subject: Quantum Physics For Dummies [print this page] These days, the buzzword is "Quantum Physics." As popular among researchers as it is among suburban soccer moms, it is important to have a grasp of the basics. Most important is the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment. So Schroedinger sits around with his buddies and says, "The cat shredded the drapes again. What if I put that thing in a box...no no, let me finish...and rigged it up with some poison gas?" Then his scientific mind started working. "Oh, but then I wouldn't know if the cat had died until I opened the box. Before I observe the cat, it would be 50% alive and 50% dead. I think I'll call this notion quantum indeterminacy: because poison doesn't kill cats, conscious observation does."
"Whenever I hear about Schroedinger's Cat," physicist Stephen Hawking once said, "I reach for my gun." The Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment is one of the underpinnings of quantum physics, and, ridiculous as it sounds, the concept is an intriguing one. Its conclusion is: consciously chosen observation has the power to change your world. How can this be?
We Are Made Up Of Star-Stuff
With his famous equation, E=MC2, Einstein showed that matter and energy were interchangeable. In quantum physics, the smallest unit of matter is not an atom or a proton - it is a quantum. Quanta are elementary particles of energy. Everything we consider to be "ourselves" is simply energy - quanta - whose interactions are ruled by the laws of quantum dynamics.
Schroedinger and Stephen Hawking were just clusters of elementary particles of energy having a disagreement. At any moment, either one of them could have obliterated the other from the face of their earth. Maybe they both did, multiple times over. Look through the people at a party, and have some fun with their mutable existences.
We Predict the Path Energy Takes
By observing the world as patterns of energy, you are given an "in" into the underpinnings of reality. If you don't want someone to exist, simply will them out of your observation. Leave the room. Quit the job. Poof! Negative situation no longer exists. You don't need to reach for your gun.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, consider the Two-Slit experiment. Electrons are fired through two slits at a wall behind. Like particles, they go through the slits, so one would assume that they land where they're aimed, as particles ought to do. But they don't - they land all over the wall, as if they were waves. They are in a state of quantum indeterminacy until the scientists shoot photons at them, at which point they behave exclusively like particles.
Our Observation Of The World Changes Our Reality
Therefore, we fundamentally change everything around and about ourselves. At the cocktail party, until you shoot photons at the electron stream of your thoughts by saying, "this guy's full of crap," you might stand there listening to Mr. Quantum Hot-Shot for the whole night, in a quantum indeterminate state. (You might even sit here reading this article all day.) By observing him from your own unique vantage point, you control how his energy works on you, or whether he even exists (for you). When everything is energy, your observations create your own reality.
As a business-owner and writer, I know I'm not a scientist. I don't quite understand quantum physics, nut do find it interesting. Of course, that doesn't really matter. I could be as dead as Schroedinger's cat, for all you know. Quantum physics is not about me, it is about you, and whatever illumination you can get out of it. The next time your boss asks you why you didn't turn in your report on time, you can say, "Pardon? I don't see any scientific proof that you exist." On second thought, maybe just keep that as a thought experiment. "Schroedinger's Boss."
