Sublime

Science has always used observation and experimentation to prove truths about the natural world. Indeed, the concept of the observer is central to a great deal of modern science.

John Wheeler, who studied under Bohr, underscored that observation not only brings the world into being but actually shapes it—an idea known as the “participatory universe.”

Quantum physics teaches us that the universe doesn’t work in a way that aligns with our everyday experience. It teaches that there are seemingly invisible connections between objects that are physically distant. It teaches that the mere act of observing can affect physical reality.

There is no need to analyse exactly how your credo is straightening out reality.

What causes this collapse? The debate rages on today, but Heisenberg writes: “The path of the electron comes into existence only when we observe it.” The act of observation itself seems to be the key to unlocking a particularly “local” reality out of the “non-local” probability wave of where the particle might be.

Somehow the photons always get it right, even if the choice to turn the path-tracking detectors on or off is delayed until after a given photon has passed through the partition.

Experiments in physics accumulated to show