Charlize could not sleep that night. Hennie’s stories about what happened to the skollies still gnawed at her. Why these stories seemed to have a common link and why she felt as though she should have known was the link was? And although what happened on her farm was far away from Elizabethtown, why did it also feel that there was the same link?
She was still lying in her bed thinking when she heard a barely perceptible sound of a door opening. It came from the servants’ quarters.
Charlize stood up, put on a robe and looked down through a back window. It was past midnight. Someone was sitting at the bench by the shed looking at the full moon. She didn’t recognize the silhouette. It wasn’t Kwanele or Stephen. That must be Clark then, she thought.
On impulse, she went down the stairs, went outside through the back door and headed towards the shed.
The man sensing someone coming from behind, stood up and turned around.
– “You must be Clark.” said Charlize before she had to force herself to take another step towards the man. She was looking at someone who was stunningly attractive. His features were flawless as if Nature had at last achieved perfection. He was so unbelievably handsome that for a moment she thought she was dreaming.
– “Miss de Vries? I’m sorry if I have awakened you.”
– “What? Oh, no. I couldn’t sleep.”
– “I’ll let you enjoy the full Moon then.”
– “Oh, no, no. Please stay. I wanted to meet you.”
They were both standing face to face, looking at each other.
– “Thank you for helping me out. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise—”
– “Please. I don’t think you would have any problems getting hired anywhere—Oh, sorry, it came out wrong.”
Clark moved aside, standing by the bench at the other end. “Please, have a seat Miss de Vries.”
Charlize sat down.
– “I’m sorry to learn about what happened at the farm. I hope it didn’t upset you too much.”
– “It’s just something we have to live with now. Anyway, it would have happened sooner or later, I guess.”
She turned to look at him. “But enough of unpleasant talks. Don’t you think the moon is beautiful?”
– “I don’t think I will ever get used to it.”
Get used to? Unusual way of putting it, she thought.
– “Do you know what some of our most prominent physicists are saying about the moon? They say that if you don’t look at it, it isn’t there.” she said as if to herself.
– “Why would they say something like that?”
Charlize shook her head. “That’s because of quantum physics. Our most exact theory about the physical world seems to be saying that there’s no reality unless we observe it, that the world consists of potentials and actualities. Some even think that it’s our consciousness that creates reality.”
– “Do anyone think that there is a reality but that it obeys a non-human kind of reasoning?”
Charlize turned her head to look at him, surprised. “Yes, that too. Einstein who was one of the greatest physicists did not buy it though. He thought that quantum theory is incomplete, that there are hidden variables and that everything would be explained after we find them. Then John Bell came up with his inequalities that prove convincingly that quantum theory is right.”
– “And you have doubts?”
Charlize laughed. “No. I just want to understand that’s all. I just want to know what Nature is really like and why things appear to be so counter-intuitive at the atomic level.”
– “Have you ever thought about what it would be like if things were the other way around?”
– “What do you mean?”
– “If evolution had chosen to show human what the atomic world reality is instead of the macrocospic world then don’t you think that the same physicists would be now asking why when they throw a rock through a wall with two holes side by side, it always go through only one and always land straight ahead when everything around them tells them that it could never be?”
– “Wow, Clark, you’ve got me. I’ve never thought about it like that.”
– “Do you think that evolution would have evolved this far if human beings were able to see all the spectrum of lights and elementary particles, to hear all sound frequencies and to feel all the billions and billions of particles rushing through them every second as if they were not there?”
– “I guess not. Life would be untenable.”
– “Maybe that’s the reason why evolution had wired human intuition away from reality, not to play a trick on it but to protect it from something that would not allow a lifeform to survive.”
– “Wait. So, you’re from the camp that says there is a deep reality, that our consciousness blocks our intuition from the quantum effects and that’s why we cannot explain or understand the probabilistic world of quantum mechanics. Einstein would have liked you, you know? Still, there’s John Bell’s inequalities which show that hidden variables are incompatible with quantum theory—”
– “John Bell used mathematics and logic from a human brain and the level of abstraction it allows. Could you really write down a mathematic equation that could tell me how many grains of sand do I need to make a heap? Is it 3? Is it 1001? If it is 1001 then could you really them me that if I remove one grain of sand from that heap it would no longer be called a heap? There will always be an uncertainty about how many grains of sand you would need. Your reasoning about what is a heap uses a Probabilistic Theory.”
– “So, Nature is probabilistic?”
– “Nature is the way She is. Take for example the genetic code. Amino acids are simplicity but it’s simplicity piled upon simplicity that creates complexity. Life. In Physics, things are not that much different. Probabilities piled upon probabilities creates determinism. We call it probabilistic because it conflicts with our intuition the same way we cannot imagine another extra dimension or understand the flow of time.”
Her next question was on her lips but then something made her stop.
– “Clark, how do you know so much about physics? I’ve just realized that I’d been talking with you about quantum physics as if I were talking to a colleague.”
– “No, Miss de Vries. I’ve read a few popular science books for layman.”
Charlize stood up and turned to Clark. The moon was now hiding behind a veil of clouds.
– “Well, I guess I’d better go back to bed. Welcome to our family and thank you for the company.”
– “Goodnight, Miss de Vries.”
