ELI5 - Schroedinger's Cat Is Alive - Explainlikeimfive

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593
ELI5: "Schroedinger's Cat is Alive"

submitted 3 years ago by shwinnebego
This link is on the front page right now

(http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22336quantum-measurements-leave-schrodingers-catalive.html), and I frankly can't understand it! Can
someone ELI5 it?
Reddit thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/10yemu/s
chr%C3%B6dingers_cat_is_alive_scientists_measur
e_a/
166 comments share
all 166 comments

sorted by: best
[] Oppis 385 points 3 years ago
Humanity has observed the world and made many

conclusions about how things work. There are
fundamental rules and laws of nature. Like gravity and
mass and velocity.
Well, some people realized that the smaller things are, the
more our fundamental rules fall apart. On the quantum
level, and that is really tiny, things work a little different
than we are used too.
Look at a light switch, like the one in your room. At any
moment in time, that light switch is in one of two possible
states: off or on.
Now let's bring that light switch down to the quantum
level. Well, first, it's now really very small and we cannot
actually see it. But, we can move stuff around and kinda
figure out what state the light switch is in.
And this is where it gets confusing, because the light
switch is behaving as if it is actually a combination of
request an explanation
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2012
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E is for explain.
This is for concepts you'd like to understand
better; not for simple one word answers,
walkthroughs, or personal problems.
LI5 means friendly, simplified and
layman-accessible explanations.
Not responses aimed at literal five year olds
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https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10zb2e/eli5_schroedingers_cat_is_alive/?ref=search_posts[10/25/2015 4:14:39 PM]
both off and on, not only one if them like we are used
too.
And that doesn't make sense, so it's time to break out a
super magnifying glass and take a look to see if that light
switch is actually on or off. And after repeating these
experiments and observing many tiny lightswitchs,
scientists figured out that merely observing the quantum
particles has an affect on them, effectively forcing the
state to be one or the other instead of a combination of
both.
This guys research is about observing quantum particles
and then offsetting the effects of the observation. It
allows researchers to look at a light switch on the
quantum level without the act of observation changing the
behavior of the light switch
If it's legit its a step towards quantum computing.
Edit: instead of a cat in box being alive or dead, I used a
switch on a wall being on or off.
Please be neutral in your explanations,

and note your personal bias in
controversial topics.
Direct replies to the original post (aka
"top-level comments") are for serious
responses only. Jokes, anecdotes, and
low effort explanations, are not
permitted and subject to removal.
Don't post just to express an opinion or
argue a point of view.
After receiving an adequate explanation,
OP should mark the post Explained.
Explained posts are still open to
discussion!
ELI5 isn't a guessing game; if you aren't
confident in your explanation, please
don't speculate.
Have an idea to improve ELI5? Click here!
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[] khanny 51 points 3 years ago
Do we know why "merely observing the quantum

particles has an affect on them, effectively forcing the
state to be one or the other instead of a combination
of both?" Or even have any guesses?
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ELI5 Tip: Feeling open-minded? Try

/r/changemyview!
explained unexplained reset

created by bossgalaga
a community for 4 years
parent
[] xrelaht 75 points 3 years ago
It doesn't force them to be in one or the other

permanently, but if a system has only two states
to be in, then when you make the measurement it
needs to be one or the other. Once you've made
your observation, you know that it was in that
state when you made the measurement. After
that, it can evolve into other states again.
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parent
[] jPurch 42 points 3 years ago
This blows my mind. I've read about this so

many times and I still don't understand it.
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parent
[] riomhaire 215 points 3 years ago*
Just so you know the particle doesn't know

you're looking at it. To measure something
you need to interact with it somehow. If
you want to see something you need to
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shine light on it. But on the quantum level

light has a pretty big effect on things. The
light interacting with the particle is what
causes the collapse and has nothing to do
with someone actually looking.
So in layman's terms observing itself
doesn't cause the collapse but it's
impossible (barring whatever crazy stuff
these guys have done) to observe without
causing a collapse.
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555 points 315 comments
ELI5 how are laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol on

Sunday legal and not a violation of the separation
between church and state?
parent
[] [deleted] 237 points 3 years ago
To get the point across I usually steal an example from the uncertainty principle.
It's not accurate, but people usually understand what we mean about the
measurement itself affecting what is being measured, and that is usually all it
takes to bump people from "this is magic" to "this is really really complicated
physics" and thus being able to reject most of the quantum bullshit out there and
possibly even sparking some interest. And frankly that is the best I personally can
hope to achieve.
Here's the example I use (again, it only works to describe how measuring
affects the result, it doesn't explain anything):
If you put a thermometer in the ocean you'll get a pretty accurate reading of the
temperature right there, at that depth.
If you use the same thermometer to try to measure the temperature of a droplet
of water, lets say 10 seconds after you pull it out of the fridge, the thermometer
itself will heat the droplet so you can't know what temperature it had at the point
you started measuring.
Your measurement (putting the thermometer to the droplet) affects the result
(temperature of the droplet)
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[] SMTRodent 30 points 3 years ago
That's perfect. Snagging it forever.

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parent
[] riomhaire 2 points 3 years ago
Yeah I may have to steal this whenever I'm explaining this stuff in future.
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parent
[+] [deleted] comment score below threshold (14 children)

[] mistahARK 8 points 3 years ago
This should be added to every explaination of how the principle works.

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[] FrozenCow 4 points 3 years ago
Thank you and riomhaire. Great explination and example. I always think of the
visual representation they have in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DfPeprQ7oGc#t=226s, but following riomhaire's and your explination that
video is somewhat wrong. It makes sense now, thanks again.
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[] loverboyxD 11 points 3 years ago
Ouch. That is depressing. Talking about how it's "deciding" and is

"aware"...that kind of completely wrong crap is what gets so many
misinformed.
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[] FrozenCow 2 points 3 years ago
Exactly. It's great they visualize everything (which is why I still

remember it), but it is explained in vague terms.
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[] imitator22 6 points 3 years ago
I don't like that video, it gets the broad idea across but seems to imply that
its magic, or paranormal.
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[] maltpress 14 points 3 years ago
The uncertainty principle, eh?

