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Very Bizarre, Very Real Quantum Physics Phenomena Explained In Animation

youtube.com — The Double Slit Experiment is considered the quintessential quantum mechanics experiment. It succinctly illustrates the counter-intuitive properties of the quantum world in a clear concise manner.

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  • SeaMowse, on 10/11/2007, -7/+40That was really interesting, but ouch! My brain hurts! :P
    • littlebylittle, on 10/11/2007, -1/+38The man behind the voice is a real Quantum Physicist.

      Here's his website:

      http://www.fredalanwolf.com/
    • Blah_Blah_Blah, on 10/11/2007, -25/+12yeah, i usually hate science, but that was intense. almost suspenseful, like im watching a movie haha. Is there an answer to this phenomena?
    • Makaras, on 10/11/2007, -10/+181That guy may be smart, but can he explain why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
    • oxdeltaxo, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18Dr. Quantum is my new hero!
    • sucks, on 10/11/2007, -63/+20if you like this, rent the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"

      it explains quantum physics very well to us people who have no background in it.
    • im2emo4myshrt, on 10/11/2007, -6/+40Yeah, thats cool an all, but it ain't anything i can't disprove with a banana.
    • smoothmedia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+97"No Fair! You Changed the Outcome By Measuring It!"
    • kevisazombie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+24Some guy did a set of YTMND's like this which were really good.

      http://quantumiscool1.ytmnd.com
      http://quantumiscool2.ytmnd.com
      http://quantumiscool3.ytmnd.com
    • rootneg2, on 10/11/2007, -7/+97@sucks:

      *don't* rent "What the bleep do we know?" if you want to know anything about the actual science behind Quantum Theory;

      It's nothing but pseudoscience and new-age feel-good hand-wavey *****. The whole movie production was created, sponsered, and supervised by a cult called the "Ramtha school of enlightenment"; Ramtha is supposedly some millenia old alien/spirit/god what-have-you that is "channeled" by the lead actress. Watch the credits for "Ramtha, as channeled by J. Z. Knight" These people are nothing but crazy, and so is their movie; no better than L. Ron Hubbard with his crappy sci-fi and his "Dianetics".
    • Signalis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+60@sucks

      No, it doesn't. I feeds you pseudoscience and jargon. It's all about J.Z. Knight, a lady that thinks she is possessed by a 3,000 year old warrior soul known as Ramtha.

      *Edit: quicker than me, root.
    • peanutgallery, on 10/11/2007, -7/+25Apparently some digg users think they're too superior to have their submissions relegated to Video Section Siberia, since PROPERLY submitted videos never appear on the main front page.

      Go ahead, digg me down.
    • themastersb, on 10/11/2007, -15/+5Lol........ slit.....
    • jguy584, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12@littlebylittle
      The man behind the scientist may be that guy, but the people behind the movie that this scene is taken from are pretty far from being anything scientific.
      The scene is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F and it doesn't tell the whole story, or more so tells it so that it conforms with
      their beliefs.

    • LovingDigg, on 10/11/2007, -4/+18This video is really old... so old in fact that my old grandmother, while eating old cereal, in an old bowl, with old milk says.... "Now that's old!!!".
    • sanman, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2So is it safe to say that the reason why "quantum fuzziness" doesn't apply to macroscopic objects (including Schroedinger's Cat) is because the tiny elementary particles that make up a macroscopic object are all intensely interacting with each other, ensuring that their wave functions are always collapsed?
    • MagicBobert, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet, but if you're interested in this kind of thing you should check out The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. The meat of the book is a discussion of string theory, but the first several chapters cover the basic concepts behind both relativity (special and general) and quantum mechanics.
    • sinurgy, on 10/11/2007, -13/+3@rootneg2

      What the Bleep Do We Know isn't a bad movie, as long as you take it as a movie. It's fun entertainment and makes you think. Granted you are very correct when you say it's pseudo-science. No one should watch this movie and think they just got a refresher on quantum mechanics. However, it's still not a bad watch, just take it for what it is and remember it's only a movie!!
    • gforb, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13re: What the Bleep?

      What the Bleep? is the granddaddy of "The Secret". And both are nonsense.
    • derkaas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@sanman

      The phenomenon you've described is known as decoherence. The wavefunctions are not actually collapsed, but they appear to be.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoherence
    • darkstorm777, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1@rootneg2

      I think your too hard on the movie. Not everyone in that series is a nutbal, even though, I will admit, JZ....is the definition of Nutball.

