Quantum Observer Effect: Can 'Looking' at Something CHANGE Reality?

Transcript

When you observe something in the  world, from a tree to a school bus,   you know that regardless of where and when you  observe the object, it will remain the same. However, what if I told you that  the time and manner in which you   looked at a bird would affect its 

appearance? That might sound absurd,   but absurdity is to be expected  when it comes to the quantum realm. The field of quantum mechanics is  primarily founded on three pillars,   beginning with quantized properties. Quantized properties give the position, speed, 

color and other properties of a particle that   can only occur in set amounts of time and  instances. This is in direct contrast to the   field of Classical Mechanics, wherein everything  happens in a smooth and continuous spectrum. The second pillar of Quantum Mechanics refers 

to the particle nature of light. At first,   the notion that light could behave and  be classed as a particle was disbelieved,   as it ran against the well-established principle  of light's wave-like nature. However, the particle   nature of light introduced a fundamental unit 

representing tiny energy packets, known as quanta. The third and final fundamental pillar of  Quantum Mechanics is the wave nature of matter.   The wave-like nature of matter was independently  proposed by two scientists around the same time,   despite being oblivious of each other’s work.  Louis De Broglie and Erwin Schrodinger used two   fundamentally different mathematical approaches 

to prove this wave-like characteristic of matter. When a quantum ‘observer’ is watching, Quantum  Mechanics states that particles can behave as   waves. When behaving as waves, electrons  can simultaneously pass through several   openings in a barrier and then meet again on the 

other side, a phenomena known as interference. However, this can only occur when no one is  observing it. Once an observer begins to watch   the particles going through the opening,  the obtained image changes dramatically:   if a particle can be seen going through one 

opening, it is clear that it did not go through   the other opening. In other words, when under  observation, electrons are forced to behave like   particles, instead of waves. Thus, the mere act  of observation affects the experimental findings! To demonstrate this phenomena, researchers built 

a tiny device, less than one micron in size,   possessing a barrier with two openings.  They then sent a current of electrons   towards the barrier. The observer in this  experiment was a tiny electron detector that   could spot the presence of passing electrons. The very presence of the detector “observer”   near one of the openings caused changes in 

the interference pattern of the electron   waves passing through the openings of the  barrier. When the “observer’s” capacity   to detect electrons increased, or when  the level of the observation went up,   the interference weakened. When its capacity to 

detect electrons was reduced, the interference   increased. Thus, by controlling the properties  of the quantum observer, scientists managed to   control its influence on the electrons’ behavior! The observer effect may be hard to wrap your head   around, but it's a key aspect of understanding  the mysterious world of quantum mechanics.