Electron? Is this some fancy lightning gun experiment?
double slit
Submitted 1 month ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/e10f2622-f232-4c19-a8cd-dad7250f65b2.jpeg
Comments
Scrof@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Maybe consciousness is fundamental and matter and spacetime are derived from it
DefinitelyNotAPhone@hexbear.net 1 month ago
Consciousness is not part of the observer effect (which is itself named in the most infuriating way possible, specifically because it makes people think that the universe is somehow aware of when something sentient is looking at it). “Observing” a particle requires interacting with it in such a way that you meaningfully affect its current state of being, whether that be deflecting it in a different direction than it was going or changing its velocity, and therefore it is impossible at a quantum level to be a passive observer that does not influence the outcome.
In the case of the double slit experiment, if unobserved light will act as a wave with interference and if observed then it acts like a particle. The reason for this is both complicated and simple: light behaves as a wave due to probability. There’s no way of observing a photon without influencing it, so therefore the best we can do is say it has a certain probability of being in this collection of spaces, which in the case of photons is a wave (because it can travel in any of a number of directions outwards from the photon emitter in the experiment, but all going away from the emitter and towards the wall the slits are cut into). For the purposes of this probability wave, the start position is the emitter and the end position is the wall behind the slits, so averaging out a large number of photons will recreate the interference pattern on the wall.
However, if you observe the photons at the slits to try and figure out which slits they’re going through you have influenced the photons and thus collapsed that probability wave into a particle, and in the process created a new probability wave from that moment onwards which has the same end position as the original wave, but now starts at the individual slit. From its perspective, there is no second slit, so now the wave acts as if it is in the single slit setup because from its perspective it is, hence the loss of interference.
Nothing here has anything to do with consciousness. You can recreate this experiment with no one in the room and it will behave exactly the same, and has a sound (if very confusing conventionally) mathematical cause.
On a side note, string theory is effectively unfalsifiable and therefore completely useless as a scientific theory.
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Nothing here has anything to do with consciousness. You can recreate this experiment with no one in the room and it will behave exactly the same, and has a sound (if very confusing conventionally) mathematical cause.
First I was commenting on a meme wasn’t expecting these comments lol. but we are active in the experiment that is the point to show that it changes states because we observe Why does that happen and why don’t we don’t know it’s position til observed. It doesn’t matter if we are in the room or not we could be 1000 miles away watching on webcam and the same thing happens because we observed it and my side note QM is fucking magic dude
ARk@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Please keep cooking until we unlock magical abilities
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
What is magic dude Fucking biobots man
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Consciousness has literally nothing to do with it. In fact, the experiment as demonstrated in this emem would not replicate the double slit results. What has to happen is something along the path has to interfere with the photon (aka observe, which has nothing to do with consciousness, rather just an interaction), which causes the waveform to collapse. Basically, if something needs to know the state, the state collapses into one result. It doesn’t matter what that thing is.
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Idk that would depend on what you believe is fundamental lol Fringe science baby!
nifty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You need to qualify that statement somehow, or maybe give a citation or source that supports such an idea
K0W4LSK1@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Sure firstly id like to say these are theories just as anything in science starts as. I am not saying this is fact by any means and could be totally wrong. here are some sources:
DontRedditMyLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
*Photon
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think the meme is just poking fun at the physics behind the whole thing, but in case anyone doesn’t know:
It’s called the observer effect, and it happens because:
This is often the result of utilizing instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.
And particularly in the double-slit experiment:
Physicists have found that observation of quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the measured results of this experiment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
So for anyone who wants to have a surface understanding of the observer effect, the wiki does a fair job of the basic explanation.
IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yep, the observer it is not only observing, it is interacting in order to measure.
humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
The meme is not about the observer effect or wavefunction collapse
troglodytis@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Super curious, and promise not to argue. What, in your summation, is the meme about?
0ops@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Yeah it is. From that wiki article:
A notable example of the observer effect occurs in quantum mechanics, as demonstrated by the double-slit experiment"
sj_zero 1 month ago
It's really frustrating that people who don't understand this experiment have insanely taken into assume that a magic particle spell understands if a human being is watching or not.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Perhaps it would be better to explain why instead of attempting a mic drop based on your superior knowledge?
