When observed, the electrons act as matter, but when not observed, they act as waves?
Obviously “observed” doesn’t mean recorded on an iPhone camera, but what does it mean? Is it like if we simply know the location or the velocity of the electrons, they behave differently?
The part I’m most not understanding is why the electrons behave differently. Certainly they aren’t capable of thought and recognizing they’re being observed lol
In: Physics
If you mean the quantum double slit experiment, then what happens is that if you send one photon at a time through the standard double slit setup and record where on the target sheet it strikes then over time it will build up an interference pattern on the sheet over time implying that it travelled through both and interfered with itself, but if you put in a method to *detect which of the two slits it travelled through* then the interference pattern disappears.
That’s the “observation” bit. Detecting which slit the photon passed through.
Why? I dunno. I cling to the famous Feynman phrase when this stuff comes up: “If you think you understand quantum physics, you don’t understand quantum physics”.
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