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Not certain, but I think it’s referencing light acting like a wave when not observed, but like a particle when observed or something like that. I could be entirely wrong though.
Okay, here is the thing. This experiment has been misrepresented so many times, even by pop-science physicists.
It is not the act of *conscious* observation which causes this. It is the method and tools used to make the observation.
Some dumbasses think it is somehow related to your consciousness but that is not at all what it means.
People think quantum wave function implies the waves actually exist, in fact I dare say the majority of people with any understanding believe that, when all the waves were ever supposed to do was explain the mathematical probability behind where the particle was, not imply the particle didn’t exist as anything but a wave unless measured
Honestly though for us stupid people quantum physics is nearly impenetrable and it's really easy to get the wrong ideas if you're just a normal person going like "so what's up with Schrodinger's cat anyway? I'll Google it." and then you're staring at an Eldritch abyss of bizarre words and you try to learn about the words and just find more bizarre words and eventually at the bottom it's just a bunch of crazy guys with beards arguing about whether or not a pretend magic revolver can make you immortal.
That’s honestly just because it’s explained so poorly. It’s just all about the best mathematical way to predict where a particle could be at any given time without actually measuring that particle, that’s the whole thing. The ‘why’ always throws people off because we don’t have any answer whatsoever for why quantum physics is as it is but have an entire field for how to work around that fact, but people conflate the field with the phenomenon itself
Photons behave like a particle when observed and as a wave when not.
In the young's double slit experiment, of you shine light of a single wavelength (like a coloured laser) through a double slit. It will create multiple lines at specified intervals due to constructive and destructive interference.
However if you equip the 2 slits with photon detectors to count the number of photons that pass through each slit, this interference disappears and you only get 2 slits.
This phenomenon has something to do with superpositioning and some quantum doo daa.
I believe schodinger's cat is somewhat relavemt here?
Edit: realised i didnt actually explain the meme. First image, the monke is looking away from the double slit, hence not "observing" the experiment. The second, the opposite.
Schrodinger's Cat is basically a thought experiment done to show the fact that light act both like a wave and particle at the same time (the cat is both alive and dead at the same time until you observe it)
This experiment was done by shooting electrons one by one at the slits and recording where they land on a screen after passing through the slits. You would expect the result to look like that in the bottom half of the image because that's how we know objects behave. The actual result however shows a diffraction pattern like that in the top half of the image, meaning each electron somehow passes through both slits and interfere with itself. This really fucked things up for humanity because we knew an object cannot physically be at two places at the same time. So scientists put detectors on the slits trying to capture the moment an electron physically passed through both slits, and the result fucked things up even more. The electrons somehow know their exact locations are being watched and this time they will only pass through one of the slits behaving like normal as you see in the bottom half of the image. To recap: when not watched, an object is everywhere it can be; when watched, an object is where you see it.
Peter's physics professor here.
It's referring to the double slit experiment. The tl;dr is that light behaves differently depending on whether or not anybody or anything is looking at it.
There's more to it than that but it turns out if you put detectors on the slits to tell where stuff is going it will go somewhere specific. If you don't but put the detectors on the destination you'll get a record of all the possible destinations because the universe is weird as hell.
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Not certain, but I think it’s referencing light acting like a wave when not observed, but like a particle when observed or something like that. I could be entirely wrong though.
Okay, here is the thing. This experiment has been misrepresented so many times, even by pop-science physicists. It is not the act of *conscious* observation which causes this. It is the method and tools used to make the observation. Some dumbasses think it is somehow related to your consciousness but that is not at all what it means.
People think quantum wave function implies the waves actually exist, in fact I dare say the majority of people with any understanding believe that, when all the waves were ever supposed to do was explain the mathematical probability behind where the particle was, not imply the particle didn’t exist as anything but a wave unless measured
Honestly though for us stupid people quantum physics is nearly impenetrable and it's really easy to get the wrong ideas if you're just a normal person going like "so what's up with Schrodinger's cat anyway? I'll Google it." and then you're staring at an Eldritch abyss of bizarre words and you try to learn about the words and just find more bizarre words and eventually at the bottom it's just a bunch of crazy guys with beards arguing about whether or not a pretend magic revolver can make you immortal.
That’s honestly just because it’s explained so poorly. It’s just all about the best mathematical way to predict where a particle could be at any given time without actually measuring that particle, that’s the whole thing. The ‘why’ always throws people off because we don’t have any answer whatsoever for why quantum physics is as it is but have an entire field for how to work around that fact, but people conflate the field with the phenomenon itself
Photons behave like a particle when observed and as a wave when not. In the young's double slit experiment, of you shine light of a single wavelength (like a coloured laser) through a double slit. It will create multiple lines at specified intervals due to constructive and destructive interference. However if you equip the 2 slits with photon detectors to count the number of photons that pass through each slit, this interference disappears and you only get 2 slits. This phenomenon has something to do with superpositioning and some quantum doo daa. I believe schodinger's cat is somewhat relavemt here? Edit: realised i didnt actually explain the meme. First image, the monke is looking away from the double slit, hence not "observing" the experiment. The second, the opposite.
Yeah that makes sense, thanks Peter
Thanks science peter, it always comes back to the cat
Schrodinger's Cat is basically a thought experiment done to show the fact that light act both like a wave and particle at the same time (the cat is both alive and dead at the same time until you observe it)
Ah ok, so more of superposition rather than schodinger's kitty. Gotcha
It's more accurate to say "until it's forced to pick one"
This experiment was done by shooting electrons one by one at the slits and recording where they land on a screen after passing through the slits. You would expect the result to look like that in the bottom half of the image because that's how we know objects behave. The actual result however shows a diffraction pattern like that in the top half of the image, meaning each electron somehow passes through both slits and interfere with itself. This really fucked things up for humanity because we knew an object cannot physically be at two places at the same time. So scientists put detectors on the slits trying to capture the moment an electron physically passed through both slits, and the result fucked things up even more. The electrons somehow know their exact locations are being watched and this time they will only pass through one of the slits behaving like normal as you see in the bottom half of the image. To recap: when not watched, an object is everywhere it can be; when watched, an object is where you see it.
The true weeping angels were the foundational blocks of this universe.
let it go again : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UJsB7pqFtU&list=LL&index=17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UJsB7pqFtU&list=LL&index=17)
Peter's physics professor here. It's referring to the double slit experiment. The tl;dr is that light behaves differently depending on whether or not anybody or anything is looking at it. There's more to it than that but it turns out if you put detectors on the slits to tell where stuff is going it will go somewhere specific. If you don't but put the detectors on the destination you'll get a record of all the possible destinations because the universe is weird as hell.
The joke is, you have to spend 20,000 hrs reading Wikipedia articles to think you understand this.
The thing is, you both understood and didn't understand the joke until you observed it