The Roads Both Taken
When you worry that you're missing out on something by not making both choices simultaneously by quantum superposition, that's called phomo.
When you worry that you're missing out on something by not making both choices simultaneously by quantum superposition, that's called phomo.
This comic is a parody of the first and fourth stanzas of Robert Frost's 1915 poem "The Road Not Taken". The joke is that while the human narrator of Frost's poem (presumably Frost himself), confronted with two paths, could take only one of them and is left to contemplate the consequences of his choice, the photonic narrator of the parody, thanks to quantum physics, is not compelled to choose one path over the other but can instead take both simultaneously, resulting in probabilistic quantum superposition, and is left to contemplate the consequences of that choice. Quantum interference, referenced in the final line, is an effect of quantum superposition in which particles (including photons) interact with and influence themselves and other particles while in a superposition state.
The title text humorously makes a portmanteau out of 'photon' and 'FOMO' (Fear Of Missing Out), the concern over lost opportunities from choosing one path over another or choosing neither.
This comic was posted on April 14, World Quantum Day.
Original stanza 1 Parody Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And so of course I traveled both
Though be one traveler, still I could
Explore down both as far as I could
Beyond the bends in the undergrowth;In the original, the human narrator, operating at the scale of classical mechanics, contemplates the necessary choice between two mutually exclusive paths. In the parody, the photon, operating at the scale of quantum mechanics, readily explores both paths. At quantum scale, the "roads" and "yellow woods" are metaphorical.
The original contains two additional stanzas about choosing which road to take and sticking with that choice, which did not make it into the parody version.
Original stanza 4 Parody I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took them both and recombined,
And that has made interference.In the original, the human narrator reflects subjectively on the (anticipated?) impact of the choice of road - whether for good or ill is not explicitly stated. In the parody, the photon states objectively the result (quantum interference) of taking both paths at once.
The parody maintains the same rhyme scheme as the original, ABAAB. In the fourth line of the last stanza, "recombined" doesn't perfectly rhyme with "sigh" and "I", but it shares the vowel in the last syllable, a form of assonance, and can be considered an imperfect rhyme. The third and fourth lines of the first stanza also don't perfectly rhyme since the rhyming words are the same (this is instead called an identical rhyme).