The Double Slit Experiment - What is watching?

Another member posted this in a recent thread about quantum physics. I found it absolutely fascinating and failed to find a thread dedicated to this video alone, the amount of theories and discussions that could be derived from this are immense!



Who or what is watching? Why is the particle acting differently under observance?

ATS, thoughts?

this topic will go on for ages. Quantum physics is a relativity new and despite our current technolgy and knowledge very little is known about the quantum world. The slit experiment has all sorts of explanations from a wide range of scientists. Some think its interacting with another dimension, some think that Time itself is involved requiring a wave collapse from the future to create the present. Untill we get more data we can play these mindgames all day and its not helping science at all because we end up with what is happpening right now with science and thats pseudo science like string theory for example.. Looks nice on paper but no scientiific facts to back it up

[edit on 17-8-2009 by loner007]

[edit on 17-8-2009 by loner007]

reply to post by serbsta


Funny this should come up my 14 year old was asking me about this type of thing just the other day. It wasn't exactly about this experiment you have shown but the principle was the same.
He was wondering if things at the atomic level etc would behave differently if being observed much like a human would if someone was watching them. He then went on to hypothesize that perhaps it too would include anything from a simple atom to an animal an insect even a human.
A human will definitely act and behave differently if under observation so WHY not other things in our environment acting in the same manner.

Really makes one wonder if the simple act of recognition of anything creates a field of energy projected in a static form on what ever is being observed. We know our nervous system that the mind controls is done so by small bursts of for lack of a better term electric current.
As my son and I discussed this we both began to wonder if perhaps the simple act of focusing in on an object created a field of sorts that interfered with the natural progression of an item. Makes you really think about all of those ancient sayings telling us that we create what we think now doesn't it.

Do what you think and say what you mean.
My grandfather always told me that one. Also told me to make sure that what I thought to create wasn't something that would interfere with the natural progression of an enviorment. I think perhpas he created more than just fighter jets!

reply to post by loner007


I would have thought discussing it would in fact be helping science, but i suppose its nothing like philosophy, more egocentric i suppose.

Seriously though, you do make some good points, and those two theories you posted are very interesting, thanks for the insight.

reply to post by xoxo stacie

my 14 year old was asking me about this type of thing just the other day. It wasn't exactly about this experiment you have shown but the principle was the same.

He was wondering if things at the atomic level etc would behave differently if being observed much like a human would if someone was watching them.

He then went on to hypothesize that perhaps it too would include anything from a simple atom to an animal an insect even a human.

A 14 year old kid said that?

Its a fascinating theory. It makes me wish i had paid more attention in school now. If we were taught amazing things like this i'm sure more kids would be interested in science, i know i would have been.
Great vid serbsta, thanks

Also, isn't this topic mentioned in the book Holographic Universe?

[edit on 05/08/09 by LiveForever8]

reply to post by serbsta


Yeah, that's *exactly* the question that I've been asking myself!

Also, when for example Michio Kaku talks about one's "interaction" with the perceived past etc., WHAT is interacting with the perceived past?
And so on.
I mean, I know it's about CONSCIOUSNESS.
But what part- or what *mode* - of consciousnesss is doing the "interacting"?





[edit on 17-8-2009 by Ethereal Gargoyle]

Originally posted by xoxo stacie
reply to post by serbsta

 

Funny this should come up my 14 year old was asking me about this type of thing just the other day. It wasn't exactly about this experiment you have shown but the principle was the same.
He was wondering if things at the atomic level etc would behave differently if being observed much like a human would if someone was watching them. He then went on to hypothesize that perhaps it too would include anything from a simple atom to an animal an insect even a human.
A human will definitely act and behave differently if under observation so WHY not other things in our environment acting in the same manner.

Really makes one wonder if the simple act of recognition of anything creates a field of energy projected in a static form on what ever is being observed. We know our nervous system that the mind controls is done so by small bursts of for lack of a better term electric current.
As my son and I discussed this we both began to wonder if perhaps the simple act of focusing in on an object created a field of sorts that interfered with the natural progression of an item. Makes you really think about all of those ancient sayings telling us that we create what we think now doesn't it.

Do what you think and say what you mean.
My grandfather always told me that one. Also told me to make sure that what I thought to create wasn't something that would interfere with the natural progression of an enviorment. I think perhpas he created more than just fighter jets!

Yes, just think this could explain forms of telekinesis and shutting off lights (SLI) phenomena. There is so much that science doesn't know yet. And some of it may be very strange indeed. There was an experiment done on creating and then contacting a ghost, it proved successful, so they actually interacted with something they created, this is sort of proof, isn't it? I just read about this yesterday, pretty interesting stuff they even have the phenomena taped. Here's the link:

paranormal.about.com...

Here is a relevant article, I think.

Photons denied a glimpse of their observer

reply to post by serbsta


It is all here, including the video.... the video you posted is a small part from this whole movie in the below thread, check out part 4 ;-)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I believe I may even have some threads on it....will have to dig back...

If no one wants to go to the thread here is the series this clip comes from, there are 16 parts.



-Kdial1





[edit on 17-8-2009 by kdial1]

Ah, the holy mysteries of quantum consciousness...

Personally, I don't think there's any big mystery. An electron has the properties of what we call a wave and the properties of what's known as a particle. It isn't either/or; it's both until you look at it, and then it's gone.

When you look at it using a wave detector (ie a screen), you'll see it as a wave.

Look at it using a particle detector (a camera, as it happens) and you'll see it as a particle (of course, you never actually see the electron in either case; you only see the traces it left behind after it vanished).

The paradox is really that matter behaves like energy and vice versa. But then, thanks to Einstein, we know they're both the same thing.

