New York Times satirical commentary: “A quantum theory of Mitt Romney”

We “have entered the age of quantum politics,” writes satirist David Javerbaum in the Sunday New York Times , “and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.”

Javerbaum began at the Harvard Lampoon, served as executive producer of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and has shared in 11 Emmy Awards, 2 Grammy Awards, and 2 Peabody Awards.

The Times‘s Sunday Review also contains the op-ed “Overcoming ‘physics envy ,’ ” which argues that for “the sake of everyone who stands to gain from a better knowledge of politics, economics and society, the social sciences need to overcome their inferiority complex . . . and embrace the fact that they are mature disciplines with no need to emulate other sciences.”

But Javerbaum’s highly partisan spoof seems likely to steal the show for the physics community this time, whether with laughter or consternation. Here’s a sampling:

• A figure is captioned, “The famous ‘Schrödinger’s candidate’ scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.” There’s also a mock Feynman diagram “of an encounter between a Romney and an anti-Romney. The resulting collision annihilates both, leaving behind a single electron and a $20 bill.”

• The “Romney candidacy ... is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense.”

• “Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.”

• “Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the ‘principle uncertainty principle.’ ”

• “Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation.”

• “According to the latest theories, the ‘Mitt Romney’ who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform.”

This op-ed’s frank outrageousness will surely offend some scientists. Maybe their best shot for responding is to devise letters to the editor about the Obama administration as a catalyst for the kind of national economic chemistry that many Romney supporters lament.

Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.