La física cuántica: de la metaficción a los problemas éticos en la novela En busca de Klingsor

Abstract

The paradigm of quantum physics not only changed the scientific imagination, but the imagination of society in general and even determined the course of history by enabling the generation of the technical knowledge necessary for the construction of the atomic bomb. In his novel En busca de Klingsor, Jorge Volpi addresses the subtle relationship between science, politics, and philosophy. It portrays the first decades of the development of quantum physics and the personal and ethical conflicts of the scientists who created it. Although the importance of quantum physics has been pointed out constantly by critics and by the author himself, a detailed study of its importance in the novel has not been done to date. The objective of this article is to analyze the influence of quantum physics in En busca de Klingsor, mainly in two aspects: 1) the way in which Volpi adapted the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to shape his unreliable narrator technique, and 2) to explain how the debates on free will and ethics that emerged from quantum physics, especially between Pascual Jordan and Erwin Schrödinger, are rearticulated here. These debates are the philosophical reference by which the ethical dilemmas faced by scientists under the Nazi regime and during the construction of the atomic bomb are addressed.