How to use this Page

In an infinite universe, anything that can happen does happen - an infinite number of times.

Of course, the idea of an infinite universe is a tricky (possibly an infinitely tricky) one to grasp, and there's no proof as yet that our universe is infinite. Some theories propose that we may be part of a multiverse - a (possibly) infinite number of universes embodying all possible physical laws and values of important constants like the strength of gravity. Many of these universes would contain little of interest (a low gravitational constant, for example, makes it impossible for galaxies and stars to form, so life is most unlikely). Other variants would look more like ours. There might even be one in which I don't like chocolate, though I'm not sure that counts as 'possible'.

And then there's the interpretation of quantum theory which says that when you open the box to reveal Schrödinger's cat, the universe splits into the 'cat-alive' and the 'cat-dead' version. By the time a few splits like this have occurred, you get a fair degree of diversity and some interesting narratives evolving.

Which brings me to the connection (there is one, I promise) with writers and writing.

If the universe really is infinite, then all our books, even our wildest fictional fantasies, are true. There is a universe somewhere, or perhaps a pocket of our own universe, where the characters you and I have invented actually exist - and do exactly the things they do in our books. And, in a 'neighbouring' universe, they make slightly different choices and perhaps write themselves into a better book.

This may all sound incredibly far-fetched. I am not an expert, though I did some physics at university long ago. These days, I'm a keen reader of those books that thrill you with the exciting bits of cosmology, quantum physics and neuroscience. They set my imagination alight... and nothing does that more than the idea that every work of fiction ever written has actually happened, somewhere way out there. I'm not sure why this thrills me, but it does.

As I sit and write, often feeling that I am listening in to my characters' conversations and observing their actions rather than making them up, the idea that I am tuning in to something real is a very powerful and poignant one.

I realise that the question of what 'actually exists' plunges one into some deep waters of philosophy. I'm going to stay in the shallows for the purpose of this post, but if anyone wants to wade out deeper, I'd love to know what you think.

Thanks to Brian Greene and his intriguing book 'The Hidden Reality' (Allen Lane, 2011), which gave me some insight into all this stuff and made me marvel all over again at the wonderful place in which we live. It seems safe to assume that the universe is even more amazing than our current theories tell us, and that, for me, feels exactly right.

[Photo of Earth from space by Terra satellite, image copyright NASA]

By Kirsty McHugh, OUP UK

Rom Harré, Linacre College, Oxford and Georgetown University, Washington DC, is the author of Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrödinger’s Cat: Scenes from the Living Laboratory. In it he looks at the controversial role of living things – plant, animal, human – in scientific experimentation from a new perspective: setting aside moral reflection it examines the history of how and why living creatures have been used. In the original post below, Harré talks about ways in which living things has been experimented with – not necessarily on – throughout history.

Animals and plants have played a part in science since Aristotle began the study of embryology by opening one of a clutch of fertilised eggs each day until the last one was due to hatch. Recently reflections on the way living creatures and their remains have been used in research has centred on the important moral problems that this raises. Not much attention has been given to how organisms have played a part in science more broadly. I was struck by the fact that most discussions were centred on experiments on animals and little was said about experimenting with animals. The role of plants in science was largely ignored – after all few people believe that flowers feel. Nevertheless there is a surely a kind of moral depravity in laying waste a stand of plants.

Scientific research is as much a practical matter of managing equipment as it is sitting in one’s study building theories. What sort of equipment do scientists use? There are instruments that react to temperature, the presence of gases, the lapse of time, and so on. Equally important are pieces of apparatus that are used to study natural processes in isolation from the complexities of the real world. They are simplified versions of natural things and processes. In short they are models or analogies of the real thing. A calorimeter with a mixture of ice and salt is a kind of analogue of the ocean, and we can use to study what happens when the sea freezes,  but in comfort of home, so to speak.

People used animals and plants for certain very specific purposes. Roland Beschel estimated the age of glacier moraines by the diameter of lichens calibrated in the local churchyard, an organic clock. John Clarke constructed a model world for a group of voles out of an old swimming pool he had come across by accident as an apparatus for studying the effect of overcrowding on populations. Barry Marshall used his own stomach as an apparatus for testing the helicobacter theory of peptic ulcers.

Suspending our moral feelings we can follow Stephen Hales’ studies of blood pressure with experiments that could lead only to death of the animals he chose for this purpose.  In the imagination we can attend Pavlov’s lecture in which he demonstrated the nervic hypothesis of digestive control using a dog he had surgically modified for the purpose. Stephen Hales worked tirelessly to improve the lot of prison populations, and Ivan Pavlov built a monument to honour of the dogs that played an essential part in his researches. Marie Antoinette insisted that some animals be sent aloft in a balloon before human aeronauts were risked, just as dogs preceded people into space.

Sometimes the animals and plants are imaginary – such as Erwin Schrödinger’s famous cat. Sometimes the living apparatus is the site of an infamous