Supposedly.

Nobody knows.

I mean in what way is it weird.

I know. There are a number of things you can talk about. Feynman says that all of quantum weirdness is already there in the two-slit experiment. He’s probably right. He usually is. The experiment, repeated ad whatever, shows that a single particle can go through two separate apertures at the same time.

Do you believe that?

Most fervently.

And this is a part of quantum mechanics.

It is.

A well-thought-of physical theory.

Yes. It’s the most successful physical theory ever devised. It’s the theory of small particles. Atoms and smaller. Or so it is commonly thought. But that may just be bad math. Some physicists suspect that the theory must eventually arrive at the understanding that the universe itself is a quantum phenomenon. That what quantum mechanics ultimately describes is the universe.

Do you suspect that?

Yes. I’m among the suspicious.

What else.

What else?

Is weird.

Experiments, gedanken or actual, seem to require our active involvement. If we’re not there they dont work. The ugly truth is that other than Feynman’s sum-over theories there is no believable explanation of quantum mechanics that does not involve human consciousness. Of course this raises the question as to how it managed to get along without us before we were invented. But it’s not that simple. I think what is being pointed out is that human consciousness and reality are not the same thing. Which we’ve known for a long time. Even if we’re not all that sure about Kant. In this instance. Anyway, you cant ignore the evidence of the experiments. Everything from the two slits to all those strange doings with Stern-Gerlach magnets in which fairly bright scientists find themselves unable to outwit a sodium particle. It’s a popular notion in some quarters that these inquiries are just philosophy. And the popular answer to them is just shut up and calculate.

That’s not you.

No. All of these calculations produce partial differential equations. The truth of the universe is on the other side of those equations.