Academic literature on the topic 'Disturbing strangeness'

Abstract The modern version of quantum theory—now known as “quantum mechanics”— was born and grew to maturity in just five years, between 1925 and 1930. More was accomplished during those five years than in the preceding twenty-five years, or, for that matter, in the seventy years that have followed. Progress before 1925 was constantly hampered by conceptual doubts. Paradoxes such as the wave-particle duality—the contradiction between the Einstein particle theory of light and the classical wave theory—were disturbing and limiting. But by 1925 these difficulties had, perhaps from familiarity, become less inhibiting. Theorists stopped worrying about the conceptual strangeness of the quantum realm, and began to make a new physics with the strangeness incorporated in it. Once the conceptual barriers were passed, progress was astonishingly rapid. For those who had the vision, it was as if a great fog had lifted. Suddenly it was possible to see in many directions with a clarity no one could have anticipated.

This chapter cites a Pennsylvania family that was kicked out of a Friendly's restaurant because their autistic five-year-old was crying and a Tennessee mother who was asked to leave a pizzeria because her autistic toddler was disturbing other customers. It talks about autistic children who have been escorted off airplanes, expelled from public gardens, and ejected from Finding Dory, a children's movie commonly interpreted as a story about disability. It also reviews online debates that erupt between those who plead for empathy and inclusion for children with autism and those who berate parents for expecting others to accommodate their children's disruptive behavior. The chapter elaborates how the strangeness of autistic behavior disturbs people, and not simply the volume of the noise. It refers to scholars that have argued against the depiction of the physically and intellectually disabled as “other.”

Abstract The sequence of events beginning nearly four years ago in Leslie’s life was not unlike the plot in a Steven King novel. At first, the incidences seemed pretty insignificant, although each did cause momentary wonder and worry. After a slightly unsettling event, life returns to its normal, relatively uncomplicated rhythm. At a point, though, the disturbing events become more frequent and seem to constitute a pattern. Characters may now begin to confide uneasy feelings to each other about what has been happening, while finding ways to deny that anything is badly amiss. At a point, the scary problems become so intrusive that the now badly frightened characters know something must be terribly wrong, although they still can’t comprehend what is going on. They begin an earnest search for answers, but the underlying cause of the expanding strangeness eludes them. Finally, such awful events occur that life becomes a frantic effort to solve, escape, or somehow eradicate the clear horror that now dominates every waking moment, even haunting their dreams.