In high school, we had a teacher named Mr. Sullivan, who taught the advanced physics class. Mr. Sullivan was a strange fellow, as many physics teachers are. For one thing, he had a lot of nicknames and aliases. Most of his friends called him Sully. His family called him Junior, because his full name was Perry Joseph Sullivan, Junior, after his father. His wife called him Juney, her own term of endearment and modification of Junior. And in the classroom, he occasionally showed up as Albert I. Stein.

The thing about Mr. Sullivan is that he grew up out in the country, in the hills of Tennessee or Kentucky, or some other God's country. His family had a farm, and he used to work on tractors, plant fields, bring in the harvest, and other such things. Growing up in that environment gave him a particular kind of view of the world. Also, he had a classic southern redneck affect to his speech. One time he was teaching us about how to calculate the volume of a cistern using calculus approximations. It started something like this:

"Now, kids. If you ever have to dig a cistern, you have got to..."

Funny, I don't remember what he actually told us about a cistern, I just remember the way he said it. I think most of the class had little idea was a cistern was, anyway. In some ways he reminded me of my dad, who also grew up on a farm. Albert I. Stein also reminded me of my dad, or more accurately, my dad's family. In addition to the terrible name pun, Albert had an extreme southern redneck dialect and attitude. It would have been considered racist, if rednecks were a race.

The other thing about Mr. Sullivan is that he taught us what we liked to call "almost physics". That's not to say we didn't learn the basics, including Newtonian Mechanics and such. But sometimes, he would pepper in his own perspective, or wild theory. He was a pseudo-religious man, who borrowed what he wanted from the Catholic philosophy as well.

Toward the end of our junior year, we were starting to learn the basics of quantum mechanics. Now, Mr. Sullivan had a bachelor of arts in English, with a minor in Math, and a Masters of Education. Which is to say, he wasn't exactly a working scientist, and hadn't studied quantum mechanics until he was asked to teach Advanced Physics at the high school. The ten years prior he had taught world geography. Fortunately, this was his fourth year also teaching physics, and he mostly had it down. The thing is, as much as the theory of relativity is a mindfuck, quantum mechanics is orders of magnitude harder to comprehend. Physicists have been debating the meaning of quantum mechanics for at least a century, so it's no surprise a rural English major might stumble occasionally.

This one day, he must have been feeling extra high on his soap box. Did I mention that Mr. Sullivan dressed the same every day? Just black slacks, plain black shoes, a black belt, a short sleeve button-down white shirt, and a worn out blue blazer, which he hung over his chair on warmer days. But when Albert was in, he arrived with overalls and a green plaid flannel long sleeve button down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of boots that appeared to have seen better days. So, anyway, this was one of the days when Albert was in.

(Now, you have to imagine this in a thick redneck accent).

"Good day students. Now, y'all know me, Albert I. Stein. Today we're gonna talk about Quantum Mechanics. Some of y'all might already know a little bit about QM. Some of you might not never heard of it. Either way, we gonna connect some dots and make it all clear."

"The thing about Quantum Mechanics, is that it's hard to understand. For me. For you. Heck, for real scientists, too. You can nearly say nobody doesn't understand it. Mr. Fineman said as much, I believe. But it's important because many scientists believe it describes the fabric of the universe. And that's kind of a big deal."

"So, what is Quantum Mechanics? Is the physical mechanics that occur at the so-called quantum level. The quantum level is the very small level. Like smaller than Jimmy (everyone laughed), smaller than an ant, or a pin, or a hair, or even the smallest thing you can think of."

"In fact, it's so small, no one has ever seen anything at the quantum level."

(Lots of confused and puzzled looks).

"Now, everyone here knows what an atom is, or, at least you think you do. Take a hydrogen atom, for example. "

(He went to the whiteboard, and began drawing).

"You see, like any atom, there's a nucleus that is made up of protons and neutrons, or in this case, a single proton and a single neutron. And then there's the electron."

(He drew a cluster nucleus showing one proton and one neutron, then he drew a circle around them as he said "electron".)

"Now. Here's the problem. Where's the electron?"

(Again, confused and puzzled faces. Annie, the "smart" girl in the class looked very tempted to answer or say something, but held her reserve because this all seemed like a strange approach.)

"How fast is the electron going?"

(At these, he seemed to "hmm" to himself and go inside his own head for a moment).

"These questions are easy to answer if the nucleus is the sun, and the electron is a planet. We can use Newtownian Mechanics, or Relativity to solve the problem of what is where, how fast it is going, and what direction, and what is the shape of the orbit, and so on. Most of those answers come from our understanding of a force called gravity."

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"But this..." (he pointed to the atom he had drawn)

"... this, is different. While gravity seems strong to you and me, it's incredibly week to an atom, and especially to an electron. Gravity is what makes the Earth orbit the Sun, but it's not what makes the electron orbit the nucleus of an atom."

"The electron, you see, is held in orbit by the electromagnetic force."

(He seemed lost in thought again for a moment).

"Yes. Yes. But, an electron, what is it? What is a proton? Or a neutron?"

"A proton, you see, is a particle... er... well, a particle, that consists of one down quark and two up quarks."

"But what is a quark?"

