Tess and Harry on the Dock
“What is light?” asked Tess on a night when the stars shone particularly brightly.
“Scientists have been asking that question since…well, since the beginning of science,” said Harry.
“And do they have an answer?”
“Remember when I told you about waves?”
“Radio waves?”
“That’s one kind, yes. And do you know what particles are?”
“Little pieces of stuff?”
“Exactly. Now, some scientists believed that light is made of waves because it acts like a wave.”
“So light is made of waves like radio waves.”
“But wait—other scientists thought that light was made of particles, because it behaves like particles.”
“But waves aren’t particles.”
“No, they’re not.”
“And particles aren’t waves.”
“You’re catching on.”
“So, which is it?”
“Both.”
“But it can’t be both. Because neither one is the other one.”
“And yet it is both.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, but the truth doesn’t always make sense. Light behaving like waves and light behaving like particles—those two things seem contradictory.”
“What does contradictory mean?”
“It means they shouldn’t both be true.”
“Okay.”
“But opposing forces keep the universe in balance, Tess, and the human mind—your own brain—is capable of believing things that are contradictory. It just takes a little work.”
“What things do you believe that are contradictory?”
“Well, as an example, I believe in science, and I also believe in God.”
“Come on, Harry, even I know that those two things don’t have to be contradictory.”
“You can be annoyingly smart for a ten-year-old.”
“I know.”
“Okay, how about this. I love your mother more than my own life. And some days I want to hurl her into the lake.”
“Do you really hate Marie?”
“Of course I don’t hate her. Not like you’re thinking. It’s just that two people who live together all the time and share as much as your mother and I do are going to get on each other’s nerves now and then.”
“Does Aunt Vivian get on your nerves?”
“Sometimes. But I don’t love her the way I love your mother, so I don’t need the balance of—let’s call it annoyance. If light can act like a particle and like a wave, then I suppose I can want to be with your mother every minute of every day and at the same time never want to see her again.”
“You’re weird.”
“So is light.”