Energy and Nothingness
Poems for the First One Hundred Years of Quantum Mechanics

by K. D. Vallejo

Energy and Nothingness: Poems for the First One Hundred Years of Quantum Mechanics by K. D. Vallejo is a profound collection that bridges the realms of science, philosophy, and poetry. This evocative work delves into fundamental questions about existence, such as the universe’s origins and ultimate fate, the nature of energy, time, and consciousness. It examines complex scientific concepts like quantum mechanics, dark matter, and nothingness, weaving them with philosophical inquiries into knowledge and reality. The poems reflect on humanity’s quest for understanding the order of the universe through scientific inquiry, transforming abstract scientific principles into tangible, thought-provoking verse. The reader will enjoy taking a unique journey through the mysteries of the universe, seen through a multidisciplinary lens.

Enjoy a video of Kevin reading from his new book:

Early Praise

Energy and Nothingness is a remarkable offering— a poetic archive of quantum mechanics rendered through human story. Vallejo’s poems do not explain physics; they illuminate it. These are field notes from the strange terrain between certainty and chance, presence and absence. Through them, the people and paradoxes of quantum science flicker into view— fragile, flawed, and full of wonder.

—Prof. Sam Illingworth, academic, poet, and founder of Consilience

Scientific ideas first start as myth, as poetry. But what if a scientist writes beautiful poems? Don’t you want to know what lies beneath it all and what we’ll see in one hundred years? Maybe in one hundred years, new science will arise from these poetic ideas—but meanwhile, read this book, feel it, enjoy it. Read it when you are happy, read it when the dark around you is heavy—and let this book engulf you with the spirit of creation!

—Dr. Vladik Kreinovich, professor of Computer Science (and poetry aficionado)

Energy and Nothingness is sharp, provocative, and unlike anything else in print and could be considered an update on Lucretius, poetry “on the nature of things.” Here you will find poems that stretch the reader’s mind to the far corners of what is known and then point beyond.

—William Seaton, poet, author of Planetary Motions

A captivating collection. Through Energy and Nothingness, the author reveals a deeply personal bond with physics while inviting us to rediscover its foundational ideas in a fresh light, infused with creative expression. As they so eloquently put it, Words that have sufficient friends to be known everywhere we go, but not with enough family to get an in-depth picture of their whole identity, each poem mirrors the paradoxes at the intersection of physics and reality—at once familiar and unfathomable. These finely wrought verses explore rich layers and complex concepts, weaving imagery with insight and poetic imagination. Here, method meets metaphor, and like vacuum fluctuations, language sparks a new wonder in space, time, and energy.

—Dr. Ashmeet Singh, PhD in Physics, creator of The Scribbled Equation

 

 

About the Author

K.D. Vallejo is from the Ciudad Juarez/El Paso border community, currently residing in Idaho Falls. He is interested in the aesthetic space where science, philosophy, and language meet. Kevin is a reviewer and member of the editorial team of Consilience, and his work has been featured in Beyond Queer Words, Menagerie 208, The Marbled Sigh, and the technical journals Reports of Progress in Physics, ACS Nano, among others. His previously published collection minus one twelfth can be found now. Kevin daylights as a condensed matter physicist, stacking atoms for a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory.

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