Here's how Wheeler, the physicist who thought up the delayed-choice experiment shown in the video, described it:

The thing that causes people to argue about when and how the photon learns that the experimental apparatus is in a certain configuration and then changes from wave to particle to fit the demands of the experiment's configuration is the assumption that a photon had some physical form before the astronomers observed it. Either it was a wave or a particle; either it went both ways around the galaxy or only one way. Actually, quantum phenomena are neither waves nor particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are measured. In a sense, the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley was right when he asserted two centuries ago ‘to be is to be perceived’. Source

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence. To be as we understand is to be perceived, certainly; but being can be perceived in different ways, depending on who is doing the perceiving, or what is mediating the percept.

It is emphatically not about consciousness creating the universe. If it were, we should be able to dictate which slit an individual photon passed through, but try as we might, we cannot do that (by, for example, closing one slit and leaving the other open) without destroying the all-important wave-particle duality. The fact that an electron shows wavelike or particle-like behaviour depending on how we look at it indicates only that humans have an abstract or analogue perception of reality.

But that, too, is something we knew already. Considering the mechanisms of perception, which are insanely complex and limited 'by design', it could hardly be otherwise. If you were a dog or a bat, reality would look very different to you, because you'd be equipped with differently-tuned sensory apparatus and different neural pathways to process the signals from them.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Well you probably wouldn't have learned it public school anyway. My children are taught at home. We had problems early on with the teachers trying to tell me NOT to teach them how to do things with reason and logic. As I knew the way it was done already. Now they are just jealous that a teenage kid is smarter than they are and they haven't even hit college yet
We feel that they are ready to just get high school over with and move to college. So we are going to let them do a home college course for a diploma and go to college next year. I will have to be with them as they will only be 14 15 16 years old. But they are ready and want to go, so I am going BACK to college yet again.

sorry spelling error am tired lol

[edit on 17-8-2009 by xoxo stacie]

reply to post by xoxo stacie


Well they sound like some really clever kids.

The only theories i proposed when i was 14 was that my football team would obviously win the league and that the girl who sat next to me in maths class surely liked me because she asked to use my pencil sharpener

I think that when i eventually have kids i would like to home school them, if possible.

I just hate the thought of all the great things (such as the topic in this thread) that my kids would miss out on learning.

Good luck anyways , im sure they don't need it

1. Photons are particles but have wave-like features of light as well. The photo electric effects tell us that light has particle properties. So, the double-slit experiment you are referring to, shows that light manifests the interference properties of waves. If you combine them you see that light has BOTH wave like and particle like properties.

2. If you shoot an electron out, it takes every possible path connecting its starting point with its ending point (the plate). This is known as Feynman's "sum-over-paths" approach to quantum mechanics. He showed that all paths cancel each other out when their contributions are combined. So, only one path matters.

Here is a paper called "Teaching Feynman's "sum-over-path" Quantum Theory"

In this double slit experiment some of these paths pass through different slits resulting in interference pattern. So, it is not just influenced by an observer. Even without observer, the electron changes in unpredictable ways from one moment to the next.

It's caused due to a frantic shifting of energy.

A good source for further research would be The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

[edit on 17-8-2009 by thegreatobserver]

[edit on 17-8-2009 by thegreatobserver]

reply to post by kdial1


Aha! So thats where its from!

Will go and watch them all now since i have some spare time, cheers!

This has been an interest of mine for some time now because I am having trouble excepting the currently available theories. The leap between classic and quantum physics and at what size it occurs exactly, somehow seems just wrong to me.

In the process of learning about this phenomena I stumbled upon a rather simple theory which attempts to explain away some of the quantum weirdness' The author proposes that "relativistic effect" is the reason quantum particles traveling near the speed of light behave like they do. This can be found here

All in all I'm a follower of the "I don't know" school of thought. It's a nice feeling to know certain things remain to be discovered and understood.

Kind regards, M.


Edit to add: Oh and if anyone ever needs help in repeating any if the slit experiments in a lab, drop me a line, I might be able to help. That said, if anyone knows how single electron emitters can be made / purchased, please drop me a U2U.

[edit on 18-8-2009 by Manawydan]

The vid on the double slit experiment is one of the best I've seen at explaining it in down to earth terms. Now.... take a solinoid that is enclosed in such a fashion that none of the magnetic field is outside the enclosure and place this solinoid near the exits of the slits. Use monochromatic light for the source of waves. A phase shift occurs when the "sheilded" solinoid is in play. There is something else (other than the magnetic field) that is present in a magnet. This is known as the "Aharonov–Bohm effect". Very interesting stuff.

Steve

reply to post by xoxo stacie


Wonderful. Really, I like reading good news.

I've met some home school kids and they were really nice kids and it was obvious that they were sharper than kids are at that age.

The shortest answer to your question OP is the measuring equipment is the observer in this instance.

This is the way we do particle physics. . . and is probably its biggest set back. We don't physically observe these events as we cannot see them. All we can really do is count on machines to calculate and observe for us.

If we could see it, actually see it, i believe we would have a far better description. Its always seemed apparent to me that computers have a tendancy to not pick up on "nuance".

Physiscs insists that it can all be explained, its predictable, its calculated to a t, and nature doesn't deviate. I think we give nature far to little credit. Don't get me wrong but theoretical physics is amazing but it is theoreticle and there's alot we don't understand.

I mean look around its the subtle "nuances" the little things you miss if you aren't looking in the right way that gives the universe its beauty and variance.

Its these subtleties these variances in the data that mystify even the greatest minds. The human mind is young and with youth comes naivety.

When they say "the observer", they don't mean a human being or any entity with consciousness, they mean a photon emitted in order to observe the other photons.