[Answer] If One Doesn’t Suddenly Turn Around, Will That Person Still Be There Where the Lights Are Dim?

[Answer] If One Doesn’t Suddenly Turn Around, Will That Person Still Be There Where the Lights Are Dim?

At its core, this is a question of quantum mechanics. You cannot simultaneously measure an object’s speed and position, because the very existence of the observer is itself a disturbance to the system. One could say that before the sudden glance back, that person is like Schrödinger’s famous cat: both there in the dimly lit place, and not there in the dimly lit place. Only after the sudden turn of the head does that person’s state become determined, precisely because of the observer’s presence. Therefore, it is the former’s sudden glance back that leads to the latter’s existence.

What Xin Qiji was really trying to tell us, implicitly, is that as early as the Song dynasty, our country had already mastered the core theories of quantum mechanics. It was simply too far ahead of its time to be revealed outright, so it had to be hinted at through poetry instead. Similar examples include: “I raise my cup to invite the bright moon, and with my shadow we become three” (the principle of image formation), and “The cries of apes on both banks do not cease, while the light boat has already passed ten thousand mountains” (spatial traversal, wormhole technology), and so on.