Below is the translation of the article Co-creators - Long Ago and Far Away published December 4, 2009 by Lynne McTaggart , the famous journalist, author of books The field of zero point and Science intention . An interesting article but the author focuses the analysis of certain phenomena of quantum nature as interpreted by orthodox quantum physics itself (the probabilistic interpretation of the superposition of states) without making any mention of possible other interpretations . It should be noted however that the value of the following dissertation depends very little, in my view, the model chosen to interpret the quantum phenomena.
Many people these days use the term 'observer effect' without really knowing what it is or whatever its profound implications.
Probably the best person to address this issue was called an American physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
Wheeler, a protégé of the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, was intrigued by what became known as the Copenhagen Interpretation , named after the place where Bohr, and his brilliant protege, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg postulated the likely significance of their extraordinary mathematical discoveries.
Bohr and Heisenberg realized that atoms are not solar systems made of small balls, but something much more chaotic: a tiny cloud of probability .
As initially discovered the founders of quantum theory in the early twentieth century, the subatomic particles such as electrons or photons are not in themselves nothing definite.
Every subatomic particle is not something solid and stable, but exists in many states at once, in a state of pure potentiality - what is described by physicists as a 'superposition', or the sum of all probabilities [ superposition of different states - NdT ].
Scientists simply recognize that an electron 'probably' there when they fix it by making a measurement, at which time this superposition of many states collapses and the electron is found in a single state.
The fact that this happens only when the particle is measured or observed suggests a possibility that seems stunning to many scientists: the role of science itself - or in common life, the role of conscious living - in some way affect the smallest elements of life, We will carry out something that was previously only a possibility.
A new experiment with the double slit
In the experiment of Young, a beam of light is passed through a slit in a cardboard screen, then goes through a second screen with two slits and finally comes to a third white screen.
In the experiment of Young light passing through two slits creates a striped pattern of alternating light and dark stripes on the white screen end. If the light is simply composed of a set of particles, two of the brightest bands appear directly in front of two slits of the second screen - as a pattern of individual particles [ with reference to the figure, if they were only tiny "balls" to be launched against the slits, substantially all of those who manage to pass through the slits slamming against the last screen should be grouped in two bands put on the line S1 to the source and along the line connecting the source to S2 - NdT ].
But the most enlightened of the scheme is halfway between the two slits, and is caused by the superposition of those waves that interfere constructively with each other. By analyzing this pattern Young was the first to realize that the light radiates from the two slits are spread like the waves then overlap.
A modern variant of the experiment is to send through the double slit experiment of single photons using a tool called interferometer. Although these photons launched individually produce a striped pattern on the screen, demonstrating that individual quanta of light waves travel as if they were shaded by a large sphere of influence.
physicists of the twentieth century progressed by performing Young's experiment with each other quantum particles, and consider this a litmus test that the quantum properties manifest disconcerting entities behave like quantum waves that pass through both slits simultaneously.
Since it takes at least two waves to create such an interference pattern, which means that this experiment is that the photon is in some mysterious way that can pass through both slits simultaneously and interfere with itself when it reassembles. However, there is a catch in this experiment: When the experimental apparatus is equipped with a particle detector to determine through which slit the photon has passed, the result of the experiment changes. Instead of behaving like waves, photons behave as if they were particles that pass through from time to Once one of the two slits.
[ What happens in this case is that the photon ] rather than creating an interference pattern creates a pattern on the screen by individual particles.
So when the particle detector is turned on, the photon behaves like a solid particle as a wave rather than nuanced: it has been put in place. At this point it collapses into a single entity, passing through one of the two slits and allows you to describe his location.
delayed choice experiment in 1978, when Wheeler was meditating on the meaning of this experiment - That seemed to emphasize the fact that the photons were detected or not - he wondered if the timing was important - if you cared at which point the photon is observed or measured.
He has devised a famous thought experiment called the delayed choice experiment, in which a particle detector is placed more forward [ along the route of particle ] so that the path of the photon is detected only some time after it has passed the slits.
Think of a photon that has passed the slits and is coming to the screen. There are three ways to possibiili it: the left slit, the right slit or both slits at once, and at this point we do not yet know which path it took.
Wheeler envisioned that the apparatus [ experimental ] screen would include a detector with a large mobility, which could be removed at this point [ path ] or left in place. If the screen is removed, can then operate two optical detectors [ placed behind the screen ] each one designated to detect the passage from one of the slits. If the screen [ mobile ] removed the optical detectors can record a small flash of light when the photon passes through the slits and find out if its path has crossed the one or the other slit.
In this experiment, the observer 'delayed his choice' if you want to see the path of the photon (by means of optical detectors) or not, until after the photon has probably made his decision whether to move leads through a slit, the other, or both.
According to Wheeler's ingenious mathematics, the path of the photons depends entirely on the fact that they are observed or not.
