QUANTUM PHYSICS: THE MUSICAL

Synopsis of the show

On its last mission quantum ship Lollipop experienced a collision between parallel universes. Crew member Ensign Percy was exchanged for the Ensign Percy of the universe next door.

Now the Lollipop must make it again through the quantum foam, switch back their crew members, and be the first to reach the mythical Dimension of Lost Quarters.

As we open, the Lollipop makes a quantum jump to the size of a carbon atom (“Hold Onto Your Seats”). Capt. Arthur and Lt. Cmdr. Morgan are flirting. Ensign Percy is baffled by the quantum physics of this universe. The Captain sings “Clockwork Universe” and explains the difference between Newtonian and Quantum physics.

The crew breaks into a game of Quantum Ball –how a ball game might work if it followed quantum rules. Back to work, Percy befriends Lt. Shapley, while the Captain revels in anticipation of being the first to find the mythical Dimension of Lost Quarters – that place where a quantum wave sits until it is noticed, and then it collapses.

The crew traps their target particle. Percy doesn’t understand what a quark is, so Gwen explains (“Quarks”). The Captain reveals his beloved “Hadron Accelerator”.

Jealous of the attention he’s paying to his machine, Morgan thwarts his efforts and the particle is lost. They must look for it again, but have to beware of Bohr’s Complementarity and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty.

All of this is completely confusing to Percy, who worries that he’ll always feel like a “Man From Another World”. Percy and Gwen compare formulae and think they may have discovered a trans-universal mathematical theorem which will help track their target. Gwen glows, “I Love Math”.

They run into trouble with Observer Theory and their particle gets lost in one of many “Parallel Universes”. Just when they find it, they get sucked into the gravity well of Dark Matter. Percy realizes that he knows about Dark Matter, in his universe they call it…Heavy Metal.

During the heavy metal tune, “Dark Matter”, the ship goes into an uncontrollable spin and loses power. Commercial break (“Neutrinos Breakfast Cereal”).

L-R: Barbara Tomasic, Leon Willey, Amy Wallis, Michael Walker

Percy returns power by jury-rigging the engine. The Captain, meanwhile, has been chasing Morgan around. Morgan is irritated as she is trying to control of an increasingly out-of-control mission. Gwen and Percy are no help, and Morgan wonders why she has to always be the serious one in “Gravity (It’s Getting Me Down)”.

Percy gets them out of their predicament; this time by utilizing a technique he learned on TV: mixing matter and anti-matter – which is what Morgan and the Captain are increasingly resembling. (“Matter/Anti-Matter”).

The crew is finally ready to load the target particle into the Hadron Accelerator, when they realized that the particle in their possession is not their target but its entangled partner. Gwen and Percy dance the “Quantum Entanglement Tango”.

At last they have the right particle, and they smash it open in the Hadron Accelerator. Now they jump down to sub-quark size (“Hold onto Your Seats”).

The Lollipop is traveling in the micro-dimensions, which affect the crew’s sensibilities. Percy is left in control of the mission. Alarms sound, and Percy tries valiantly to save the ship, to no avail.

At last, he decides that he’s going to do things the way they’re done in his universe, where a more consciousness-driven paradigm is used to describe quantum phenomena.

He meditates and disaster is averted. He realizes that quantum physics has similarities to the ways that ancient mystics have seen reality (“Funhouse Mirror Ride”).

Everyone else is returned to normalcy, and accepts Percy, who decides to stay in this universe, as their new crewmember. The Captain announces that their goal is reached, that they are ready to return to macrosize, and they jump back (“Hold Onto Your Seats”), ready to go home.