Explain the unexplainable "Quantum double slit experiment"

This baffles me. How can an electron act as a liquid until it is observed and it acts as a solid.

Beyond that, how can a single electron act as multiple electrons?

The only explanation I can come up with is that the electron is self aware and beyond that super aware.

Check this video out and try and figure it out yourself.



I know that much in physics and quantum physics is well past my understanding of things. But would this mean we are living in a liquid universe until something is observed by our scenes?

I could not even begin to act like I know. That's quantum physics baby! Some cooky, crazy stuff happens. I can't wait to see what gets discovered over the next 50 years(if I am lucky to live that long).

reply to post by tw0330


One of the things physicists learned from the double slit experiment is that our observations change the physical state of what we are observing. When physicists tried to measure which slit the photons were traveling through, the detection equipment destroyed the photon and caused the light and dark pattern on the back of the screen to disappear.

My explanation, and I am only an engineer not a physicists, but I believe that when a photon is traveling from point A (where its generated) to point B (where it is observed) it travels as a wave and when its observed, that wave energy is condensed into a particle.

This will be a fun thread. This is my pedestrian answer.
The observer effects the outcome right?
The particle/wave somehow knows when it is being observed.
Until it's observed it's everywhere as a wave and when observed it picks a slot as a particle.

Yes. It is the observer. More specifically it is the conscious awareness of the observation. Collapse of the wave function into the "least resistant" quantum probability.

But the real question here is, can man learn to fool the electron into thinking it isn't being observed?

Is it the explanation for the 6th scent?

Is it related to the 4th dimension?

First off, Id like to point out that the Dr. Quantum videos are obviously designed to sensationalize the phenomenon, not explain it. I'd reccommend reading Stephen Hawking's Books, also Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Dr. Jim Al-Khalili (look on amazon).

What happens through the slits is not perfectly understood. Instead of trying to say exactly what happens, we build a framework that models what happens instead. This is known as the "quantum wave function" or "probability function". We say, at any given time a particle has this % CHANCE of being in a certain location. When we observe what happens, the quantum wave function collapses, meaning we are 100% sure it is in that place at that time.

The phenemon is rephrased often as Schrodingers Cat. Imagine a cat is in a box, where there is a poisonous gas which can be triggered randomly by the decay of a large atom. Without looking in the box, you cannot say for sure if the cat is dead or alive. The cat is both "dead and alive" for all practical purposes. Other sites go into this in great detail.

The actual process of observing the cat or the buckyball in a slit changes the quantum information that surrounds it's behavior.

I suspect it's caused by the same thing that makes quarks(?) pop in and out of existence at random, the theory is called M-theory or string theory from memory.

Basically every possible outcome is occurring at every point in time, spawning off a new dimension or timeline each time a new possibility arises. When we observe the particle somehow all possible outcomes merge into a single timeline with a single set of outcomes, which in this case is the path of the photon.

reply to post by tw0330


God is %$@#%$#@ with us. I think he probably designed this realm like that just to be funny.

Universe acts one way and man begins to call the actions laws - he is amazed at his intelligence. Then man snoops farther in and finds out the laws are not truly laws at all - they are only variables.

what causes the change?????????............maybe OUR OWN PRESENCE ,in the fashion of measurement...