"A quark... is an elementary particle. This means, it's not made up of any other more basic particles. The electron, also, is a basic particle."

"Now, I don't know if any of you have heard about the Pauli Exclusion Principle, or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or Schrödinger’s Cat, and all that crap."

(A few students smirked at the word "crap").

"The uncertainty principle says that we cannot know the exact location and exact velocity of a particle."

"So, how fast is the electron moving? Where is the electron? Heisenberg says the more we know one answer, the less we can know the other. But I call shenanigans!"

(Most everyone was intrigued by this exclamation, and a few gasped quietly).

"The electron is somewhere. It must be. The electron has a particular velocity, it must. Quantum Mechanics says we cannot know both. And what's worse, is that we are to believe that the electron is not only not somewhere in particular, but that it is not necessarily a particle, but possibly, also simultaneously, a wave. Again, shenanigans!"

(This time he seemed agitated, and the class was frozen by the odd charisma of Albert I. Stein).

"Now, what is the location of an electron? What is the velocity of an electron? Heck, what is the location or velocity of a pool queue? Or a car?"

(His hand rubbed his chin, and he was looking more at the floor than at us. He seemed to be solving his own problem in real time before our eyes).

(As he continued, his exaggerated redneck accent started to fade into his gentler southern drawl).

"A car, travels at 55 miles per hour down the street. But what do we know? What does that mean? What is a car? Or a street? What is 55 miles per hour, and what does it mean to the car?"

(Some students began to look at their watches, feeling the hour drag on and hoping for an escape...)

"Annie..."

(Annie looked dumbfounded...)

"What is my velocity?"

"Uhmm.... I, mmmm...."

"Exactly! There's no easy answer. If I stand still, some of you want to say my velocity is zero. But what if you were on the moon? Or on the Sun? Or on Mars? Or somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy? You see, the answer is different for all of them. My velocity is different. It's relative. That's what Einstein taught us. And it was brilliant!"

"Now, what about light? What's the velocity of light? If you were on the moon? Or on the Sun? Or on Mars? Or somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy? That's the hard part, because the answer is, it's the same for all of them. How can that be? Why is my velocity relative, but light's is not? But Einstein figured that out too, and he said that for that to be true, both time and the length of the thing traveling at the speed of light must distort and dilate, they must alter somewhere in the fabric of spacetime, in order for everything to work out."

"But what is 'working out'? The universe doesn't change, or care to change. What changes is our understanding. What changes is our mathematical representation and interpretation of what happens."

"The light that comes from the Sun, travels to the Earth at a speed of about 186 thousand miles per hour. And so, it takes about eight minutes to get here. But what is the first 'part' of light that reaches us? What is the last part? We often think of light as a very abstract thing. But Quantum Mechanics shows that light is more like a train, with each car representing a single photon. A photon. A photon is a single particle of light. But also, a photon is the carrier of the electromagnetic field."

"And as the carrier of the electromagnetic field, photons must then also keep the electron in orbit around the nucleus... here."

(He pointed back at the drawing of the electron and nucleus on the whiteboard).

"So, now we have the electron, an elementary particle, and we cannot know it's velocity and position, the photon, or photons, which we also cannot know their velocity or position, and the proton, which is made up of some quarks, which also cannot be determined to be at a particular position or velocity."

"But what does it mean, 'to know'. To know the position. To know the velocity. Let's try an analogy. This chair..."

(He grabbed the chair from behind his desk, and wheeled it out in front of the class).

"This chair. How much does it weigh? Anyone want to guess?"

(This seeming a little more concrete, Gerald shouted out "Twelve pounds").

"Yeah, good guess Gerald. Twelve pounds seems reasonable. Let's say that I brought in a scale, and we measured that it weighed twelve pounds."

(Everyone seemed to shake their head in agreement).

"Now, here's the kicker. What is 'twelve pounds'?"

(And, suddenly, everyone was lost again).

"What is it? Is it a thing? Is it a physical thing? Is there a thing called 'twelve pounds'?"

(He could tell he was losing us).

"Uh... how about this. What color is the chair?"

(Several people offered "black").

"Yes. Yes. It's a black chair. But what is 'black'? Is it a thing?"

(The class was feeling exhausted at the tug and release of this sermon).

"Is it a thing? I'll tell you, it's not. There's no such thing as Black. Or Twelve Pounds."

"Now. Here's why. What if we were in France?"

(Again, confused, puzzled faces trying to figure out if the chair would weigh or look different in Paris).

"In France, they might say the chair was about... uh, er... uhm... five and half kilos. Haha!"

"In England, one might say it's a bit less than a stone."

"So, what is Twelve Pounds? What is five and half kilos? What is a stone?"

"Information. They are information. They are information that describe this chair. And, after all, chair is just a description, just information that describes, this particular configuration of atoms. This particular configuration of quarks, and photons, and electrons. What do you think of that?"

(The class was staring blankly at Mr. Sullivan for several seconds as he stood there in his Albert I. Stein costume, suddenly realizing he'd lost his character. Then the bell rang, and everyone grabbed their things quickly, and bolted out of the class. Mr. Sullivan still seemed a little lost in his own head, and impressed by his own thoughts.)