Science Memes

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Electrons are easy (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago (23 children)

It's a point but it doesn't actually exist at any point. It exists in a cloud where it could exist anywhere in there.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (21 children)

You can observe it but doing so changes its behavior. Why? Well... Um... Maybe it's just the simulation breaking down?

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago (15 children)

It's because to observe something you have to interact with it. Dealing with particles is like playing pool in the dark and the only way you can tell where the balls are is by rolling other balls into them and listening for the sound it makes. Thing is, you now only know where the ball was, not what happened next.

In the quantum world, even a single photon can influence what another particle is doing. This is fundamentally why observation changes things.