Enjoy the Show. Test Will Follow. Awhile ago I logged the arrival of the play Copenhagen, about Werner Heisenberg. And several days ago I logged an essay about the literary abuses of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Now the New York Times does man-on-the-street interviews with theater patrons to see what they understand of the physics behind the play. As suggested the other day, without understanding quantum physics, Heisenberg uncertainty becomes just a metaphor, and an overused one at that. If all you’re saying is that the observer affects the process observed, why try so hard?

One reader of this blog wrote to say that this discussion of the uncertainty principle reminds him of a pet peeve he has about the frequent use of “one-dimensional” in literary criticism. From his understanding of geometry, he’s sure the writers mean to say two-dimensional, as in lacking depth. That one doesn’t bother me as much as the misuse of the uncertainty principle does, because to speak of “dimensions” isn’t necessarily using (misusing) a geometric metaphor; the word has a commonsense meaning as well. A character, or a plotline, may well be only one-dimensional in that common sense of the word, e.g. reduced to only one conflict.