The Thoughts Of Bohr Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Gribbin (1990: 160):

The idea of complementarity, that both wave and particle pictures are necessary to understand the quantum world (although in fact an electron, say, is neither wave nor particle), found a mathematical formulation in the uncertainty relation that said both position and momentum could not both be known precisely, but formed complementary and in a sense mutually exclusive aspects of reality.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the complementarity of wave and particle and the complementarity of position and momentum are different types of complementarity.

The complementarity of wave and particle is a construal of experience as the complementarity of potential and instance, whereas the complementarity of position and momentum is a construal of experience as a complementarity of instances.

The "Arrow Of Time" Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1990: 159):

Very few things in physics "care" which way time flows, and it is one of the fundamental puzzles of the universe we live in that there should be a definite "arrow of time," a distinction between the past and the future.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, time is a construal of experience as meaning: as an inherent property of processes.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 113):

Whatever the mode of occurrence of any figure, it will always unfold in time.  This temporal unfolding is construed as an inherent property of the process itself, realised grammatically in tense and aspect;

Halliday (2008: 35):

The grammar of every language is (in one of its metafunctions, the ideational) a construal of human experience: it constructs our “reality” by transforming our experiences into meanings. And in doing this, the grammar often has to choose: to choose either one way of seeing things, or the other. For example, think of time. Either time is a linear progression, out of future through present into past; or else it is a translation from the virtual into the actual.

The location or extent (duration, frequency) of a process in time is construed as a circumstance of its unfolding.

The Thoughts Of Heisenberg Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1990: 156-7):

The more accurately we know the position of a particle, the less accurately we know its momentum, and vice versa. … But what the uncertainty principle tells us is that, according to the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as an electron that possesses both a precise momentum and a precise position.

This has far-reaching implications.  As Heisenberg said at the end of his paper in the Zeitschrift, "We cannot know, as a matter of principle, the present in all its details."

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, Heisenberg's conclusion is about constraints on construals of experience; either the precise position of an electron can be construed, or the precise momentum of an electron can be construed.

Quantum Theory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Gribbin (1990: 123-4):

There is no model of what the atom and elementary particles are really like, and nothing that tells us what goes on when we are not looking at them. But the equations of wave mechanics (the most popular variation on the theme) can be used to make predictions on a statistical basis. … Quantum theory does not say what atoms are like, or what they are doing when we are not looking at them. Unfortunately, most of the people who use the wave equations today do not appreciate this and only pay lip service to the rôle of probabilities. … [Students] learn to think of the waves as real, and few of them get through a course in quantum theory without coming away with a picture of the atom in their imagination. People work with the probabilistic interpretation without really understanding it …

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional linguistic theory, both 'the atom and elementary particles' and the scientific model of them are construals of experience as meaning; the former are phenomena, the latter metaphenomena (phenomena about phenomena).

When no observations are being made, no experience is being construed as meaning ('what atoms are like and what they are doing').

The wave equations of quantum mechanics are metaphenomena: phenomena about the phenomena construed of experience.  The wave function construes phenomena as potential (wave), providing the probabilities of the phenomena as instances (particle frequencies).