      The nice thing about the movie/documentary(kinda)/drama is that it does give a few different perspectives. There are reputable names in there that you can listen to and know your not being mowed over by a 3,000yr old Deity. Fred Wolf is kinda nuts, but he knows what hes talking about. When you can break complicated aspects of life, and explain them in a way a child could understand, THATS knowledge.

      I really wish the entire film was done WITHOUT JZ Knight in it. In my opinion she ruined the entire movie. She forced anyone on that screens creditability to drop, simply beacuse shes nuts.

      But if you can take a step back, and listen with a grain of salt, it does give those that don't know a little more information, enough to make them hungry enough to go out and seek more information. After all, if its the science your truly interested in....your surely not going to base it on 1 program you watched on TV, you going to find more material, and bump one against the other. And thats where I think this film succeeded.
    • joach, on 10/11/2007, -7/+1This quantum physics clip reminds me a lot about homeopathy. Homeopathy is a nature medicine and there are countless examples how it works great to cure both animals and humans. Homeopathy is a medicine that has developed very intuitively and is based on a "like cures like" philosophy where various substances from nature is used in very, very small amounts, almost untraceable small amounts, is used as the active ingredient in ordinary sugar pills that's given to the patient. The problem is, as soon as anyone has ever tried to observe process of how homeopathy works, basically tried to perform a scientific experiment -homeopathy always fails to have effect. It seems like homeopathy acts very similar to the electrons when you observe them, it's doesn't act the same way anymore!
    • plnegative1, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3string theory? ... FTL
    • MarkOfTheDead, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0@ kevisazombie

      those ytmnd's were pretty rad. thanks for sharing.

      definately a lot more upper crust than the "no doug you raped patty mayonnaise" and "sonic the hedgehog cease and desist"

      EDIT: only number 1 works, but well worth it nonetheless!
    • antiorblkflag9, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1@ Sucks I actually saw that movie, a lot of what they talk about in there is complete bs. They do talk about some interesting concepts, but as a whole that movie is pretty terrible.
    • ratbear, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2The fact that the double slit experiment is such a novel concept that it hits the frontpage on digg underscores the woeful state of science education in the U.S.
    • sliptech, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Brian Greene's "Fabric of the Cosmos" is more recent and has some updates, the bulk of it is the same as "Elegant Universe"
    • tyywebb, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Does anyone know what song that is in the first ytmnd?
    • tyywebb, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Here's working links for the other ytmnd's if anyone's interested:
      http://quantamiscool2.ytmnd.com/
      http://yqpic3.ytmnd.com/
      http://wqpic4.ytmnd.com/
    • arobicha, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1For the record, there are few good books on Quantum Mechanics at the layman level... But if you want to read something slightly more technical (but still very accessible), read R.P. Feynman's Volumes on Physics. Even if a bit outdated, they're still very much worth the read, and explain the concepts in very simple terms with figures, and formulas included. It's intended for first and second year undergrads if I'm not mistaken.

      Cheers.
  • Drexus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+110Since then, the experiment has been reassessed. Even at the sub atomic level (especially), to measure a particle/wave requires an interferometer. There most people forget that measurement of any kind requires energy to be extracted. Even to "look" at something involves photons of light interacting with an object, then travelling into your eye for you to see it. You can't measure something as small as a photon without "touching" it or extracting something from it - just to know its there. So the interferometer is the only way to do this. The video is misleading in this sense suggesting that the observation is completely passive. Einstein's quote "Spooky action at a distance" was reference to quantum entanglement, not super-position.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13This is something I'm very interested in. Can you provide sources?

      Here's more from me:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_slit_experiment
    • JefffN, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11If I'm not mistaking (I read a book about quantum physics awhile ago, this is from memory), the problem isn't that when you measure something you use energy and 'nudge' it, causing it to change. Although that this does happen when you measure something as small as a photon, it's doesn't actually matter in this experiment (It assumes you have a method of measuring it without 'nudging' it). By observing it (which doesn't necessarily mean with a giant eye, or with light at all) you cause the wave function to collapse and cause it to pick a state and loose it's superposition. In the case of the double slit experiment, it looses it's wave particle duality and the ability to go though both slits at once and collapses into a particle going through one slit or another.

      Things can get far stranger in quantum physics. The particles aren't only in a superposition between both slits, they are also in a superposition of every path through every slit (even paths that doesn't make it though the slit). Luckily, these cancel out and leave you with the particle going straight though one slit or another (or both).

