how do waveforms know they’re being observed?

Question

I think I have a decent grasp on the dual-slit experiment, but I don’t know how the waveforms know when to collapse into a particle. Also, what counts as an observation and what doesn’t?

In: 8

Answer 1

Think of particles not as actual ‘things’ that exist but a 3d field in which the energy can potentially manifest itself anywhere in that field. For our mathematical models, and for our logical understanding, the energy exists at all points in that field at once. But it doesn’t really ‘exist’ or ‘manifest’ itself until it interacts with something. At that point, the energy is where it’s at, not any of it’s potential places – hence the potential places (waveform) collapses.