Science News, March 12, 2022

Don’t I know some quantum particles
gotta get right back where they started.

Take your old bod—the one that walked on four legs
in morning, two at noon, three at night?

Well, in your case, it’s devolution, the spidery six—
your two, the walker-wheel two

and the two scooching stiffs
with yellow tennis balls on their feet.

Particles can boomerang if they’re
in a material that has lots of disorder

and if this house isn’t pandemonium
I don’t know what is.

Even before your fling
to the floor,

you strewed your unruly socks and boxers,
books and newspapers in your wake—

but
wait

Wanda says
Write about it!

. . . with enough disorder, electrons
in a material have become localized:

They get stuck in place, unable to travel very far
from where they started.

When did we last go out to eat?
Doomed to the here and chow.

 

“Conover, Emily. “Quantum ‘boomerang’ effect observed: Jostled particles return to their starting points in some materials, Science News, March 12, 2022, 10-11.