The deep magic of quantum physics

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What do you know about quantum physics? Even a humanities student like me understands that physics and quantum physics study slightly different things.

At the same time, physics in general is the science of nature, which studies how the world works and how all objects and bodies interact with each other. As a branch of physics, quantum mechanics studies our world at its deepest level. The fact is that everything that surrounds us consists of atoms. Why, even you and I are nothing more than an ensemble of atoms that originated in the cores of supernovae. Moreover, this area of physics is so complex that many scientists admit that they do not understand it well. Given the growing number of unanswered questions and some similarities between quantum physics and magic, it is incredibly attractive, but it can be misleading, as many charlatans and pseudoscientists successfully do. In this article, we will try to understand why quantum physics is so similar to magic.

A photon is an elementary particle that has no mass and can exist in a vacuum, moving at the speed of light. The photon's electric charge is also zero.

Nobody in the world understands quantum mechanics

We all love magic tricks. Especially those during which the magician can make the balls "jump" between inverted cups. In quantum systems, where the properties of an object, including its location, can vary depending on how you observe it, such feats should be possible without sleight of hand. The fact is that, according to quantum theory, an elementary particle acquires a certain state only at the moment of observation. It's hard to believe, but in the end, scientists were able to experimentally prove, using a single photon, that it exists in three places at the same time. But how is this possible?

One of the most famous quantum experiments is the double-slit experiment, which showed that light and matter can behave like a particle and a wave at the same time.

It should be noted that Albert Einstein was interested in the successes of quantum mechanics - with the help of which one can accurately describe the behavior of atoms and elementary particles. However, the brilliant scientist opposed this theory and ridiculed the concept that underlies it - confusion. In quantum mechanics, entanglement means that the properties of one particle can immediately affect the properties of another, regardless of the distance between them.

Subsequently, a series of elaborate experiments showed that Einstein was wrong: entanglement is real and no other theory can explain its strange effects. And yet, despite the ability of quantum theory to explain results experimentally, many scientists recognize that quantum physics is so complex that it is hardly possible to understand it.

However, entanglement is not the only phenomenon that separates quantum theory from classical theory. According to some physicists, there is another shocking fact about quantum reality that is often overlooked and which adds to the "magic" of this area of theoretical physics. According to The New Scientist, In 1967 Simon Cochen and Ernst Specker mathematically proved that even for one quantum object, where entanglement is impossible, the values you get when measuring its properties depend on the situation in which this object is located. Thus, the value of property A depends on whether you choose to measure it using property B or using property C. In simple terms, there is no reality independent of the choice of measurement.

The magic of reality

Agree, all this is at least strange and makes the brain literally burst at the seams. After all, it turns out that the presence of an observer determines the fate of the system and forces it to make a choice in favor of one state. But isn't this an interference of consciousness into material reality? And if we take into account that a photon of light can simultaneously be both a particle and a wave and be in three places at once, then in what world do we generally live? Is this proof of the existence of parallel realities with the same laws of physics?

And this is just a part of the questions to which modern physics has no answers. Till. However, everything unknown from ancient times frightened a person. Sometimes people are ready to believe anything, as long as there is at least one - and it doesn't matter which - answer. For this reason, it is not at all surprising that all kinds of charlatans and pseudoscientists are so fond of quantum physics. If, for the sake of interest, turn on REN TV, then you can stumble upon one of the programs about the other world, in which another pseudo-scientist acts as an expert. In 99 cases out of 100, his false explanation of the world order will include at least one mention of quantum physics. At the same time, any pseudoscientist briskly flaunts such scientific terms as electron, photon and entanglement in order to gain a more or less reliable appearance in the eyes of an inexperienced viewer.

Sometimes it even seems to me that any self-respecting charlatan is simply obliged to have a speech about the secrets of quantum physics in his repertoire. After all, scientists have practically nothing to argue with their claims that quantum mechanics is a mystery to scientists. Isn't it convenient? Popularization of such ideas can result in a false view of the world for a large number of people. Ideas like these also contribute to the penchant for alternative medicine and the laying on of hands for dangerous diseases. So, from TV screens, esotericists with foam at the mouth prove that thought is material because quantum physics is here, and home-grown biologists weave quantum physics into their groundless ideas about the wave genome, etc. All this contributes to the development of magical thinking, which I wrote about in more detail earlier, and the growth of myths and misconceptions about the world in which we live.

Meanwhile, quantum physics is real magic. The magic of reality. Yes, we do not understand a lot and do not know the answers to the questions that are generated by quantum entanglement and the results of numerous experiments, including Schrödinger's cat, about which my colleague Nikolai Khizhnyak wrote earlier. At the same time, reality is much more interesting than fiction, because we do not know so much about it: our Universe is 95% composed of mysterious dark matter, and there is also dark energy, which is responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. Moreover, at the deepest level, our world consists of the smallest particles that can be in several places at the same time and behave differently depending on whether we are watching them or not. If this is not the magic of reality, then what is reality ?.

At the same time, science has already provided many answers to the most important questions about our world. Anyway, I think there is nothing wrong with not knowing something and not understanding quantum physics. The main thing is our ability to know as much as possible, to know the Universe. Which, most likely, also knows itself through us.