this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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When researchers say "observe" they actually mean "measure". And when you're working with sub-atomic particles, "measure" isn't some passive activity. It's an active thing. When you measure small particles you are applying some force upon them, changing them in some way from how they would otherwise act.
Imagine if you were tasked with measuring traffic on the other side of the planet, but you had no cameras. The only tool you had was a gigantic 30 ton, satellite-networked pendulum swinging across the highway. The only way you know if there are cars on the highway is if the pendulum thwacks into one of them. That's quantum particle physics.... I think.
Not exactly. Quantum physics applies no matter how you measure it. The double-slit experiment is an example of this: Photons moving through two slits will form a wave interference pattern on a detector plate, even though the detector doesn't affect the position of the photons beforehand.
It's more like: when you become aware of the results of a quantum measurement, you yourself become a part of the quantum system, and being a part of the system requires measurements to have real values. Whether you should interpret this as a wave-function collapse or branching into multiple parallel universes is up for debate though.
Why interpret it as either? The double-slit experiment can be given an entirely classical explanation. Such extravagances are not necessary. As the old saying goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." We should not be considering non-classical explanations unless they are genuinely necessary, and the only become necessary in contextual cases, which the double-slit experiment is certainly not such a case.
It may be convenient to look at classical interpretations but "The intuition we evolved to interact with macro systems is also applicable to the micro level" is in itself an extraordinary claim.