how do particles know when they are being observed?
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Imagine you had to detect the exact position of an atom. To do so, you’d need to bounce something off of it to figure out where exactly it is. A solid candidate for something to bounce off of it would be a photon.
The problem is photons have a frequency, which means that sometimes you miss the atom entirely when you try to measure it. You can reduce the odds of missing it by using a photon with a shorter frequency (and thus more momentum).
However, one of the problems with bouncing photons off of atoms is they transfer momentum into the atoms when they do (much like billiards), which changes the atom’s velocity. So the more accurate you try to be, the more momentum you end up transferring into the atom. So, by “observing” the atom, you’ve actually interacted with it and changed it.
All our observation of quantum phenomena follow this pattern in some form or fashion.
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