(Forgive the corny cartoon character explaining the concept — at least he knows his stuff)
Want even further proof?
Then in 2002, a group of researchers set up the experiment in a way that the electron could not possibly receive information about the existence of an observing instrument. The setup was on a much smaller scale: a single photon was emitted and an interferometer that observed the wave-or-particle behavior was either inserted or not inserted. (Click here to download the full report)
Here’s the kicker: The insertion of the interferometer took only 40 nanoseconds (ns) while it would take 160 ns for the information about the configuration to travel from the interferometer to reach the photon before it entered the slits. This means in order for the photon to “know” if it was being watched, that information would have to travel at 4 times the speed of light, which is impossible (the speed of light is the universal speed limit).
The Results: The photons acted like particles 93% of the time that they were observed. Even if the photon “guessed” the configuration each time, statistically speaking it would never have more than 52% accuracy. In scientific experiments, a 93% success rate is as conclusive as they come.
What are the implications of this?
1. Matter can act as both a wave and a particle depending on whether or not it is being observed (Wave-Duality Theory)
This is the least meaningful implication for you as a macroscopic organism, but nonetheless it’s a pretty crazy concept.
2. Observation can (possibly) affect the outcome of macroscopic events
After all, you and everything you know are composed of these microscopic particles, so why couldn’t something large be influenced as well? It would be the sum of a seemingly infinite amount of pieces of matter acting as either waves or particles. Scientists have very mixed opinions on this topic so I’ll just say it makes sense to me that this could happen on a larger scale.
3. We don’t know very much about this universe (Science is not yet an ‘exact science’)
There are a couple things out there that science still cannot explain like the characteristics of gravity, but this blows Newton’s discovery out of the water. As we study smaller and smaller particles in order to understand more about what we’re made, we seem to find more things that just don’t make sense. Point being that nothing should be ruled out completely because we simply cannot know anything for certain at this point.
What other implications did you get out of these experiments?
Sources:
1. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/schroedinger/two-slit2.html
2. http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.2597
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
4. High Existence
1. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/schroedinger/two-slit2.html
2. http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.2597
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
4. High Existence
Nahar azra2 :D
ReplyDeletewe are just not intelligent enough to understand yet, evolution takes time my friends.
ReplyDeleteI think Bruce Lee was ahead of his time when he said
ReplyDelete"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioONhpIJ-NY
ReplyDeleteWho says impossible? Who says the speed of light is the universal speed limit? A scientist?
ReplyDeleteit is a universal constant, which mean that no matter what speed you are going, light relevant to you will always go about 300,000 km/sec
DeleteGood Point
Deleteits not a speed limit, its just a speed that you cannot accelerate through. Some sub-atomic particles go faster but they do it by starting faster than c.
DeleteSo if im traveling at the speed of light and then turn on my flashlight....what happens?
Delete^^^^yeah my way of thinking too. if in 93% of the cases it changed behaviour because of being observed then it obviously detected the observation. Which means it knew through a phenomenon faster than the speed of light. :-)
ReplyDeleteOK, here's some quick comments. First, the writer assumes the universe has to follow our rules. In fact, our so-called "rules" are only models for how we perceive the universe. Particles and waves are only models, not requirements for physical phenomena. Then, he makes a very common woo-woo assertion that observation affects reality, because we see it at the quantum level. (See which, Deepak Chopra.) In fact, observation, or the choice of an experimental setup, does affect the result at the atomic and subatomic level. It has a minuscule effect on macroscopic events, like a drop of water leaving a leaky faucet. The drop falls no matter what. As for the experiment cited, it was intended to test whether photos can either act as either waves or particles, or whether photos have both wave and particle properties at the same time. The result favors the latter possibility. So, the writer's first conclusion is correct. Number 2 is wrong. Number 3 is partly right. Quantum mechanics is, in the empirical/Newtonian sense, inherently "fuzzy," at least at the atomic and subatomic level. In that sense, it is not an "exact science," if by exact you mean I can predict a value accurately 100% of the time. On larger scales, it is an exact science, or NASA could never get its probes to their destinations. On the other hand, there is a lot about the universe we do know. Science and Mother Nature do surprise us occasionally, but we usually can find explanations for those surprises. I suspect the writer is trying to suggest that maybe ESP, telepathy and telekinesis are possible, but we don't know how to do them yet.
ReplyDeletethe writer fred alan wolf is an eminent physicist who knows what he is talking about - this is his dr quantum character
DeleteHe meant the writer of the article, not the writer of the cartoon..
DeleteSo if it's "breaking the speed of light" it must actually be bending space/time itself to relay this information and observe it's surroundings.
ReplyDeleteSomething we should take good note of if we ever want to travel outside of our own galaxy.
"now" is a relative direction -- it's the three dimensional hyperplane that is perpendicular to "later" in 4-D spacetime. Just because we think about things in three dimensions doesn't mean that the universe is bound by those restrictions. In fact, it's almost certainly not.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf a tree falls in the forest....
ReplyDeleteI think, the particles behaved differently under observation not just because they were being observed, but because the observer had had the INTENTIONS/wish that the particle behave like what he was used to seeing with solid marbles. The law of attraction/intentions was at least at work here. Even if they might have, at some point, wanted 'just to see what slits they would pass through, without any other intentions,' that is ultimately assuming that the particles are passing through the slits, instead of thinking that just maybe the particles have no barrier that stops them from passing, attracting each other through polarities, and then coalescing to produce a bi-product of their synthesis.
ReplyDelete