I mean, technically

They should just show this in physics classes and skip all the boring words.

I bet if you wait a few more years they'll be putting memes in science textbooks.

It doesn't work like this, popular misconception. It is cool in sci-fi though.

Agree to disagree!

WE ARE WAVE, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE (unless you measure us), your biological distinctiveness will receive energy and transmit it in a periodic fashion

You are wrong though.

Nothing to agree or disagree with, you're factually incorrect. The observer effect has nothing to do with whether someone's eyes are looking toward it or not. It basically just means when a process is happening and anything external occurs to it then that will change the way the process is happening.

I was curious, so I went to Wikipedia, as one does.

A notable example of the observer effect occurs in quantum mechanics, as demonstrated by the double-slit experiment. Physicists have found that observation of quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the measured results of this experiment. Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have been interpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.[3] However, the need for the "observer" to be conscious is not supported by scientific research, and has been pointed out as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process

Edit: erhm. this isnt an ad for Wikipedia. the words just shook out that way. lol

I think we all understand the joke is that the eyes represent the endpoint of the observation apparatus. That is the first panel is isolated and the second panel has a detector measuring the path that the scientist then looks at.

So yeah, "eyes" don't cause a waveform collapse. But how does a two panel cartoon with no words represent no interaction? First panel is blank?

only if you have robot eyes

Ha! That's what you think!

I'll have you know, I sawed the legs off that periodic table.

It's chaos I tell ya, all chaos!

Someone gets it

On the other hand, maybe our personal observation doesn't just cause a waveform to collapse, but also collapses a logical path for said wave backwards into time. This would mean that even the results of the initial observation only collapse at the moment you look at them.

If anybody still doesn't understand, when the wave function collapses, that is called observation. Again, from Wikipedia:

In various interpretations of quantum mechanics, wave function collapse, also called reduction of the state vector, occurs when a wave function—initially in a superposition of several eigenstates—reduces to a single eigenstate due to interaction with the external world. This interaction is called an observation and is the essence of a measurement in quantum mechanics, which connects the wave function with classical observables such as position and momentum.

Physics has this problem with naming things. They use words like "particle", "observation", and "spin", among others, which are words that every English speaker knows, but then they use those words to describe stuff that's actually only similar to the words everybody knows. This makes physics a lot more approachable for people who know nothing, but then completely confuses people with only a little knowledge.

In general, I agree, but spin is quite surprising in how much like angular momentum and dynamos it behaves. Either way, we don't know enough about it yet, and it's at best a coincidence.

That's not "litterally" how it works then, just "figuratively".

Nah, man, it's literally how it works (for all we know). The wave function doesn't collapse until the data is read. You can't prove otherwise, so people are free to believe it.

This was a joke. This is a joke community. I was being facetious when I said "literally".

However, there's truth in what I said. How do you know that the entire experimental setup is not in a superposition right up until you observe the result. I mean, you obviously have to look at the result of the experiment before you know what happened in the experiment, and until you do, the entire experiment could be in a superposition of [interference pattern] and [no interference pattern].

However, this is not really what the meme is saying, so I guess my joke was dumb, and I deserve the downvotes.

Words mean what people think they mean when they say them. Nothing else. Miscommunication can occur if the speaker and listener don't have the same concept in their head, but it doesn't change the fact that words are just people serializing their thoughts into sounds or text. Dictionaries are not prescriptive, they are documentative.

EDIT: In other words, "literally" is in literally the dictionary with a definition including how OP used it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

If you can't accept that, can you accept that they were being facetious? This is a joke community, after all.

To the downvoters: go read some semantic theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics

Not exactly. If I were to tell you that I believe in creationism and that the world is 6000 years old, but that it means what you think evolution and cosmology mean and that I'm just using different words, you probably still wouldn't want me teaching your kids in school about science.

Or, at least, I would hope not.

But the way it works is only the top one if im not mistaken

I mean, thats also how we got weird pseudoscience about how the universe shifts around our consciousness.

Its usually not made clear in school that things can only be measured by touching it or bouncing something off of it. On the macro scale, looking at something doesn't move the thing you're measuring because you're just capturing the abundant photons that are already bouncing off the thing in the billions per second. On the quantum scale, looking at something involves shooting particles at the thing, which is often comparable to measuring how big a cat is by trying to bounce a kickball off it and measuring the angle it rebounds. It works, but you can't expect the cat to continue behaving the same after being assaulted out of nowhere.

Okay but that's a dishonest argument. Sure reality is just perception and perception is unique to the individual. All that said words have meaning which we have agreed upon. Otherwise I could write gibberish, call it meaningful text, and prove anything. It's the fact that words have specific meanings which makes them useful. Otherwise it's baby talk and that's cute but not great for communication.

"Theory" is another bad one in all of science. That's what leads knuckleheads to saying dumb shit like "evolution is just a theory!"

