It doesn't work like this, popular misconception. It is cool in sci-fi though.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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It only kinda works like this. If you have two slits, looking at it or not, you will see the top one. Now, the really weird thing is that if you fire a single photon at a time, you will still get the top one over time, suggesting that the single photon is somehow going through both slits and interfering with itself to do so. But the even weirder thing is, if you place a detector in one of the two slits to check which slit the photon is going through? You suddenly get the bottom picture.
My understanding is. Every method of measurement influences the results.
I'm in cognitive sciences not physics. But it applies there as well.
The measurement method always interferes in some way with the result.
I have used this example with helping students understand research methods.
Doesn't matter how "non-interfering" you think your method is.
In some way or another, the act of measuring or the device used to measure (or both) changes the thing being measured.
Exactly, I like to imagine it with our senses.
In order to see something lightwaves had to have interacted with the objects we see.
In order to hear something objects had to have moved or interacted in a way to produce changes of air pressure.
In order to smell something an object had to have "lost" some of its molecules into the air.
Well, and touching and tasting are kinda obvious, your body has to directly interact with an object.
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What constitutes "measuring" here? Is it in the wider sense of any quantification of an observation, or are there conditions?
Not a true expert, but I think it comes down to "observing" a particle/phenomenon like this inherently comes down to some sort of interaction, and it can't just be neglected like you could on a macro scale. Even for something like holding a ruler up to an object and seeing what mark lines up, you're relying on a bunch of light bouncing off the object (and the ruler) to be able to judge that. If the thing you're trying to measure is on the order of one particle of light, blasting it with a bunch of anything is gonna affect it pretty severely, and who knows what a "ruler" would even mean in that analogy. So it's less like some idea of sapient knowledge, and more like when you struggle to measure something like a tiny feather or single bead of Styrofoam, like you can't even get near the thing without the wind from moving or some random static or something else moving the thing around uncontrollably, except many orders of magnitude more sensitive.
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A photon doesn't care if you watch it or not. Unless it goes into one of your eyes and dies there, you can't see a photon.
Anyway, what I wanted to add: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_measurement
What I'm getting from this meme is even less interaction than a weak measurement ... They just look at the result and it's changing... That's not how measurement(-problem) works... I think.
Have I mentioned that I'm German and that btw I'm running arch? 😘
shy proton theory
uwu 👉👈
Naw. "observing" doesn't mean, a human looks at the data. It means, we force the particle to be in one place on a quantum level. the word "observation" is overloaded in some sense
WE ARE WAVE, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE (unless you measure us), your biological distinctiveness will receive energy and transmit it in a periodic fashion
Ha! That's what you think!
I'll have you know, I sawed the legs off that periodic table.
It's chaos I tell ya, all chaos!
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"Observation" or "measurement" actually means interaction. We literally can't measure anything without interacting with it. If you place something at the slits which is able to detect a photon going through, it can only do so by interacting with it.
The common way seems to be that the passing particle induces a tiny electric current in a wire loop. Obviously, that takes energy away from the particle (that energy is now in the movement of one or more electrons in the wire). And that means, its wave function in that very moment is one locational probability of 1 - it is collapsed.
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Until we have a solution to the wave function collapse, it kind of freaks me out.
My understanding is that the tools that are used to observe it cause the wave function to collapse. Like how putting a thermometer into meat to check the temp makes a little hole.
Yep! The only way to "see" a photon is to actually absorb it. You can't just detect it as it goes by, it has to be absorbed and reemitted, and that has an effect on it.
only if you have robot eyes
intference pattern by light wavelengths, used by many animals to give them those iridescent colors.
Stealing photons.
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