So, Heisenberg is driving his sports car through the streets of his home town
when he catches sight of blue lights in his rear view mirror. "Oh no", he thinks,
and pulls over.
The cop gets out, taps on his window, and when he winds it down, says to him
"do you know how fast you were going, sir?"
"No" says Heisenberg. "But I know exactly where I am".
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parent
Ah, that explains why I'm bad at sex. When I find the position, I can't find
the momentum, and when I have the momentum, I can't find the position
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[] dbplunk 1 point 3 years ago
Driving around Princeton one day, I saw a bumper sticker that said,
"Heisenberg may have slept here.".
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[] zurx 1 point 2 years ago
"And I am the one who knocks!"

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[] CptHair 3 points 3 years ago
But aren't they two different effects? One is easy to understand, the observers
principle. The uncertainty principle isn't talking about a physical effect. It's
talking about something inherent in the quatum particles, (at least that what
I've been explained) and that's what's hard to wrap your head around.
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parent
Absolutely completely true.

My point is that most people have no more than an high school
understanding of physics. That is absolutely fine, most of us have just a
high school understanding of most topics.
If you talk heavy quantum mechanics to people that have no reference to
hang a lot of new concepts like wave functions, probability density, waveparticle duality and so on you loose them fast.
The "water has memory - quantum medicine" crowd however are not
bogged down by heavy physics, so in order to help people understand the
NOT MAGIC part of the collapse drawing an, admittedly out of context,
parable is the easiest way I have found.
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parent
[] pladin517 2 points 3 years ago
thanks. this really cleared it up for me. I wish people would use 'the method
used to examine it changes its state' rather than 'the mere act of observing it
causes it to change'
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parent
I know, observation is a better term in physics so "the observation causes

the collapse" is a more precise term.
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[] TheLeapIsALie 2 points 3 years ago
I like the example of finding a person's location and velocity with a truck
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[] MrConfucius 1 point 3 years ago
That is a damn good analogy.

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[] riomhaire 1 point 3 years ago
I wonder should we feel good about helping people with their confusion over
quantum mechanics or bad over giving people the impression that wavefunction
collapse and the uncertainty principle are kind of the same thing.
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parent
In my opinion it depends heavily on who you are talking to.

I mostly see it as a marketing job. Most people aren't going to be

physicists, so the most you can hope for is making sure they have enough
intellectual baggage to shoot down the quack medicine crowd when they
have some bullshit explanation of how their medicine works on a quantum
level. I make it a habit to clearly state that it's not strictly correct and will
happily point them in the direction of some Jolly good books if they're
interested :)
If afterwards their first reaction to a sales pitch is "wait a minute, isn't this
just that when you measure it you fuck it up thing? This magic explanation
is bull" we all live in a slightly saner world, and someone just didn't get
screwed out of 500 bucks.
This explanation is something people can relate to, remember and
understand no matter what level of education. Start talking about
entanglement, wave collapse, the double split experiment or any
explanation model that is no firmly rooted in everyday physics their eyes
glaze over and they start thinking about dinner.
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parent
[] riomhaire 1 point 3 years ago
All very true and as for

In my opinion it depends heavily on who you are talking to.
We are in ELI5, not ask science.
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parent
[] Cronyx 1 point 3 years ago
I've always argued that the uncertainty principle doesn't preclude a definite
state existing one way or the other, only that we can't determine it currently,
and all methods we currently have to determine it will alter the state,
obfuscating the original state you were trying to measure.
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parent
And the only reason you can't hear a whoossh when you tell people that is
because it's so far above their heads :)
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parent
[] Cronyx 1 point 3 years ago
:P
Its especially frustrating when a high school freshman physics student
who's read Carl Sagan's wikipedia article and thinks he's going to get his
own TED video tries to argue with me about this very issue.
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parent
[] clade_nade 1 point 3 years ago
Why talk about current methods? Experimental techniques can't alter

mathematical facts.

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parent
continue this thread

[] zurx 1 point 2 years ago*
I like your example, but I don't think it's an exact analogy to what's happening
at the quantum level. My understanding (and please correct me if I am wrong)
is that it's not the actual instrumentation itself that's affecting what is being
measured, but simply the act itself. It's hard to say for sure, but one idea I
enjoy entertaining is that "something" in our consciousness is causing it. Since
at the quantum level, everything is made of the same "stuff", and if one
particle can be in the same place twice, perhaps "thoughts" can affect things in
our environment that appear to have nothing to do with our actual intention.
You know what I don't even know if I'm making sense anymore. You were right
that this will get people to realize this is really complicated physics. That's
enough brain exercise for now.
EDIT: I have recently learned the term observer refers to the apparatus used
to observe rather than the individual. So it's back to the drawing board for my
understanding of Reality.
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parent
[] loafula -1 points 3 years ago
Or,
the
the
the
to use the OP's lightswitch analogy: You're blind and need to test whether
lightswitch is on or off. The best method you have to test this is to touch
lightswitch. Unfortunately, you are also clumsy, so every time you touch
light switch, you also flick it and change its state.
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parent
[] Creabhain 4 points 3 years ago
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water ...
Violation of Bohrs Complementarity: One Slit or Both? Shahriar S. Afshar
Physics Department, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ08028
CONCLUSION The results of this experiment confirm the earlier findings by the
author [5, 6]. We have shown that we can establish the presence of perfect
interference without appreciably disturbing or attenuating the interfering
wavefunctions. The null measurement achieved by the passive presence of the
wire(s) demonstrates for the first time that one canmake meaningful
measurements withoutan interaction or quantum entanglement with the
measuring device i.e. the wire(s). This observation necessitates a revision of
the current theory of measurement in which a measurement alwaysleads to a
change in the quantum state of the detector, which will be fully addressed
elsewhere [8]. These results also highlight the inadequacy of classical language
of waves and particles in describingseemingly simple experiments, for if we
insist on using the wave pictureto describe the lack of reduction of radiant flux
and beam profile resolution by the wire(s), then we areforced to describe the
pattern observed at plane 2 as an interference pattern withoutany fringes as
evidence of the interference. While it is true that PC still holds for perturbative
methods of measurement, which involve which-way markers, entanglement,
and direct measurements, indirect measurement of ensemble properties such

as interference, as achieved in this experiment, provides evidence for the
coexistence of complementary wave and particle behaviors in the same
experimental setup.If we (erroneously) insist on using the language used by
Bohr and Einstein in their debates, then we would have to conclude that the
photons in our last experiment, in fact went through both pinholes, and yet
simultaneously, through one or the other: a logicalimpossibility! That said, it is
hard to envision a common mode of language that best describes the results of
thisexperiment, without an appeal to mathematical formalism. The results of
this experiment can be improved uponby the introduction of multiple wires
mask. We also predict similar results for single-photons and other quantain
analogous experiments.
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parent
[] fas2 3 points 3 years ago
This is not really clear. The wiki article links to a bunch of interpretations of what
causes the wave collapse.
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[] DeathToPennies 2 points 3 years ago
So it was never that there was some thing where they were playing peek-a-boo...
What we used to observe it would screw with it to the point where it was in one of
two states.
But it's not in one of those states as long as we're not observing it.
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parent
[] jPurch 2 points 3 years ago
Ahh, yeah it was always made out that the particle KNEW you were looking at it.
Like it was aware...
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parent
It's the confusion between what scientists mean when they say the word
observed versus what people in general take that word to mean. Same reason
you get people saying "evolution is just a theory!"
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parent
[] Peil 2 points 3 years ago
So it's not us seeing it, it's the light bouncing off that we then see that changes it?
Is maith liom d'ainm
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parent
Shit this the second today someone started speaking Irish to me on Reddit due
to my username. Hope it doesn't catch on. How the fuck do you say thank you
again? Ah...
Maith agat!

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[] Peil 1 point 3 years ago
ah it's grand I went to a gaelscoil so I'm supposed to know i don't care if

you're shit
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[] mam8cc 2 points 3 years ago
This might be stupid but would it be possible to observe our world from "far away"
and have real-world light switches exist in dual-states? Does the quantum... thing
exist from perspective or is it exclusive to what we know to be tiny particles?
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[] intheballpark 1 point 3 years ago
AFAIK no it's not possible. It's exclusive to tiny particles. Perspective doesn't
cone into it.
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[] Pechkin000 2 points 3 years ago
Thank you! You have just finally made clear to me one of the biggest questions
that was bugging me for years. I was able to wrap my mind over quantium state
concept, just up to a point where measuring it was affecting the state. I see the
"light" now!....
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parent
This needs to be up voted more, I have seen so many people use quantum
mechanics as evidence of a god when it fact it isn't.
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[] discworldian 6 points 3 years ago
That, and the fact some ass called the Higgs Boson the God particle.
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[] [deleted] 1 point 3 years ago
To give the guy credit the original name was the goddamn particle but the
publisher put the kibosh on that.
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[] KISSOLOGY 6 points 3 years ago
Oy, and theres that guy bringing religion into stuff...

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[] The_Serious_Account 2 points 3 years ago
We have no evidence of photons actually casuing a 'collapse' of the wavefunction.

We don't even know if collapses actually happen. I'm a little confused by your
statement.

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[] doormouse76 1 point 3 years ago
That is the part they always leave out when teaching kids that causes the kids to
think that science is full of crap.
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parent
I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. Richard
Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law (1965)
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parent
[] monkite 6 points 3 years ago
Although not very useful for this subreddit, this comment is probably the most
informative.
Nobody understands quantum mechanics... yet .
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parent
No, it's more subtle than that. Our brains are wired by billions of years of
evolution to understand how to live in a world governed by classical mechanics,
but at a fundamental level, that's not how the universe functions. A better
question is to ask why the world you see works the way it does; why your light
switch isn't in a constant superposition of on and off, or why you don't scatter
off your doorframe when you walk through it. And we can answer that
question: it's called the classical limit of quantum mechanics, and it works
perfectly.
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[] The_Serious_Account 4 points 3 years ago
I feel about Quantum Mechanics as I do about chess. There's a bunch of rules you
follow if you want to play the "game". There's only rules to be accepted, there is no
concept of understanding them as such. You might as well ask for the deeper meaning
of why the Rook can move straight, whereas the Bishop cannot, as you may ask for
the deeper meaning of QM. As least this is how things stand right now.
It gets over mystified. There's a bunch of rules (about five). Understanding the rules
require basic linear algebra. Know linear algebra? Yeah, I can explain you the
mathematics of QM in 10 minutes.
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[] laziestengineer 1 point 3 years ago
Yeah, but the method most generally used to teach quantum mechanics is
Shrodinger's, which is mostly integral math instead of matrix math.
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[] SirLuciousLeftFoot 2 points 3 years ago
This video helped me a lot: Schrodiner's Cat by Minute Physics

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[] jjCyberia 2 points 3 years ago
one thing that might help you with this is that in quantum mechanics there is no such
thing as a non-invasive measurement. you can't, even in principle, measure something
without doing something to it. and by doing I don't mean the quantum effects of back
action, I mean throw things at it, usually light. you may have heard of the double slit
experiment where you measure electrons or photons passing though two slits in a wall.
well measuring here means the electrons/photons smack into a screen, which then
probably glows in response.
the thing about quantum systems is that they are so fragile that when you through
light at it, even single photons, those photons change it in some way. (that is, unless
you've already changed it as much as it will change.)
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[] Kowzorz 1 point 3 years ago
It's worth noting that "observing" a quantum system usually involves bouncing
something off it.
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[] armylax20 1 point 3 years ago
If someone tells you they understand quantum mechanics then all youve learned is
that youve met a liar. -R.P. Feynman
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[] GothicFuck 1 point 3 years ago
This doesn't blow your mind actually. It's just that when something is bouncing around
either in this half or that half of a box, and you can only tell what half it is in by
grabbing the thing with your hand, when you're measuring what half it's in you know it
can only be in the one half, and when you let it go it goes back to being in either half.
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[] jPurch 1 point 3 years ago
Did you just tell me what does and doesn't blow my mind? Wat.
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[] GothicFuck 1 point 3 years ago
What I mean is that if it blows your mind you're taking the very common
misinterpretation of the meaning of this experiment. That the universe
somehow knows to change when human eyeballs are looking at it, it's not like
that at all, it changes because we are physically throwing things at it, forcing it
to be in one state or another.
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parent
Once you've made your observation, you know that it was in that state when you
made the measurement.
Not to split hairs but it was in that state right after you made the measurement, not when
the measurement was made. When the measurement was made, the state was unknown.
The distinction is key.
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[] KingoftheGoldenAge 1 point 3 years ago
Doesn't that mean it's just switching between the two states really, really fast? Or is it
actually in neither state?
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[] xrelaht 1 point 3 years ago
It's not in either state until you measure it. If you assume it's in one or the other and
you just don't know which, you get the wrong answer. It's one of the weirdest things
about quantum mechanics.
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parent
So its not actually in both states, but you have to assume it is?
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parent
It is. If you assume it's in one state or the other before measurement, you get the
wrong answer.
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[] shodanx 1 point 3 years ago
so you have a person making grimaces in the dark, you take a flash picture and they're
making a big frown, but before you took the picture they could be in any state, I don't see
how taking the picture had an effect of changing the person
sure, before the picture was taken they could be doing any number of silly faces, each
with a certain probability but what proof is there that they were doing more than one at
once ?
at any moment they could only be at one state right ? not both frowning and grinning at
the same time ! I just don't see how taking the picture can collapse the silly face function
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parent
You're still thinking classically. What you've described is called hidden variable theory.
You can show that it doesn't work with something called Bell's theorem.
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[] vn2090 1 point 3 years ago
I thought the uncertainty principle was the more you know about an objects position, the
less you know about its acceleration/ direction. Am I wrong?
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parent
Unfortunately, there are multiple weird things in quantum mechanics, and this is
actually a separate issue. The uncertainty principle has to do with what parameters of
a quantum system can be determined simultaneously to arbitrary precision. A
measurement of the kind we're discussing could attempt to make this determination,
but even with just one parameter that has multiple possibilities, wave function collapse
is a thing.
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[] palinola 15 points 3 years ago
"Observe" is the wrong term, and has given people everywhere the impression that there is
something magical that happens when you watch something.
"Measure" is the accurate term. In order to measure the state of a subatomic particle, you
have to either let it run into your sensor or shine light on it. It's pretty obvious that having a
particle run into a wall will cause a change to the particle, but the matter of light is less
obvious.
As light is also made up of quantum particles - photons - it ends up being like trying to figure
out the location of a bouncing basketball in a black room by bouncing tennis balls against it.
Except a quantum basketball can - before being hit by the tennis ball - be everywhere in the
room simultaneously and bouncing off itself, and once the tennis ball impact the basketball it
will only be in one place. Before being hit by the tennis ball, the quantum basketball was
simultaneously in all the corners, the sofa, the armchair, and out the window - but being hit
by the tennis ball (being measured) forced the basketball into a single state.
It should also be added that Schroedinger meant the Cat Experiment to be an example of
how ludicrous quantum mechanics are, not of how they work. People using Schoedinger's Cat
as a method of explaining how quantum mechanics work are idiots.
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parent
[] what_comes_after_q 2 points 3 years ago
Let's use an example of an extremely small and extremely light particle - the electron. An
electron surrounds the nucleus of an atom, but we want to know where around the atom the
particle is - if it's far away from the nucleus or really close to the nucleus. Let's imagine the
electron as a red billiard ball. So to observe the billiard ball, we shoot another billiard ball at
it, let's call it a white billiard ball, and observe how it reflects off the original red billiard ball,
and measuring the speeds and location of each ball, we can make some conclusions. Using
basic trig, we can then figure out where it collision happened with extreme precision - it's
simple mechanics. Well, imagine that this ball was also spinning at the same time and we
want to know how fast it's spinning. Unfortunately, when we made that collision happen, we
gave that billiard ball energy, so if we then were to try and catch the ball to see how fast it
was spinning, we don't know how much of that speed was from our measurement or from it's
original energy. This is like bouncing one electron off of another electron. So we can try using
smaller and smaller particles to measure the measure the collision and thus provide less and
less interference, but imagine going from a white billiard down to a golf ball, then ping pong
ball, until we just lightly blow on the red billiard ball. Well we're still going to have the original
problem of not knowing how much we're interfering. Now if we launch something with no
mass at the object, like a photon, all of a sudden we aren't impacting it's kinetic energy at all,
but we also aren't able to capture it at all (but as it turns out, we can use this to measure the
spin that we wanted). So the super position of a particle is like a billiard ball having both a
position, and a spin.

Now actual billiard balls are extremely simple objects, but quantum mechanics are a little bit
stranger. Some really clever people have tested and tried to find ways around these limits,
but each time the results were analyzed, they kept getting classically unexpected results.
Perhaps the most famous experiment was Thomas Young's double slit experiment (I know it
sounds NSFW, but it's just science).
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[] ThrustVectoring 1 point 3 years ago
Yes. Observing particles has an effect on them because we are made of particles.
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[] colinsteadman 1 point 3 years ago
When they say observe, they mean measure. To measure it you have to do something to it,
like bounce photons off it. When you do that you introduce interference and that forces it to
settle down into one state. At least thats how I understand it as an interested non-scientist.
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[] dozza 1 point 3 years ago
if we want to observe something we have to interact with it, i.e hit it with photons, electrons
etc. this means that we disturb the carefully balanced quantum state of the cat/ lightswitch/
particle
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Imagine I give you a sealed box with an airtight hole you can stick your hand into, and then I
ask you "tell me what's inside the box." The only way to find out is by sticking your hand
inside the box and feeling around. When you do that, you disturb the box's internal state.
The problem arises because quantons (things that behave according to quantum mechanics)
are so tiny that every possible way of measuring the quanton, much like the box analogy,
disturbs the quantons state.
For example, you can fire a photon at the quanton, and the photons momentum will disturb
the quantons momentum. In this way, the very act of measuring the quanton actually creates
the measurement you observe.
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[] [deleted] 1 point 3 years ago*
There's a principle in physics that says the more you know about an particle's position, the
less you know about that particle's momentum, and vice versa (Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle).
It sounds really confusing, but just imagine we have an gun that shoots one electron every
time we pull the trigger. We want to know where the electron is at some arbitrary duration
after we pull the trigger, so we set up a instrument that shoots a beam of light perpendicular
to the electron's path. When the beam is interrupted by the electron, we detect it.
But light is made of particles called photons. And in order to detect the flying electron's
position, we have to shoot photons at it. When the electron gets hit by a photon, any
momentum the photon had will be transferred to the electron. This changes the electron's
position.
So the simple act of observing the electron changes the electron.
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[] staringispolite 1 point 3 years ago
A (related but not the same) problem that may help it seem more intuitive is this: imagine
trying to find your friend in the dark with a flashlight. We'll call your friend Tim. In order to
see Tim, you'd have to have some photons leave the flashlight, bounce off Tim, and have
them enter your eye.
Now imagine if Tim were only the size of a photon or two: By the time you think you've found
him, the simple act of bouncing the light off him would change where he is by the time the
light hits your eye.
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[] dmwit 1 point 3 years ago
It turns out that when you observe the light switch, what really happens is that together you
and the light are now in a combination of "switch is off, and I observed it to be off" and
"switch is on, and I observed it to be on". What you believe is the world around you is in fact
just one of many, many possible worlds, all of which really exist.
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[] phrakture 0 points 3 years ago
Something about string theory and "collapsing possibilities". Big ol' WOOOOSH, really
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[] lorddcee 6 points 3 years ago
THANKS! Now I also get it.

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[] lewisthemusician 2 points 3 years ago
but isn't that like saying that when you're in your bedroom and no one is in the hallway, the
hallway doesn't exist as we cannot see it?
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[] edwilli 2 points 3 years ago
Yes. There is a potential for the hallway to both be there and not be there. Until there is an
observer, both "wave potentials" exist. When you insert an observer (open the door), the
wave potential collapses into one of the two waves.
So, there's a potential for the hallway not to exist (although a very very tiny one). When
studying reality at the quantum level, you'd say it both exists and does not exist at the same
time.
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[] Say_what_you_see 1 point 3 years ago
isn't there a video about this and waves and about watching waves and if you watch them they
do something different? Im sure its animated
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[] Phoyo 2 points 3 years ago*
Not the best video, but I've seen it posted on reddit before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DfPeprQ7oGc
Edit: Just don't pay attention to the part where he says "because you measure it the particle
decides which slit to go through, almost as if it knows it's being watched." This is really
misleading. A better description would be "In order to measure the particle you have to
interact with it (e.g. bounce light off it) and by interacting with it you change the path of the
particle and force it to go through a single slit."
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[] Kantor48 1 point 3 years ago
The article states that previously, observing the cat would kill it. But from my understanding, if
you did the experiment a thousand times, half the time it would still be alive when observed. And
if you're not triggering the collapse of the wavefunction, it isn't alive, but rather still both alive
and dead, as it was before.
Am I misunderstanding, or is New Scientist oversimplifying?
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[] mewarmo990 1 point 3 years ago
News Scientist is simplifying the result somewhat but if you should read through the whole
article again to understand what they mean.
Normally, observation/measurement would collapse the wavefunction. So they used a
"weaker" form of measurement (been tried before) that wouldn't interfere with the wave
function as much... but this would end up randomly changing it even if it didn't collapse it. So
to stop this, they tried very quickly introducing an opposite charge to offset the effects of the
measurement, intending to "stabilize" the function as if it weren't measured at all.
The result is that they didn't collapse the wave function, nor did they introduce an
uncontrollable amount of interference. However, the result isn't perfect because all they are
really doing is reducing the effects of measurement, not measuring without affecting the
particle at all (which is the end goal).
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[] Izminko 1 point 3 years ago
By observing, we're offsetting the effects. It reminds me of this video. I still can't grasp the idea
though.
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So the Law of the Excluded Middle still stands? Because people doing quantum research and
saying it doesn't really made me think they're way off-base, since LotEM is more evidently true
than observing incredibly complex phenomena we only kind of understand and drawing
conclusions about logical laws based on that. Same w/ the Law of Non-Contradiction.
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[] h4n0 1 point 3 years ago
I'm 5 and I understood that. Cool thank you.


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[] sadblue 1 point 3 years ago
If I want to read more about this without confusing myself, but without any of the "What the
Bleep do we Know" nonsense, where can I find good literature on the topic?
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[] Jedimastert 1 point 3 years ago
That is a fantastic explanation. Really well done. In fact, I think I'm going to use this. I like the
light switch as opposed to the cat.
Interesting fact, he made the cat analogy to show how ridiculous the idea was on a large scale.
He forgot that people will believe anything a scientist says at face value.
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[] TheOtherSideOfThings 1 point 3 years ago
Does this connect to the Planck constant somehow?

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[] therestruth 1 point 3 years ago
Hate to tell you but you misused "too" two times.

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[] Brainwash666 17 points 3 years ago
With an explanation like that.... I think you have to let it go.

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[] Oppis 2 points 3 years ago
Did I get affect/effect right? I was paying more attention to that. Also, for future reference,
which times did I misuse too? I always end sentences with that one so I'm assuming that's
where I messed up.
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[] ImBored_YoureAmorous 2 points 3 years ago
...observing the quantum particles has an affect on them, effectively forcing the state
to be one or the other instead ...
In this instance, you should have used "has an effect on them". Alternatively, you could
have said,
......observing the quantum particles affects them
Although it isn't as clear as your original statement (I'm merely giving you an example of
the proper use).
Your use of effectively is correct.
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[] therestruth 1 point 3 years ago
Yup. Affect is what you do, effect is the result.

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[] mgnair 0 points 3 years ago
I wouldnt talk like that to a five year old.

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[] drtyler314 0 points 3 years ago
Wait, just looking them affects them? Weeping angels much..

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[] AverageUnknown 2 points 3 years ago
Well, yes, that's why the Doctor described their ability/affliction as a "quantum-lock"--the
word "quantum" itself just refers to the lowest possible quantity of something (at the atomic
level), but the interesting part of quantum mechanics/physics these days deals with how
particles react to being observed, like Oppis said. The reasoning behind this effect in physics
(as described by other comments above) is not that someone is looking at it, but that any
methods of observing or measuring the particles involved will tamper with their state.
So while the weeping angel effect isn't strictly based on actual science, few sci-fi plot points
are.
(Someone can correct me if any of this isn't quite accurate, I'm just a computer science
student and I've only seen a few episodes of Doctor Who.)
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[] Wisdom_Bro -1 points 3 years ago
Just a quick question, do you think that maybe our eyes propel some kind of force behind them?
it would sort of explain how people can "feel" someone watching them and how quantum particles
change from being seen as well.
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[] ThaddyG 6 points 3 years ago
Nah. It's more along the lines of light needs to bounce off of something before our eyes can
see it.
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[] JaayyB 0 points 3 years ago
I don't think a 5 year old would understand that...

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[] TheGreatFabsy 27 points 3 years ago
So you're playing "red light" with your friends, the game where you turn your back to your friends,
count to 7, and in that time your friends try to walk towards you. You say "RED LIGHT!" and turn
around, and your friends have to stop without you seeing them move. If you see them move, they're
out!
So basically until you turn around and observe (interact with) your friends (particles), they could be
anywhere: at the start, in the middle, right next to you. But when you look at them, they stop firmly
in one place and you know where they are. You turn around again, and they could (once again) be
anywhere. Then you come up with a brilliant idea! You take a small mirror, and now you can see your
friends moving about, but without you turning around, which makes your friends stop in their place!
Hah, suckers.
So basically, these guys found a good, unnoticeable "mirror" which shows them what the particles
are doing, without scaring them with your big curious eyes.
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[] nelliebear 17 points 3 years ago*
This simple wiki article helped me understand a little better. FYI, I usually go to wiki and if it's still
too complicated I'll just add "simple." in front of wikipedia and it will take you the same page but in
much simpler terms like this.
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[] sheepshizzle 16 points 3 years ago
Holy shit! TIL about Simple English Wikipedia. It's billed as a "user-contributed online
encyclopedia intended for people whose first language is not English." English is my native
language, and actually it's one of my strengths, but this is the first time I've ever even remotely
understood Schrdinger's cat. Thank you for this!
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[] madcaesar 6 points 3 years ago
So it seems like there's nothing really special about the cat or the experiment...it's more just a
metaphor for what happens on a quantum level. Because in the real world the cat is dead or
alive, it can't be both. If you have a readout of the Geiger counter even in a different room, you'll
know if the cat is alive or dead. Looking at it won't change anything.
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[] intheballpark 1 point 3 years ago
But to take the ananlogy and run with it, using the Geiger counter is an act of observing what
is happening in the box, so technically you still looked.
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[] fragglet 9 points 3 years ago
I won't bother restating the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment because I'm sure you've all heard
it before. But the point is this: nobody believes that a cat can really be in a superposition of states.
It's a thought experiment designed to show how our understanding of quantum mechanics is
incomplete.
When quantum effects were first discovered, the leading scientists at the time (Bohr and Heisenberg)
came up with the Copenhagen interpretation as the "standard" explanation for what's going on. Put
simply: at the very small scale, things behave very differently to how we see our everyday world, and
a particle can be in multiple states at the same time (superposition). When you observe it, the
particle collapses down into a particular state. The act of observing it affects the outcome.
Schroedinger devised the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment to show that this interpretation is
incomplete, because it doesn't define what an "observer" is. Is it the Geiger counter (that triggers
the gas to be released)? Is it the cat inside the box? Or is it the human, when the box is opened?
Unless this is properly answered, the Copenhagen interpretation is incomplete (and it seems like it
still hasn't been adequately answered).
Schroedinger described this thought experiment as a "quite ridiculous case" to show the flaws in the
theory. But unfortunately it's become quite famous and lots of people seem to think that it actually
describes how quantum theory behaves.
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[] lahwran_ 1 point 3 years ago
actually, couldn't you get that much matter into superposition with enough energy and cooling?
the cat would be dead before the experiment started, though...
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[] Paramnesia1 1 point 3 years ago
This seems like a problem with coherence. It's fair enough to think of electrons as having
superposed wavefunctions and being smeared out in covalent bonding. It acts more like a
standing wave, and thus has no defined position. I just think when you take the level up to
conscious beings everything gets messy. If an electron was conscious, would we have
Schroedinger's electron? Probably.
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[] Paramnesia1 3 points 3 years ago*
Much of the complication in quantum mechanics comes from this idea of destroying the
superposition. It's fairly simple to accept that, to entities external to the box, there's no way of
knowing if the cat is alive or dead. If there's no way of knowing, you cannot make any assumptions,
so both possibilities are true. Often, people ask "Yeah, but there's an underlying answer surely? We
don't know it, but it's there." This is a valid question. Was the cat either alive or dead (and not both)
the entire time, or did we kill the cat, for example, by looking at it? Obviously, looking at a cat won't
kill it (unless your Scott Summers), but perhaps the question of whether or not it was dead doesn't
mean anything before we look.
I suppose you could think of it in the same way as "What's north of the North Pole?" or "Where does
a circle begin?", both of which also have no meaning. The cat has an answer the whole time. It
knows if it's alive or dead. But this also brings up questions. Is the cat's answer to the question "Am
I alive or dead?" the 'true' answer to all observers? No. Different points of view have different
answers. Just like in other theories in physics, and the real world. Ask a kid what the best TV
programme is. He probably won't say Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. But an adult might say one of
those. Is there a 'true' answer? Of course, this is hugely simplified and doesn't really relate, but it
helps to show how objective answers are very rare.
In reality, this isn't something physicists (or at least physics students) spend much time on. You
pretty quickly learn to live with Schrodinger's cat and it's implications. All these guys have done is
take a little look, and then reset the system, so to speak.
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[] Chillocks 1 point 3 years ago
Upvote for Summers joke.

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[] efie 29 points 3 years ago*
I probably won't be able to do that great a job, but this super simple explanation might help.
Basically before this they had a cat that was both dead and alive because the cat could have been
killed at any unpredictable time. If they looked at the cat they would have killed it, even though if
they didn't look at it the cat may have stayed alive.

Now they are able to take a quick peek at the cat without the cat (or any variables in the box)
knowing they're taking a peek. They take a peek and the cat has stayed alive. I can't tell you why
the cat has stayed alive, something about decaying radioactive atoms but hey, I'm only 14 - an
actual physicist can tell you that.
Edit : read the article, understand it better, ok here you go.
When I said "taking a peek at the cat", what they're doing is taking a very weak measurement of the
property, which in the article was a quantum bit of data which changes between being a 1 and a 0.
They could observe the qubit changing, and using a new machine were able to 'nudge' the qubit back
into the position it was in when it started to become unstable. Does that help any more?
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[] lillesvin 25 points 3 years ago
but hey, I'm only 14

I sincerely hope that my kid(s) will be as smart as you when they're 14. I hope you get to put
that intelligence to use in the future and not just waste it on some McJob somewhere.
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[] efie 4 points 3 years ago
After school I want to go into researching more of this kind of stuff, so it's nice to know my
explanation made some sort of sense.
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[] Ace1999 2 points 3 years ago
Hi I'm 13 and I like turtles.

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[+] [deleted] 3 years ago(1 child)

[] coolestpelican 5 points 3 years ago
Basically before this they had a cat that was both dead and alive because the cat could have
been killed at any unpredictable time. If they looked at the cat they would have killed it, even
though if they didn't look at it the cat may have stayed alive.
actually the cat was said to be both dead and alive until observed when the cat you then
ACTUALLY conclusively die, or remain alive after being observed
Now they are able to take a quick peek at the cat without the cat (or any variables in the
box) knowing they're taking a peek. They take a peek and the cat has stayed alive. I can't tell
you why the cat has stayed alive, something about decaying radioactive atoms but hey, I'm
only 14 - an actual physicist can tell you that.
basically the decaying atom part, is there's a EVEN likelihood of the atom decaying or not
decaying...due to the characteristics of that atom, and this event determines whether the cat gets
poisoned in the box or not
the interesting thing about the schroedinger's cat scenario is that the whole concept is meant to
be a farce or poking fun of the idea that the cat is in two states superimposed...this in reality is
actually false, its only the quantum parts that achieve these capability,

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I can't remember where I heard it, but Schrodinger's whole point was that you can't describe
quantum mechanics in a way that's analogous to 'real life'.
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[] coolestpelican 2 points 3 years ago
thats exactly what I was trying to say...the point is that its FOOLISH to believe the cat is
both dead and alive...it shows that this concept of the observer CAUSING the observed is
flawed
it all refers to the coppenhagen interpretation
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[] EvOllj 3 points 3 years ago*
Quantum states are explanations for contradictions that have been measured, usually involving very
small particles that behave very randomly and kinda shizophrenic. Light for example spreads like
waves and like particles at the same time, while both behaviours can result in very different patterns
that depend on how you observe it: 2 small waves can easily add up to a bigger wave while 2 small
particles likely will just bounce off each other. The light example is a lame comparison but simple
enough and it makes more sense than a cat unknown to be dead and alife untill you observe if it is
one or the other.
A quantum state is a state that is to different states at the same time that would otherwise be
exclusive to each other. A bit of any type is either 1 or 0 while a quantum bit can also be both 1&0
at the same time.
A quantum state stops being a quantum state as soon as you observe/measure it in a large scale,
resulting in only one of the 2 different states of its quantum states and losing the ability to be in the
other state without external forces.
The article says that you can measure a quantum state in a carefull enoug way on a small scale that
does not set it to 1 or 0 forever, but that keeps reading both results, not destroying its quantum
state.
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[] PerfectWhiteRussian 2 points 3 years ago
ALSO ELI5: Quantum superposition - it has to do with the whole subject

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[] efie 4 points 3 years ago
Quantum superposition means that the subject in question is in multiple states at a time. Take a
bit for example. Usually it's either 1 or 0 and scientists can observe it and everything is ok. But
with a quantum bit, its state changes or oscillates between 1 or 0. That is what quantum
superposition is.
Up until now the qubit wouldn't have a definite state until it was measured, but now scientists can
observe the oscillating qubit.
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[] coolestpelican 1 point 3 years ago
basically in the quantum world, what appears to be going on is that there is no predictability of
which state an quantum object is in, within its possible states
either its always changing very rapidly (so much so that we can`t actually suggest there is
chronology) or there is in fact a duality of state. The problem being with this is that when
considering the scale of what we are talking about (ultra minuscule even compared to photons of
light), every method we know of to observe these quanta, affects that quanta in some way, and
basically it forces it to become stable or at least appear to do so by our observation
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[] MADBARZ 2 points 3 years ago
These explanations are not explanatory to a five year old.

ELY5: Put an object in front of you and close your eyes. When you open them, it could be there, but
it could also not be there. Therefore while your eyes are closed, it is both there and not there.
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[] othinn365 2 points 3 years ago
An extension of this would be to say that the experiment done was like cracking your eyes open
just a teeensy bit, seeing if the object is still there or not, closing them, and in the process not
changing the probability of it being there or gone at all .
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[] TerrifiedOfGhosts 1 point 3 years ago
Lemme see if I'm getting this right...

