"Three Quarks for Muster Mark": Quantum Wordplay and Nuclear Discourse in Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker"

Abstract

In Physics and Philosophy (1958), Werner Heisenberg raised a deceptively simple question about the role of language in modern science. Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum theory, asked, How might we understand nuclear physics when we cannot speak about the atom in ordinary language? As Heisenberg explained it, this was a new riddle. In the past, when the conventions of language and the conditions of science had always matched, no such problem existed. The scientific concepts of the last century, for instance, were perfectly congruous with the normal use of language, which worked equally well for the scientist, engineer, and layperson alike as a medium of understanding. This use of language may have been founded upon incorrect notions of space and time, as it turns out, but these categories guaranteed the presumed objectivity of ordinary discourse. In return, ordinary language seemed to provide science with a reliable degree of efficacy in describing nature and calculating the results of experiments. Science and language, in short, enjoyed a reciprocity which appeared to assure the normal function of both.