In the novel 'Don Quixote' by Cervantes, Nobel-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger noticed one thing strange: “Sancho Panza, who loses his donkey in one chapter but a few chapters later, thanks to the forgetfulness of the author, is riding the dear little animal again".
Have all the readers of 'Don Quixote' kept tabs on the donkey? To begin with, it was a question of inconsistency, and Schrödinger equated it with his own: "some parts of this narrative may be inconsistent with others". Around 1700, Newton concluded that light was a group of particles (corpuscular theory), and around the same time, some other scholars thought that light might instead be a wave (wave theory).
In his classic paper, 'What is Matter?’ Schrödinger wrote: everything, anything at all, is simultaneously particle and wave field. Both the particle view and the wave have truth value, but we do not know how to combine them. At one point he asserts "Panza’s donkey will return". Well it returned, right? But that second coming becomes enigmatic when we ask what really these corpuscles are?
Schrödinger said, "I ought to confess honestly that I am almost as little prepared to answer that as to tell where Sancho Panza’s second donkey came from".
It is amazing how fictional material readily connects to a scientist’s preoccupations. Anyway, it makes me wonder whether great scientists read works of fiction differently.
Yes, I think they read works of fiction differently.
In my understanding, to read works correctly, one needs to read these works in the original language, because so many hidden meanings are hidden in the language in which these works are written. I judge in particular the translations of Anton Chekhov’s stories from Russian into English. These translations are certainly magnificent, but this is no longer Chekhov, because the Russian spirit is disappearing. There are many phrases that, when translated, lose the Russian mentality and this necessarily affects the general understanding of the meaning of the stories.
Gennady Fedulov
Dear Gennady, this is not about bad translation or incorrect reading. This is about perspective.
“Sancho Panza, who loses his donkey in one chapter but a few chapters later, thanks to the forgetfulness of the author, is riding the dear little animal again".
A great many readers and writers (including critics) overlooked the incosistencey but a great physicist not only noticed it but also connected it to a scientific issue. What you should note in particular is that the incosistency didn't come from bad translation. Thanks.
Dear Rad Maythil,
we should not be so strict with the sequence of events, because there could be reasons to resurrect the donkey again. I want to remind you that Conan Doyle in his story "The Adventure of the Final Problem" killed his hero Sherlock Holmes. However, the audience categorically demanded the continuation of a series of stories about Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle had to resurrect Sherlock Holmes to satisfy the request of readers. Therefore, the resurrection of the donkey by Cervantes could be connected not with the author’s forgetfulness, but with the desire to continue the Sancho Panza story with the participation of the donkey. There is nothing special here. How many times do we see inconsistencies in films for the sake of continuing the storyline. We say that this is not the case in life, but we still watch films with great interest. For the sake of continuing the TV series, at the request of the audience, the heroes of this series, who were previously killed, are suddenly resurrected, but this one does not cause us surprise, because this is interesting to watch. The novel 'Don Quixote is not a documentary material, but only fiction, so anything is possible here, if it is interesting to readers.
Gennady Fedulov
"Therefore, the resurrection of the donkey by Cervantes could be connected not with the author’s forgetfulness, but with the desire to continue the Sancho Panza story with the participation of the donkey."
That's is speculation. To quote the Wikiprdia protocol, "Citation needed".
If you have evidence that the inconsistency is not due to forgetfullness, we edit the text by deleting that "controversial" part (as per you) and read Schrödinger's sentence as “Sancho Panza loses his donkey in one chapter but a few chapters later [he] is riding the dear little animal again".
The point is there is an inconsistency in the narration, and a physicist noted it and connected it to a situation in physics. And my question is "Do great scientists read works of fiction differently?"
Gennady Fedulov
Dear Gennady, please try to understand that neither Schrödinger 's paper or my question is aimed at ridiculing Cervantes. I regard 'Don Quixote' as one of the best novels ever written.
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