Jazz and quantum mechanics: Eventually Dmitri realized that they are kind of similar

Dmitri Tymoczko pointed me to this article by John Baez explaining general relativity. I replied that this seems like some very important stuff, but I’m devoting all of that part of my brain to being confused by quantum mechanics. I have no room to be confused by gravity too! Dmitri responded: When I was 13, there were two things I wanted to understand more than anything else in the world: jazz and quantum mechanics. Eventually I realized they are kind of similar. In both cases, you start with this fabulously complicated 19th-century language — Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics in the one case, and romantic harmony in the other. Then you “twist” it. In the one case, you turn variables into operators, while in the other you add this scale-based improvisational component. But they are both difficult in kind of the same way because you have to learn this whole other language, and then apply this massive conceptual twist. But quantum mechanics is genuinely mysterious — there’s some…