Main

November 4, 2006

Double Slit Experiment

The infamous double slit experiment in Physics is one of those things that energized me when I saw it.

It shows how matter sometimes behaves like a particle and other times like a wave. Strangely, it's whether you're looking or not that makes the difference....

When you're not looking, they behave like a wave and appear to be everywhere at once - infinite positions in superposition. The instant you look, the wave collapses into a single location and reality is formed.

Think about this for a moment. The act of observing causes reality to be constructed. If you're not observing, all there is is potential.

See for yourself, click play:


Your act of observing causes the universe to manifest potentiality into reality. Better yet, you can choose to observe or not, or what to observe; in effect you manifest the reality around you through your choices.

Curiosity

I've always been curious. As a child, I would barrage my parents with "Why". Why is the sky blue? Why does the shape of the moon change? Why are there mountains in some places but not others? Whatever their answer, it satisfied only briefly before the next "why?". It was apparently incessant.

Not much has changed. I still wonder why things are the way they are. I also wonder why things are at all.

Thankfully, I'm not the only curious one. Groups of people who seek to understand "why things are the way they are" call themselves physicists, while others who ask "why things are" call themselves philosophers. Between them, they've accumulated tremendous bodies of knowledge in Physics and Philosophy. There's already much more there than a single human could grasp in a lifetime, yet both are still in their infancy. The more we dig, the more interesting things we find, and the more we realize how little we really know.

As I follow my curious tendencies, I often come across information that enthralls me. It energizes my curiosity and fuels my next move. I'd like to share some of the fascinating knowledge that I connect with along the way, and perhaps on occasion share an original thought, hoping to spark in you the fascination of discovery.