This book is the second in a series of works subjectively documenting a physics experiment. Inductions I and III are video works, and the source of the book’s imagery.

Pilot Wave Theory —advanced by Louis DeBroglie and later, David Bohm— presents an alternative to the standard Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics. It rests on the notion of a “hidden variable” guiding a particle’s movement through the field of varying probability, described in its wave function.

In the experiment, millimeter sized droplets of silicone bounce on their own waves in a speaker emitting a tone through a bath of silicone. Though Pilot Wave Theory is almost certainly incorrect, the experiment — first described by Jearl Walker in a 1978 — shows the droplet behaving just as Bohm and De Broglie predicted a particle would — pushed along in a specific, bizarre trajectory by its own wave. As the droplet bounces, its lateral movement appears to be somehow both random and purposeful, making sharp turns and reversing directions in no discernable pattern. In 2005, Yves Couder and his team observed that if one recorded the droplet over time, it occupied certain positions on the surface more frequently than others. The uneven probability of its location corresponded to the Schroedinger wave function— a fundamental equation for describing quantum mechanical behavior.

With the help of a good lens, this macroscopic setup gives us the rare opportunity to observe some of the uncanny qualities usually confined to the scale of the quantum realm. The footage was captured in my studio with Rafe Scobey-Thal behind the camera.