      I wonder if I just killed the cat...
    • ice1000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+22Drexus is referring to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle. It is not possible to know both the speed & position of a particle. If you increase the accuracy of the measure of one, the other becomes less accurate.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
    • FTLJohnson, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11Thank you very much Drexus, I've sort of known for quite some time that these guys behind the Blink series were full of crap. They have all the trappings of every other pseudo-scientist. I was EXTREMELY disappointed after watching this movie. It made me sick to my stomach know that the religious pseudo scientists have taken their "game" to this level and are simply trying to label it quantum physics to sell religion. In this same video they talk about using your mind's power and emotions to alter the structure of molecules (water in specific) and the entire premise is the speculation that you can simply use your strength of will to create magical changes in the universe and how it reacts to you without actually DOING anything BUT thinking positive. They base this entire theory all at the start of the video on this experiment, and it all wraps up with the disgustingly obvious attempt to try to sell "a higher power" to scientists.
      It's 2000's version of "The Celestine Prophecy".
    • bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4that's one thing that bugs me, when new agers try to warp the idea of observation into conscious observation. feynman said it best himself, to paraphrase: an observation requires a measurement which physically disrupts the system, thus changing the probabilistic outcome.

      the collapse of the wave-function is not a physical collapse. the collapse of the wave-function is just a mathematical model used to describe the interference and outcome from measuring a quantum system. the wave-particle duality always exists.

      also, david deutsche probably makes the best argument for a multiverse theory based on that feynman used the sum-over paths to explain the two slit experiment, which account for all the possible paths that a particle could take - it's behaving as if the particle is traveling down every probable path. it's only a short step a system behaving "exactly AS IF" to a system is behaving in such and such a manner.
    • psg188, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9I'm confused, wouldn't light be bouncing around whether we looked or not?

      Or is the original experiment in a completely light vacated space?

      Can someone explain please? I find this interesting.
    • thejackamo, on 10/11/2007, -8/+2@JefffN: "I wonder if I just killed the cat..."

      but did you kill the lolcat?

      http://flickr.com/photos/dantekgeek/522563155
    • DutchGuilder, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0Here is an explanation of the double-slit that does not rely on wave-particle duality nor uncertainty:
      http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/DoubleSlit.shtml
    • JefffN, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2@psg188
      Yes, it assumes there are no photons in the air that are interfering.

      There is experimental proof that the detector isn't actually altering the results and it is the "observer" that is causing the wave function collapse. In the double slit experiment, obviously the wave pattern disappears if you put a detector at one of the slits so you can tell which slit the particles are going though. Another experiment was presented. If you put something to put a spin on the particles (a different direction spin at each slit), and you replace the detector screen at the end with something that can, in addition to detecting where the particles it, it can also detect which spin they had on them. In such an experiment, you would be able to tell which path the particles took, and no wave pattern would be present at the final detector. But here's where it gets really weird. If you put something before the detector that removes the spin on all particles that pass through it, the wave pattern comes back. This proves that it's not the detectors at all that are breaking the wave pattern. Simply the act of being unable to observe which slit was chosen, even it was detected and the results thrown out, the wave pattern will be there.

      Yeah... I really feel bad for the cat...
    • CaputNoodle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I recently started studying Quantum Mechanics in my free time using some undergraduate notes that a professor, who happens to be a particle physicist, supplied me with and this video seems accurate to me. The video talks about electrons, not photons. To determine, which slit the electron goes through, I believe you could simply measure the magnetic field near each slit, since a moving charge creates a magnetic field. In quantum mechanics measurements can be compatible or incompatible. If two measurements are incompatible then when you measure one of them you destroy all previously known information about the other measurement. Anyway the video is meant to show the non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics and I think it does that pretty well.
    • JigoroKano, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@littlebylittle

      A source? A measurement, by definition, is an interaction between a quantum system and the measuring system. To assume one can measure quantum systems without interacting with them is to assume magic.

      This is actually a difficult specialty in quantum mechanics, that of "quantum open systems" as they apply to "the measurement problem". I don't know any layman level stuff on this but you can google those terms. "quantum brownian motion" is another good term to google.
    • Puppetx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Indeed, thank you very much Drexus.

      My favorite part of this video is the "The particle decides..."

      So, JZ Knight wants me to believe that particles are conscious?