It’s called the observer effect, and it happens because:
This is often the result of utilizing instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.
And particularly in the double-slit experiment:
Physicists have found that observation of quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the measured results of this experiment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
So for anyone who wants to have a surface understanding of the observer effect, the wiki does a fair job of the basic explanation.
sudoreboot@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
The interference disappearing from measurement is not really because the instrument alters the state. Or, at least, putting it like that occludes the more fundamental reason.
Fundamentally, measurements are subject to the uncertainty principle, which dictates that one can not define precisely the values of two complementary observables at the same time. Position and momentum of any quantum object are such complementary observables, so measuring one – for example position – requires that the other (momentum) becomes less defined.
When the position of a particle is narrowed down to a pixel on a detector screen, its momentum becomes very uncertain and we must talk about all the possible paths it might have been on in order for it to have arrived at that point.
The probability of a particle being measured at any given pixel is given by the probability of all possible paths combined, but with an important quirk: when combining each possible quantum state, they interfere with each other such that they may cancel out. It’s sort of like adding together vectors on the unit circle - usually the result is a shorter vector. Repeated measurements of positions give you what appears to be wave-like interference due to the way the probabilities of all paths interfere.
By checking which slit a particle passes through, you exclude all the possible paths through the other slit and end up not observing the same pattern because the two slits simply do not interfere.
oce@jlai.lu 1 month ago
I think the issue is that quantum mechanics is hard to popularize without leading people into wrong conclusions, pop science clickbaits make this worse.
I find it easier to understand if you say that observing necessarily means there’s an exchange of energy, otherwise no information can be retrieved, and however small that information retrieval energy is, quantum systems are so sensitive, that it is enough to modify their behavior.
subtext@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Can’t blame you electron, me too
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Me who’s not a physicist
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’d read a piece that even just having a camera present has the same effect.
sudoreboot@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
It isn’t “looking” that is meant by “observation”. “Observation” is meant to convey the idea that something (not necessarily sentient) is in some way interacting with an object in question such that the state(s) of the object affects the state(s) of the “observer” (and vice versa).
The word is rather misleading in that it might give the impression of a unidirectional type of interaction when it really is the establishment of a bidirectional relationship. The reason one says “I observe the electron” rather than “I am observed by the electron” is that we don’t typically attribute agency to electrons the way we do humans (for good reasons), but they are equally true.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
So you’re telling me the people from The Secret lied to me?!
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 month ago
That’s not really it. You need something that measures the state of the electron. Merely looking in the direction is not enough. It has to be something that interacts with the electron.
A camera alone isn’t enough. But light (eg photons) with enough energy should be enough. But then that energy will manipulate the photon. If you had a completely dark room and pointed a camera at the experiment it wouldn’t change anything.
It’s kind of like having your cake and eating it too.
acetanilide@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So if we didn’t need light to see it then it would continue doing whatever it does?
I wonder how the universe would look if we didn’t need light to see 🤔
OpenStars@startrek.website 1 month ago
Yeah, it turns out that slapping the electron around like with a big stick or whatever causes it to change its behavior, go figure! :-P
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Dammit Jim, I’m a psychologist, not a physicist!
342345@feddit.de 1 month ago
IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Im not going to explain this again… OK!.. its not looking, its measure that changes the result of the experiment. To measure implies interaction.
Miphera@lemmy.world 1 month ago
thrawn@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is a really high quality edit, I’m genuinely impressed. Probably not too much work mechanically but the attention to detail is great and someone who’s never seen it would probably think it was original. If I were a meme edit rater it would rank very high on my list. I don’t know how to make this comment not sound sarcastic or boomer-y but I actually really love this edit and will send it to people. They won’t understand it but that’s fine.
Ashen@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Holy shit, that’s incredible.
Thassodar@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I lost it.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Thats really not how it works though…
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Then just round your anger. You don’t need that much precision.
Zerush@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
In short
😐 = Electron if you look
Image = Electron if you don’t look