The Magic of Quantum

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About The Author & Contributors

Meet the Author: Phyllis Kirk	I wrote this bio back when I was into impressing people. Although I'm still quite capable of fooling myself, I believe the reason I offer it here is different. I want the reader to know that the material you're about to experience in The Magic of Quantum comes from a person who has a fairly broad and balanced background, and a very developed left brain. Phyllis is a humanist, futurist, "recovering" lawyer, writer, speaker, traveler and a mother-sister-aunt. She has lived in Germany, Somalia, and Russia. In her fifteen years as a lawyer, she was an attorney for the Solicitor's Office, U.S. Department of Labor, as well as having her own private practice. During three year's living in the Soviet Union, she was the Administrative Director of the multinational joint venture Chadbourne, Hedman, Rabbe and Advocates CCCP and opened the first international joint venture law office in the Soviet Union. She was a partner in ParaGraph, a software programming joint venture of which Gary Kasparov was Vice Chairman. ParaGraph was purchased by Silicon Graphics International. She started her right brain education during her international travels with "Up With People", and has her formal degrees from Illinois Institute of Technology (B.S.), University of Chicago (M.S.T.), University of Denver (J.D.), and a second Ph.D. (in Suffering) from Moscow. Her interest in law has broadened beyond traditional legal practice to more universal aspects of law.
Phyllis' work has been published in The International Herald Tribune, The Systems Thinker, Washington Post, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow News, and The Moscow Guardian. She has been featured in/on USA Today, NBC, Business in the USSR, Colorado Homes and Lifestyles. As the keynote speaker for Intercontinental's grand opening of their Moscow palace hotel, the Metropol, her theme was (and still is) how to embrace opportunity amidst chaos, how to be fully human within the human condition. Moving on from Moscow and lawyering, Phyllis was a corporate trainer in communications and leadership, becoming CEO with the Boulder Center of Accelerative Learning where she was for 8 years. A conscious lifestyle choice then took her to live 4 years in the Caribbean and in her heart - both previously unexplored territories. There she created The Magic of Quantum. She now lives her chosen reality mostly in the southern California desert. She thrives on triumph-of-the-human-spirit cinema, exploring, writing, playing and Phyllis-ing. Phyllis Kirk

Theory of Dissipative Structures: Dr. Ilya Prigogine
Picture used by permission of Dr. Prigogine	Dr. Ilya Prigogine's Theory of Dissipative Structures is the scientific basis and inspiration for the Kirk Model of Chaos in Chapter 3 of The Magic of Quantum. The book's subtitle 'Creative Participation in Chaos' comes fom his closing comments at The Paradox of Certainty Conference, April 15, 1998. "May your understanding of this make you want to participate in creation." Click here for a must read autobiography of Dr. Prigogine if you want to know the heart of this brilliant man which comes through even when you cannot understand the science he writes about. This autobiography was written at the time he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Click here for the Official website of the Nobel Foundations and Dr. Prigogine's Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contribution to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particually the Theory of Dissipative Structures". Click here for The Ilya Prigogine Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems at The University of Texas at Austin, with links to journal articles, and tutorials in chaos physics and other topics.

Musician for Chapter 1 Don "Orfeo" Rechtman
Orfeo as Bach	Don "Orfeo" Rechtman is the composer of the music you are hearing during your experience of The Magic of Quantum website, Chapter 1. Orfeo's active musical career began with his involvement in The Southeastern Savoyards Theater in Atlanta. While there, he composed, directed and performed music for Dunwoody Stage Door Players' production of "Talk to Me Like the Rain," Horizon Theatre's production of "Gardenia," Emory University Theater's productions of Ibsen's "Brand" and the "Iliad," 7-Stages Theater's production of Jim Grimsley's "White People," and the Performance Gallery's contribution to the Beckett Atlanta Festival. Orfeo's compositions and live presentations include: "Orfeo's Senior Recital: 25 Years Too Late"; an orchestral chorale of "Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg: 1863"; and a dramatic oratorio based on Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality."
Orfeo's CDs include "Gathering Lights, the Festival of Humanity," and "GemProvisations." He has taught Drama and Music at The Bridge School, and served as Music Education Director for the Boulder Philharmonic Academy's Arts Alive! Summer Camp. Frequently serving as a commissioned artist, he has completed residences through the Georgia and National Councils of the Arts, performed on stage, written for theater, and presented master classes at both the university and high school levels. He does technical writing and music typesetting, and teaches privately. He is a member of the Arts and Humanities Assembly of Boulder (AHAB). Orfeo lives his interesting life in Boulder, Colorado, and shares custody of Tolly the parrot with his dear friend and ex-partner Shenoah.