Bohemian Mechanical Rhapsody

Blame Bryan O’Sullivan for this– after his comment about misreading “Bohmian Mechanics” as “Bohemian Mechanics,” I couldn’t get this silly idea out of my head. And this is the result.

I like to think that this was Brian May‘s first draft (he does have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, after all), before Freddie Mercury got hold of it:

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Do objects have real states
Or just probabilities?

Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see

Studying quantum (poor boy), I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
A little psi, little rho
No interpretation ever really matters to me, to me

Mama, just killed a cat
‘Least I think I might’ve did
Won’t know ’til I lift the lid
Local realism was fun
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooo
Didn’t mean to make you cry
If I’m incoherent this time tomorrow
Calculate, calculate, as if nothing really matters

Too late, my state’s collapsed
Sends shivers down my spine
Decohering all the time
Goodbye determinism- you’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind for random chance
Einstein, ooo – (anyway the wind blows)
God should not play dice
I sometimes wish I’d never read Born at all

I see a little silhouetto of a psi
Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango
Action at a distance, very very spooky to me
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo where’d you go? I don’t know (oh, oh, oh)

I’m just a physicist, nobody loves me
No information has speeds more than c
Spare all our brains from non-locality
Easy come easy go – will you let me go
Bell’s theorem! No – we will not let you go

let him go
Bell’s theorem! We will not let you go

let him clone
No cloning! We will not let you clone

let me go
Will not let you go

let me go (never)
Never let you go
let me go
Never let me go – ooo
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go
Heisenberg has a matrix put aside for me
for me
for meeeeeee

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
And then decohere me and collapse my psi
Oh baby – can’t do this to me baby
Just gotta get out – just gotta get right outta here

Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
Nothing really exists
When no-one can see
Nothing really exists – nothing really matters to me

Anyway the wind blows…

If you want a reminder of the tune, and a better parody than I’m capable of, look here:

A few of the more obscure jokes explained for the less geeky:

• “Psi” is the Greek letter ψ, traditionally used for the wavefunction in quantum mechanics. “Rho” is the greek letter ρ, used for the “density matrix,” which is another way of expressing quantum states.
• “Born” is a reference to Max Born, who was the originator of the interpretation of wavefunctions in probabilistic terms.
• “Bell’s Theorem” shows that quantum states have to be non-local; that is, that measurements at one position can affect measurements at another position instantaneously, rather than being limited to transmission at the speed of light c.
• The “No-Cloning Theorem” by Bill Wootters and Woijciech Zurek shows that it is impossible to make an exact duplicate of an unknown quantum state.
• One of the earliest versions of quantum theory was “matrix mechanics,” developed by Werner Heisenberg (of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

And, just for kicks, the original: