4 ms·
Quantum eraser experiment?
I ask, because I have been talking about it to a lot of people lately, and almost no one knows about it. That in itself wouldn't be surprising, but I talked to someone whom I think is a pretty serious mathematician, and he wasn't even aware of the double slit experiment.
I also talked to some kid just over halfway through a philosophy program, who had no idea what I was talking about.
Then, after finding an awesome video (with over 1.5M views) explaining the double split weirdness, I was hoping to find a good one on the quantum eraser.
I found a pretty good one, but nothing with that type of production.. but it had <8k views.
Plus the experiment was carried out only like 12 years ago, so I am beginning to think lots of people who would want their minds blown have not even had the opportunity
So if you don't know, it concludes that it is literally observation, or the ability to know something, that causes the 'collapse' of the wave.
Before this, there was a question of whether it was observation, or some unknown variable in the detectors themselves that was causing the change in behavior of the photons when watching the path they took.
Now, by setting up the detectors in such a way that the detection doesn't give you any information about their path, you don't see the change in behavior!
Great visual primer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc