Retying the Knot - 24 Sep 2005 - Jess' Toast
Those of you familiar with Quantum Field Theory know that embezzlement from the energy bank is literally what holds the world together: thanks to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, one particle can create another particle out of nothing, even without enough energy to pay the energy bank the required E = mc2, as long as a second stable particle absorbs the temporary virtual particle before the bank notices the overdraft. Thus two stable particles interact by the exchange of virtual intermediary particles; this is beleived to be the mechanism for all the forces of nature.
I have formulated a Quantum Field Theory of Love, which is very similar in many respects, yet different in a very fundamental way: the "particles" in this model are two people (in this case Pat and me) who are bound together by love.
Love is a field that carries both energy and weight - one which we lack sufficient capital to create, and yet we absorb huge amounts of love daily. Every day Pat gives me so much love that I wonder where it's coming from, and know as I fall asleep each night that I will never be able to earn it; I will be forever deeper in debt.
But every morning I wake up to a miracle: the debt has been cancelled and there's plenty more where that came from. Strangest of all, Pat insists that the love flows mainly the other way.
As a result, the intermediary particles created by the love field (in this case Jed and Rebecca) are not "virtual" at all, but long lived and real. Moreover, the "force" of love is invincible and has infinite range. It reaches out to affect other particles everywhere, tying us all together in a knot so intricate that even the 11-dimensional universe of String Theory can't describe its topology.
Planck's constant for love is infinite and explicitly puts the entire world into one wavefunction, one ultimate entangled state that evolves coherently.
Pat, you make me want to be a better man.
Knowing that my debt of love is forever being cancelled, nevertheless I plan to spend every day trying to balance the books. Maybe in the next 25 years I'll be able to make a downpayment.