Completed Painting: 'space_time_07 [wave function]'

 

'space_time_07 [Wave Function]', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ball Point Pen & Paint Pen on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Here's the latest of my 'space_time' panels. As is often the case, anyone needing an explanation may find certain clues below...

"Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of a wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. The equation was postulated by Schrödinger based on a postulate of Louis de Broglie that all matter has an associated matter wave. The equation predicted bound states of the atom in agreement with experimental observations" [1.].

"Schrödinger himself suggested in 1952 that the different terms of a superposition evolving under the Schrödinger equation are 'not alternatives but all really happen simultaneously'. This has been interpreted as an early version of Everett's many-worlds interpretation. This interpretation, formulated independently in 1956, holds that all the possibilities described by quantum theory simultaneously occur in a multiverse composed of mostly independent parallel universes" [2.].

“In order to give an account of these practices [of everyday life], I have resorted to the category of ‘trajectory’. It was intended to suggest a temporal movement through space, that is, the unity of a diachronic succession of points through which it passes, and not the figure that these points form on a space that is supposed to be synchronic or achronic. Indeed, this ‘representation’ is insufficient, precisely because a trajectory is drawn, and time and movement are thus reduced to a line that can be seized as a whole by the eye and read in a single moment, as one projects onto a map the path taken by someone walking through a city. However useful this ‘flattening out’ may be, it transforms the temporal articulation of places into a spatial sequence of points. A graph takes the place of an operation. A reversible sign (one that can be read in both directions, once it is projected onto a map) is substituted for a practice indissociable from particular moments and ‘opportunities’, and thus irreversible (one cannot cannot go backwards in time, or have another chance at missed opportunities). It is thus a mark in place of acts, a relic in place of performances: it is only their remainder, the sign of their erasure. Such a projection postulates that it is possible to take the one (the mark) for the other (operations articulated on occasions). This is a quid pro quo typical of the reductions which a functionalist administration of space must make in order to be effective [3.].

West Leicester, January 2024

[1.] & [2.]: Wikipedia, 'Shrodinger Equation'.

[3.]: Michel de Certeau, 'The Practice of Everyday Life', Berkeley/L.A./London, University of California Press, 1984/1988.