Surprisingly, if we remove the screen and optical detectors record the path of the photons - even after the photon has passed through the double slit - We have a distribution pattern consistent with what obtains in the case of particles that can pass atraverso only one or the other of two slits, but not both.
If the screen is in place, the photons remain in a state of overlap and pass through both slits [ or rather it is as if the waves associated with two possible states of the photon passed through both slits and interfering with each them - NdT ].
comment - back in time?
The notable aspect of this experiment is obviously the timing is not important: even after the event manifested and the photon through a passatti fendiura or both, the presence or absence of the screen - that is, the presence or absence of observation - determines its outcome.
The consequence of this observation is that, even after the event occurs, determines the final result [ experiment ].
The observer's wholly state that takes what is observed, and this can be done from any point on the timeline [ from any time ].
In the words of Wheeler's protege, the famous physicist Richard Feynman, the role of the observer in quantum physics was the 'mystery that can not go away'.
Yet the idea of \u200b\u200bWheeler remained an intriguing question mathematics until 2007, when Jean-François Roch and his colleagues at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France have found a way to make the experiment that Wheeler had imagined thirty years ago.
In its most elementary constituents, not just physical matter is nothing perfectly defined, but is something permanent which is involved in consciousness. At a time when we we observe an electron or a measure, it seems that help determine its final state. The report could be more fundamental than all that matter and consciousness that observes it.
But what is more jaw-dropping discoveries of Wheeler and proof of Roch and his colleagues are the implications sull'irrilevanza time.
As noted once in 2006, two years before his death: "We participate in a process that creates not only what is near in time and space, but what is far away and that has happened long time ago. "In his fertile imagination, he even imagined the whole universe as a giant wave that needs to be observed for it to be put in place.
In this case, the observer may turn out to be God
The experiment 'delayed choice' Wheeler. So we can "decide" whether to observe the photon as a particle or whether to allow the interference pattern as a wave. Very good. We said that reveal the photon "immediately after" has passed from the first hole. "Immediately after" means that no time is spent on transit in the hole. But no matter how small the time elapsed, however, the photon has already passed the hole, also so far it has been a wave because we have not yet revealed. So in the meantime, the wave has already embarked also hole and the other has passed. So how does the photon to be revealed "Uncut" near the first hole? What of the wave front that had just passed the second hole? Disappears into thin air? It seems so, but how is it possible? To clarify this point, Wheeler proposed to do this: let the photon pass through the mask, like a wave, from both holes. At this point, after that the wave front has passed the mask, we insert a detector not far from the first hole, but not so close (that is enough to make sure that in the meantime the whole wavefront is already definitely passed by the mask). In practice we want to make the choice to observe the photon as a particle, but after it is passed by both holes like a wave. In fact, the experiment is called "delayed choice". The experiment was actually conducted by scientists University of Maryland. Well, after entering the detector that the wave is passed through a mask, it identifies the photon as a particle and therefore the interference pattern is created not. But then what of the part of the wave already transited from the second hole?! disappears into thin air, because the photon is fully revealed near the first hole! Yet, we say, the wave had passed through the second hole is also surely fact, if not fits the detector (leaving everything else unchanged), the interference pattern is formed (which could occur only if the wave passes from both holes). So how is it possible?! The reality is that once again we try to provide an objective picture of what happens, but objective picture is not adequate. It makes no sense to say that "the wave has passed," because only when the extent we can say that something has happened: the first measure of the photon is in an undefined state of potentialities or non-objectivity (some even prefer to say of unreality). When you then enter the detector, then we can say with certainty that the photon had passed only the first hole and second hole from not, and indeed there is no interference. But when we do not place the detector, and reveal the photons on the target (with the interference pattern), then we can say that each photon has a wave interference as if it were passed through both holes, but I can say this only after the photon is detected on the target (at a point accessible only by a wave but not a particle ), ie after the measurement. The thing that seems incredible to us is that what the photon has decided to take on the form (go from one hole only, or both) depends on a choice next to transit the same! In fact, the detector is placed after the wave front has passed the mask. As Wheeler says, the "choice" to pass the photon by a single hole or both is "delayed", that is after that the photon has passed! For it is not amazing, we must admit that what has happened first is not defined. You should specify that the experiment conducted at the University of Maryland did not use a screen with two holes but conceptually equivalent equipment: a laser beam was split into two separate beams, one of which passed through a detector (which could be " lit "or" off "), and finally the two beams were brought together in the final detector, where you could check for interference.
Imagine a photon passes through the two holes, like a wave, and interferes with itself. As we have seen, to destroy the interference pattern, it is sufficient to "immediately" which went from a hole in which case it is no longer a particle but a wave and thus can not even go the other hole. And since it can not pass the other bore the interference pattern disappears.
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