Quantum sandwich
Reflections on the thorny question of quantum entanglement and free will in a legal context - then and now
Quantum Sandwich
It was quite an event. Our lives are so frenetic that the idea of going out together for lunch seems almost impossible to realise. But we did, an exciting sharing of a salt beef sandwich plus cappuccinos amid the ambience of the local Waitrose supermarket. We had finished our shopping and loaded it in the car before returning for our date. My wife is an environmental scientist. On the way to queue for our lunch (she did not want anything but did later eat half my sandwich), I picked up a copy of the current issue of New Scientist.
She thumbed through it while I waited for the coffee. Her eyes alighted on an article “Does free will actually exist?” Its opening sentence was “It has long been debated whether quantum physics places limits on the extent to which we have free will.”
It was a discussion about quantum entanglement – the strange (but apparently verifiably true) phenomenon of the change in one entangled particle being reflected instantly in another particle even if it is a long distance (like very long, like light years) away. One explanation is that, even though experimenters think they are acting independently under their own free will, the actual outcome might have already been decided. If that outcome is predetermined despite the timing, location and nature of the change, then it follows, so the argument goes (at least so far as I understand it) that every action we take or decision we make has already been decided even though we fondly think it is down to us. In essence, if taken to its logical conclusion everything we think we are or think we do or see is all predetermined for all time. Even if we rebel and make a quirky (or even quarky) decision, that too has also been predetermined and ultimately we are figments of our own imagination.
I disagreed but she, the scientist, pointed out that I was a mere lawyer and what did I know? (in the nicest possible way I should say – there was no way we were going to have a bust up over it, imaginary or not).
But whatever their substance is, such thoughts took us back 28 years (no problem I am sure for an entangled particle) to a court hearing in London that seemed to be dominated by quantum physics long before they became mainstream in our lives
Here is what we (both) wrote in 1997 - she interpreting the science of the phenomena we encountered:
Spooky Action Man
That handbag really suits you.' He did not say 'Duckie', but it was a close run thing. I didn't mind. I was after all in Islington, and for all I knew no real man there is ever seen without his handbag. I was very relieved to have that handbag because someone (who shall be nameless) had been fretting over it since it disappeared mysteriously the previous night.
I was reminded again recently of the tendency of members of the legal profession to say (to each other) how good they are. I had been at one of those conferences which are dedicated to making sure that I feel very small and nervous.
It was like being a new boy at school again. All the other solicitors were larger than life, and they were full of forensic tales of great courts they had known, and trials they had taken part in.
'Yes, we have a trial running at the moment', I tossed in casually.
'What, you mean like now?' These veterans were talking about history, about trials of long ago. They considered it bad form to have a trial actually running as they spoke, and moved away from me in case I might become contagious.
The trouble with heavy court cases is that they generate heavy baggage. For nearly a week, at close of play each day, we had been taking the following items out of court:
brief case (our firm’s standard issue, battered and split in one corner),
holdall (in the shape and motif of a well known battery, but lasting more than six times as long),
folder of medical notes (to be transcribed for the next day: 'Oh hell I'm too tired. Let's have a drink instead'),
the computer containing the day's evidence, taken down in real time and complete with interesting spelling mistakes (Ha Lucy Nation, High Pothesis and Near Ology),
an umbrella and
a handbag.
During the course of the evening we, which includes she who cannot be named, the briefcase, the holdall, the medical notes (still untranscribed), the umbrella and the handbag, all visited various destinations and made use of London’s varied transport systems: the underground, buses and taxis.
Much later, she announced that her handbag was missing. After checking the obvious places (ladies' loos, on her shoulder, on my shoulder and so on, we consoled ourselves that it had been left in counsel's chambers or court.
The following day, counsel's chambers yielded no handbag. and if it was in court no one would know because it was in chaos. Solicitors fondly believe that they practise mainly common law with a little sprinkling of statute law.
But none of us realises that as soon as a trial starts, these insignificant codes are subsumed to the primeval and powerful forces created by natural laws.
The problem is that everything in the court develops a life of its own. Papers dematerialise. Bundles vanish. Computers die. If you thought that this was just down to bad organisation, think again.
LET her explain:
The law of chaos states that simple rules can spontaneously produce disorganised and chaotic behaviour. It may seem straightforward to produce seven identical bundles of documents. Indeed from the outside they look organised, but they have different ideas. The trial has been running for no more than an hour before the judge scowls that his bundle contains nothing after tab 37. This is the beginning. Soon the opposition's counsel is complaining bitterly that his pages have even numbers only. In the witness box, a bewildered expert is coping with a bundle which is paginated backwards.
Newton's law of motion ensures that due to conservation of momentum, the nudge which leading counsel gives to one end of his row of folders will ensure that the file on the other end crashes to the ground.
The papers released from their fragile rings spread themselves over the court room floor elegantly demonstrating the fractal pattern underlying the natural formations of branches and leaf patterns from the forest which was felled to facilitate the court case.
Trying to timetable the experts confirmed one of the greatest mysteries of quantum physics: that of non-location. An expert, like a particle, is everywhere and anywhere in the world simultaneously, but just when you need him he is nowhere. As with bosun particles, what you do to one can affect the other, even halfway around the world. Einstein called this 'Spooky action at a distance' [which is what we were discussing 28 years later in Waitrose!].
I emerged from the court and started to use prime chargeable time for a category of work not yet covered bythe Legal Aid Regulations. While others were talking meaningfully on their mobile phones about big financial deals or where to have the next meal, I was desperately seeking a handbag. Many calls later, the cheerful voice of a kind lady in the Public Carriage Office said that she might indeed have just the thing I was looking for. A quick rummage through the antimatter inside, confirmed its identity.
All that was then needed was:
a quantum leap into a taxi, using Heisenberg's 'uncertainty principle' (the greater the energy you need the less time it is available for a journey along the fractals of London's streets to Islington),
an ascent of the stone stairs of the Public Carriage Office assisted by Newton's laws of motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and finally
Barr's law of finishing an article (you end where you came in, preferably with a hand bag).
'Quark', said the judge as I re-entered the court, and I knew exactly what he meant.
(Originally published in Solicitors Journal on 25 July 1997. The cartoon was by the wonderful David Haldane whose drawings illustrated scores of my pieces – and were often much funnier than the articles themselves)
So very nice. Glad to have found you. Looking forward to future treats.