Does the result of the experiment change if there's a sensor active that records data to a hard drive that no one ever looks at and it just gets deleted? Does the result change again if someone decides that if they get a wave pattern, they will interrupt the deletion process and look at the data?

So at what point in human evolution was one human conscious enough to have the first observation and therefore spring quantum mechanics into existence in the universe?

It's a matter for interpretation, but I think they used "literally" correctly, but they were just wrong on the science.

Like, if I say that when the sun appears over the horizon, it is literally plaid colored, I am using "literally" correctly, but the fact that I am conveying is wrong.

This makes physics a lot more approachable for people who know nothing, but then completely confuses people with only a little knowledge.

My favorite example of this is the use of "stress" and "strain". In common language they're synonyms, but in Physics they're definitely not.

Does the result of the experiment change if there's a sensor active that records data to a hard drive that no one ever looks at and it just gets deleted

Yes. It collapses the wave function. There is no need for something 'conscious' to count as an 'observer'.

Your second question is moot, because the first part counted as an observation.

Glob is awesome. IA! Fthagn!

It only kinda works like this. If you have two slits, looking at it or not, you will see the top one. Now, the really weird thing is that if you fire a single photon at a time, you will still get the top one over time, suggesting that the single photon is somehow going through both slits and interfering with itself to do so. But the even weirder thing is, if you place a detector in one of the two slits to check which slit the photon is going through? You suddenly get the bottom picture.

What if both human evolution and "other humans" follow the same unfolding? You'd create all of that in every moment. Even the memories and logistics needed for that. That would mean that there is only now and reality has been creating itself over and over again infinitely.

Haha, no I haven't. I don't believe in magic. I watch mainstream YouTube science channels, and not any "mystical" ones. PBS Spacetime, Dr Ben Miles, Quanta Magazine, Sabine Hossenfelder, etc.

So, I ask you: please design an experiment that proves the outcome is determined precisely when the detector detects the particle going through the slit, and not when a person observes the screen or a recording the detector made. You can't. You can't prove that the detector detected something until you look at the result, and until you do, for all you know, it's in a superposition. That's all I'm saying. You know, shorting your scat. Everyone knows the shorting your scat experiement.

I don't understand. How can they "get" a wave pattern if they didn't look at the data?

Yes, communication works best when people agree on what words mean, and a great, great many people have agreed that "literally" means things other than "literally". It's not gibberish to use it as such.

It's not a dishonest argument at all. Language is not prescriptive. It's constantly evolving. New words are invented all the time, and old words take on new meanings all the time.

Do you ever use "awesome" to mean "super cool"? Congratulations, you're misusing the word! How about "egregious" as in a bad error? Wrong! How about "fantastic" as meaning "wonderful" or "great"? Also wrong.

Even when words do have specific meaning, if you don't know the meaning they are useless to you, so it might as well be gibberish. Can you speak Swahili? Does that mean it's gibberish? Of course not.

Well, no. Not if you put a detector in one of the slits. It collapses the wave function, and the interference pattern disappears. The meme is a joke that your eyeballs are the detector, which is not true.

I was making a bit of a joke myself to get people to think about when the collapse actually happens. It could occur as late as when you look at the screen, and you can't prove otherwise. You know... like, "is the moon still there when you're not looking at it?" Except for real.

You have a stick up your butt. I observed it.

We were talking about colloquial use of a word like "literally", and not entire bodies of science being replaced with religious terms. Those two things are not even remotely similar.

The "for dummies" take-away I've heard is that the big mix-up is in confusion about the term "observer". Normal people use it to mean a person's attention, while physicists use the specific concept of an observer of a particle to mean another interacting particle.

Shout-out to floatheadphysics (Mahesh) for his video on spin. The way he steps through the learning process like it's a conversation with the giants that gave us the knowledge (based on their writings) and how he presents it with all the excitement of "getting it" is cathartic.

A reply to your edit: You need to work on your grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I can't understand a thing you're saying.

I'm KFC Double Downing on the double slits being doubly doubtful until you've observed the result.

shy proton theory

intference pattern by light wavelengths, used by many animals to give them those iridescent colors.

My understanding is. Every method of measurement influences the results.

I'm in cognitive sciences not physics. But it applies there as well.

The measurement method always interferes in some way with the result.

I have used this example with helping students understand research methods.

Doesn't matter how "non-interfering" you think your method is.

In some way or another, the act of measuring or the device used to measure (or both) changes the thing being measured.

Obviously any living creature can become entangled with the quantum experiment if you build the right apparatus. Build a machine that kills a cat if an atom decays, and you've made cats into quantum observers. When the cat observes the experiment by not dying, it collapses from the cat's point of view. When you observe the cat, it collapses from your point of view.

I mentioned my sources of science news specifically because you accused me of being misled by... somebody. So fuck off with your mockery of me for trying to disuade you of that notion.

This started as a joke, and you're just being an ass.