The mere act of observing a quanta forces it into a state. What this experiment did was not to
measure what specific state the qubit was in, but rather to measure the frequency of its cycle
through all of its possible states. They found, though, that even this weak measurement had an
effect: the number of cycles through the states randomly increased. But, they were able to correct
for that tiny fluctuation because the sampled timeframe was so short, so they still accurately
measured the frequency of the cycles as if the system remained unobserved.
Is that the gist, or am I totally off?
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[] miellaby 1 point 3 years ago
This is how I understand the both dead and alive cat thing, but I'm not a physicist :
In very particular conditions of observation -like in these experiments where mater particles are
acting like waves- one can begin to see that the universe can hold multiple realities at the same
time. Yep. Realities that coexist.
In other words, what one calls reality is actually a cloud of several different states which are more or
less real. Not "more or less probable." I really mean more or less real .
For example, when you look at the pattern produced by the double-slit experiment (that you could
try at home), you actually observe the result of a mix of realities which have interacted with each
others.
Why? Because even when you ensure that only one photon -it works with other particles and even
composite structures like fullerene balls- leaves your emitting source at every time, you still get an
interference pattern.
An acceptable explication is that each emitted particle hits the surface at all its valid positions at a
given time.
The Schroedinger's cat experiment is an imaginary experiment which aims to illustrate such a
superposed state of reality at an human scale. It literally leads to a both dead and alive cat.
Now back with the double-slit experiment, if you add into your experimentation some device to get
the exact position of every emitted photon before interference happens, the interference pattern
disappears.
The single act of "observing" such a superposed state of realities randomly selects one reality out of
the whole set, and what was "more or less real" turns into "more or less probable".
It's the same thing with the Schroedinger's cat experiment. That is, as soon as an observer opens
the cat's box, the observer's universe selects one of both realities. It's more a personal though, but if
the observer is himself confined in a box, an external observer can still consider the content of this
bigger box in term of superposed states. And so on.
Side question: What happens to the other realities -do they still exist in parallel universes- and
what/who favored this reality over the other? Your mind, some God? It's now a metaphysical
question.
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[] coolmichelle 1 point 3 years ago
Am I the only one that finally realized the right way to spell Schroedinger?
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[] gobblegourd 1 point 3 years ago
Can someone help a CS major here? Trying to know if I have the right idea.
Say I want to view the contents of the memory on my computer in its entirety and in the exact state
it is in. By opening a memory viewer application, my operating system will alter the contents of my
computer's memory and I am only able to view the memory after opening the memory viewer. Is
this the same as saying that the state of Schrdinger's cat cannot be known until the box is opened?
But instead of using a memory viewer, I could attach another piece of hardware to my computer
which could read the data from my memory without altering it. Is this similar to the find in the
article which OP posted?
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[] ImBored_YoureAmorous 1 point 3 years ago
The declaration of the cat being alive is arbitrary. They could have said that it's dead. They're merely
saying they can observe this wave-particle duality without making the "quantum object" collapse into
one state.
Also, look up his "Uncertainty Principle".
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[] rekirts 1 point 3 years ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
This video explains it pretty simple I guess.
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[] andrewjackson5 0 points 3 years ago
From wikipedia:
"The thought experiment went like this: A cat is placed in a room that is separated from the outside
world. A Geiger counter and a little bit of a radioactive element are in the room. Within some time,
say one hour, one of the atoms of the radioactive material may decay (or break down, this is
because the material is not stable), or it may not. The Geiger counter can measure that. If the
material breaks down, it will release poisonous gas, which will kill the cat.
The question now is: at the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead?
Schrdinger says that as long as the door is closed, the cat could be dead or alive. There is no way
to know until the door is opened.
The problem is in that by opening the room, the person is interfering with the experiment. The
person and the experiment have to be described with reference to each other. By looking at the
experiment the person has influenced the experiment. A famous physics theory (the Copenhagen
interpretation) said that the cat was both dead and alive until its observation proved it to be one or
the other (Superposition)."
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[] coolestpelican 1 point 3 years ago
basically the Copenhagen interpretation is very flawed, and we will probably someday complete
forget it, but for now its a stepping stone for the theory of how this all worka
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[] Bubzuzuz 0 points 3 years ago
Look, I still don't understand this. Maybe I'm going at it too literally. Is the idea that literally, the
'light switch' is off and on at the same time? I just don't understand this. Everyone I ask just says
"You're thinking about it wrong" "you're just too dumb to understand". I personally think the whole
thing is pretentious, but I still want to know what the fuck is going on. Someone once told me that
"It's not off AND on at the same time, but if you're not there to prove it, you should take both
possibilities into consideration". Is that true? Is that what all this means? I need this literally
explained like I'm five.
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[] fragglet 2 points 3 years ago
As humans we're used to dealing with things as we experience them in our everyday world where a light can either be on or off. But at tiny scales of particle physics they don't behave the
same, and if you think about it, there's no reason why they ought to behave the same. That's
why quantum physics is so difficult to understand - because it's describing things that are totally
alien to how we perceive the world.
As an example, suppose you have a wall with two holes in it. If you threw a ping-pong ball at the
wall, it can either go through one hole or the other, or neither. But if you do the same experiment
with electrons instead of ping-pong balls, you can find that the electron actually behaves like it
went through both holes. It seems weird because it seems like it goes against our common
sense, but there are mathematical descriptions that describe what's going on, and they hold up
to experiment. No matter how strange it may seem, in the end if it's what the evidence shows
then it must be true.
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[] colinsteadman 1 point 3 years ago
Let me try. There is an experiment called the double slit experiment. If you have a laser pointer,
three leads for an automatic pencil and a wall you can do the experiment yourself. To cut a long
story short, if you shine the laser through double slits (your three pencil leads held closely
together will give you double slits) you will see what they call an interference pattern on the wall
(a stripy pattern) as opposed to two points of light as you might expect (two slits, two beams of
light). When they thought about this they decided that light acts like a wave and the waves of
light were interfering with each other to produce the stripy pattern.
Imagine you have two waves and you put one wave on top of the other. You would end up with a
big wave. In the experiment, this would give you a spot on the wall. Now if you were to draw
waves on some paper you'd notice that wave have bottoms (valleys) as well as tops. So now
imagine what would happen if you have a wave top and a wave bottom. The wave top would kind
of fill up the wave bottom and you'd end up with nothing. Another easier way to think of this is if
you were 10 in debt with your bank and deposited 10 into your account, you would end up with
nothing in your account. And so it is with the wave top and wave bottom. Put them in the same
place and you end up with nothing, and therefore no spot on the wall.
So to move this forward they did the experiment again, but this time with single photons. Now
the photon can only go through one of the two slits, not both. Or do they thought, because
surprisingly they got the stripy pattern again (they sent lots of individual photons through the
experiment and recorded where they ended up - and seen all together, they give the stripy
pattern).
So the double slit experiment clearly shows that particles can be in two places at once (because
they end up interfering with themselves and cause the stripy interference pattern). However, if
you try and be clever and directly detect where the photon went, you break the wave and
suddenly the photon suddenly starts behaving like a single object again and you loose the
interference pattern.
Until now it was though that you'd never be able to make a measurement without breaking the
wave behaviour (ie the particle existing in more than one place at once). But this new experiment
claims to have done that. At least this is how I understand the whole show. Someone will
probably be along in a moment to explain why I'm wrong.
EDIT. Spellings.
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[] oblimo_2K12 1 point 3 years ago
Instead of a light switch, trying thinking of a coin. Imagine someone using the phrase "headstails duality" to describe the fact that a coin has two "opposite" sides -- heads and tails. Heads
and tails are opposing concepts, but the fact is that a coin has both. The only reason we think of
heads and tails as opposing concepts is the way our eyes are stuck in our skull. We can only side
one side at a time. If our eyes were on the ends of wiggly stalks, we could see both sides of one
coin at the same time.
Think of "wave" and "particle" like "heads" and "tails". There's this third thing, a "coin", that has
the property of head-ness and tail-ness. A photon isn't a wave or a particle, it's a third thing, like
a coin. And like a coin, our way of viewing the world prevents us from seeing a photon as a wave
and a particle at the same time -- but just as a coin always has head-ness and tail-ness, a
photon always has wave-ness and particle-ness.
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[] sud01 0 points 3 years ago
haha, the best sentence in that article "..allowing the researchers to inject an equal but opposite
change into the system that returned the qubit's frequency to the value it would have had if it had
not been measured at all." Whait what?!
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[] lewisthemusician 2 points 3 years ago
It's basically saying they peaked into the box but made it seem like they wern't as they made the
computer think that the box was closed still when actually it was open and they were peaking
inside
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[] testmypatience 1 point 3 years ago
The act of looking at something has an energy effect on that thing. So to correct that, they offset
the energy effect to see the original situation without the energy effect effecting it.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a laser that when shot into a room can measure
the temperature. The laser beam itself effects the temperature so its reading is off. So to get the
correct reading you take the temperature and offset it by the lasers temperature. I am thinking
this is also the type of thing they use with radar guns mounted on moving cop cars.
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[] sud01 1 point 3 years ago
Yeh, i understood the meaning of it.. its just funny. Thanks anyways.. good explanation.
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Is it that time of the week again?

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[] [deleted] -4 points 3 years ago
Schroedinger's cat isn't really alive. It's a weak observation because it's only letting you look at a
piece of the pie.
It's like trying to see if a car works, so they tested the cylinders and they work. So by there logic the
car should work.
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