Epiphany via Quantum Physics with My Daughter
“Once in a while you get shown the light/In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
The Grateful Dead has a profound lyric in their song Scarlet Begonias that goes “Once in a while you get shown the light/In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
For me, this recently happened as a very cool epiphany. While helping my high school daughter as she was doing pre-course work for a summer research program, we were trying to understand quantum physics which I have to admit is something I haven’t had to tackle for many decades now.
While trying to understand the concepts, mathematics had to be employed for validation. This, of course, is where the women are separated from the girls, in my opinion. It may be easy to grasp the abstract concepts and framework, but having to prove it is true via equations and the resulting numbers is where things can get muddled, to say the least.
However, that isn’t the basis of the epiphany. What I realized while doing this exercise is that not only was it very mentally stimulating, I became cognizant that this is where I must have had the seeds laid in my early life to become what I am today, a product manager.
The love of the problem. The interest and engagement in the problem. Then validating it with equations and data. For product managers, this is our world where a user’s pain point identifies in the form of a problem, and assumptions are made that need to be validated all as part of product development. It’s the playground of the product manager’s mind and where we revel. A cowboy in a data-driven problem-solving rodeo.
That day, though, we were trying to understand the math behind Schrodinger’s equation. It requires one to engage in serious mental gymnastics. The challenge of breaking down complex ideas into understandable pieces. The energy generated in my mind and the awakened state of buzzing is something very cool.
For many of us, as we enter into adulthood and try to figure out our path ahead, we tend to bounce around trying different occupations or fields of interest like in a career clothing store with numerous visits to the fitting room. We usually know quickly what doesn’t seem to fit. We can spend some time in a position that is comfortable or at least doable. However, finding the right fit can be a challenging endeavor for many of us.
So what does this epiphany, this awareness, mean? Why does it matter?
For me, it was quite appropriate that this one came from attempting to understand quantum physics. The principle of which explains how discrete units can move together in what resembles and behaves like a wave.
In our life and career pursuits, each work experience entry in our resume seems to be discrete and separate. We rarely take the time or do the “math,” so to speak, in identifying them as parts of sine and cosine waves towards a destination rather than just tangential occurrences with limited connection. connecting the dots and realizing the connection and flow.
I spent most of my career in management and corporate governance. Now I am in product management, back to building things. “Back to” are the keywords here. The epiphany that day had shown the light that I could see the dots connecting and flowing into where I am today.
