• sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
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    8 months ago

    It’s really frustrating that people who don’t understand this experiment have insanely taken into assume that a magic particle spell understands if a human being is watching or not.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Perhaps it would be better to explain why instead of attempting a mic drop based on your superior knowledge?

      It’s called the observer effect, and it happens because:

      This is often the result of utilizing instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.

      And particularly in the double-slit experiment:

      Physicists have found that observation of quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the measured results of this experiment.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)

      So for anyone who wants to have a surface understanding of the observer effect, the wiki does a fair job of the basic explanation.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        8 months ago

        I think the issue is that quantum mechanics is hard to popularize without leading people into wrong conclusions, pop science clickbaits make this worse.
        I find it easier to understand if you say that observing necessarily means there’s an interaction energy (for example a photon), otherwise no information can be retrieved, and however small that information retrieval energy is, quantum systems are so sensitive, that it is enough to modify their behavior.