Science Memes

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double slit (mander.xyz)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

https://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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months 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 interaction energy (for example a photon), 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.