Another reason I love bicycling: The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and Schrödinger's cat

There are lots of reasons I love riding a bicycle, MY bicycle specifically. My bicycle, Pythias, and I get along very well, thank you. We fit each other. I worry about Pythias and keep him in fine fettle. "He" forgives my stupidity, usually best expressed when I drink too much and decide I can ride home, no problem. We ride a fairly long way together every year and manage to remain friends, as odd as that may sound.

But, for the purposes of this post, one of the things I love about riding my bicycle is the way things change. More to the point, I love how things happen WHEN things change.

In this instance, it was a single live oak leaf that brought this home to me.

Once upon a time . . . um . . . no . . .

One afternoon, when I was still at work, I received a PM on Facebook from a friend. We had scheduled a chat-over-dinner-thing at a downtown Mexican restaurant that evening.  Life was changing around us both and we were interested in getting to know each other a little better and learn more about how we felt about making Baton Rouge more interesting according to our own interests, which just happened - we felt - to intersect more often than not.

Accordingly, I was planning on going home via the Levee, a route I take quite often. I know how long it takes to get home within a 2 - 3 minute window on that route, I use it so frequently. The whole thing was laid out in my mind, a perfect space-time map of my route home, my route to the restaurant, the conversation over dinner . . . everything.

The content of the PM completely wiped out that map. My friend could not make it. So sorry.

Inertia being what it is, I thought I'd just go home on the Levee anyway. It was VERY clearly in my mind in a way that really, really made it seems like it had already happened, like it was a memory of the future . . .  weird.

Fortunately, I changed my mind. I had plenty of time and no particular reason to hurry so, why hurry? Why not take a longer route home, another familiar route but not so familiar as the Levee?

So, I did. I changed my mind.

And now . . . a digression . . . for a joke . . .

These two physicists, see, are driving across country from New York to California to attend a symposium on quantum mechanics. They have a nice rental (who owns a big car in Manhattan?), adjusted the seats and temperature a long time ago, and got to talking.

By the time they are in west Texas the discussion has become heated, the points increasingly abstruse, string theory keeps weaving its way into and out of the conversation, and the velocity of their automobile has increased to well over 100 MPH, which neither of these overheated physicists notice.

A Texas State Trooper, headed the other direction certainly did notice.

Now, in west Texas, speeds north of 100 MPH are only borderline problematic. It's a long way to anywhere and, as long as the driver is keeping it cool and staying in their lane, well, it's not necessarily a problem . . . unless the car has New York plates, then, it's a Problem.

Whips around the state trooper, pursuit mode engaged, and before you know it those New Yorkers are all lit up, the siren is wailing, and they are getting a command to pull over NOW via the secretly juiced up PA.

You know what happens next. The cars pull onto the shoulder more or less in unison. The trooper takes a little time getting out of his cruiser needing to run the tags and all. Then there's the slow, cautious walk to the other vehicle well clear of the doors and what not.

The physicists are now more or less fully engaged with where and when they are but anxious to get back to the Point, as divergent as that singular point may be.

Window rolls down. "Yes, officer? Is there a problem?"

"Do you know how fast you were going back there?" somewhat cautiously as is the Trooper's wont.

"No, actually, we don't," somewhat huffily, "we were discussing . . . things you wouldn't understand."

Not the thing to say to a Texas State Trooper.

"Well now, is that so?" drawled out for all its worth. "Your license and registration, please." hand out ready to receive said papers.

Looking them over somewhat skeptically, the Trooper says, "Pop the trunk."

"What?" says the driving physicist. "How does one POP a trunk?" Smirking at the rube.

"OPEN the trunk," rabbit ears (air quotes) up and out before he knows it, somewhat embarrassed by this habit.

"Oh . . . " driver fumbling for the trunk latch in the strange car, passenger physicist - being more observant - lunges slightly for the latch giving the driver and the Trooper both a start.

Recovering, the Trooper walks to the rear, opens the trunk lid fully, pauses a moment or two, makes  a sound of disgust, slams the trunk shut, and walks back to the driver's window.

"Do you know you have a dead cat in the trunk?" incredulous that it would be so.

Passenger physicist, shaking his head, leans across the driver into the Trooper's view and fairly shouts, "Well, NOW we do!"

. . .

Thank you. I'll be here through Tuesday

But I digress.

I took the longer way home. The route winds through the LSU campus to the Lakes access at South Campus and West Lakeshore (Sorority Row and U REC). I don't remember if it was crowded that evening, probably not as it was still cold and maybe wet.

At the intersection of Belmont and Drehr I opted for a right turn instead of continuing on Drehr to Broussard. At Belmont and St Rose I opted to continue down Belmont to Parker instead of turning on St Rose to Rittiner. At Parker I opted to turn on Myrtle rather than Kleinert.

And that's when the single live oak leaf hit the "frog" of my left hand.

This was no Sam Peckinpah slo-mo exploding blood bath of a hit. I didn't lose control of my ride. I didn't dodge and weave. It was more of a Zen master tap, an awareness note, a little thing of no intrinsic value but of great import.

Why?

All those changes, all the choices I made, all the route options I exercised, they all brought me to that point at that time to be tapped on the left hand by a single leaf. There was no shower of leaves, no curtain to pass through, just one small leaf falling through space directly into my path.