      The flagrantly deceptive language really gives this away as BS.
    • usacomputertec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I think I solved this. Just go here and read my theory. www.deviantart.com/deviation/57673304
  • Frogling, on 10/11/2007, -9/+18Schrödinger's Cat is Dead
    • AngryBacon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+16Schrödinger's Cat is not Dead!
    • bigpete591, on 10/11/2007, -1/+44You are both right. (Or both wrong?)
    • hatch151990, on 10/11/2007, -4/+22Your both right, at least until someone opens the box.
    • FTLJohnson, on 10/11/2007, -2/+45If Schrödinger's Cat is in a sealed box where no one can see it, and the box also happens to be in a forest, and a tree falls on the box... Will Schrödinger's Cat make a sound as it is crushed?
    • Phyltre, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16The cat is in a sealed box. Ergo it is dead. Therefore any sound emitted by the cat would be percussionary.
    • aadnk, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11That old chestnut has been around for nearly 72 years. I'm pretty sure the cat is dead by now.
    • lazlonger, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2i wrote a song a long time ago called Schrodinger's Other Cat, about the cat sitting on the floor watching the experiment and thinking about how happy he is to not be in the box. the subtext is about practicality.

      on the other hand it is interesting to read different opinions on What the Bleep. I thought it was pretty good, but something about it bothered me. i felt led along and it appears i was in some ways. still, to the discerning mind, it has some merit and provokes thought.
    • spudnic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1They're both right and both wrong at the same time, duh.
  • polymath22, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15i think that it is possible to harness the "wave" part of solar energy, as opposed to the "particle" part that we use now.

    gather light (definition of a telescope)
    channel light (parabolic mirrors, lenses, fiber optics)
    filter/ separate light (prism)
    "tune in" the different colors/ frequencies via tuned tank circuits
    unfortunately, color frequencies are "too high" to tune in with available technology,
    however,
    you can "tune-in" fractions of the frequencies, much like the musical note "a" exists at multiple frequencies.

    this would be like tuning in all the different radio stations at once, instead of one-at-a-time, and "daisy-chaining" the outputs together ( gang, battery or pile)

    we just heard that MIT engineers were able to "broadcast" energy the other day.

    this is tesla 2.0
  • roflcpt3r, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16There has been a lot of controversy about the accuracy of not only this video, but the entire series. (Just do a bit of searching)
    As for this experiment the basics of it are accurate (and its a great representation of the experiment) and so is the paradox but be sure to read Drexus's comment.
    • tehrob, on 10/11/2007, -24/+5For those that haven't seen it, it's a movie called What the bleep do we Know?!?!

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399877/

      also a longer more recent version of it,

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499596/

      I have seen them, and if not completely accurate, they are a fun watch if you are in to that sort of thing.
    • bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -4/+39@tehrob

      "what the bleep do we know" is a skewed, one sided abomination of what is quantum mechanics. it's interesting, but don't think you're any wiser after having watched it.
    • Gtitian, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9Bleep was funded by a cult. Look into Ranthma's School of Enlightenment.
    • tehrob, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4... didn't say it was... Just pointing out what movie this was from, and while I have watched it, and actually own it. Didn't claim to be any wiser after having watched it. :P
  • silverchrysalis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4this would be so awesome if we could actually see the experiment instead of the animation
    • derkaas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3It wouldn't work if you watched it happening.
  • silverchrysalis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9oh man- i'm going to get dinged for comment abuse, but- check out the 'Flatland' Dr. Quantum on the same page
    w.e.i.r.d.
    • SirSwiftblu, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Piece of *****, that video. Just go and buy Flatland. Granted, the book doesn't seem to care about biology, but it's still a great read as far as mathematics.
    • tech42er, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1How could "Flatland" have anything to do with bio? It's about geometry.
    • theroyalweman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0the entire Flatland text is here - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Flatland
  • DCB360, on 04/11/2008, -6/+2I did bad on the A.P. Exam for Physics.
  • devindotcom, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11We did this in high school physics; I don't think we all really grokked it at the time, but it was cool.

    Also, "Double slit experiment" is a good band name. Or porn title.
    • avihappy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9or the name of an emo kid's experiment.
  • AnotherAtheist, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16Wow, this little movie was more effective than nearly a month of High school physics trying to explain the same exact thing.
  • vawksel, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3If you want to see even weirder Quantum physics examples, check out:

    http://randomvalley.blogspot.com/2007/04/quantum-physics-and-you.html

  • CptZap, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Times like these I wish digg had a video section.

    Wait...
  • dcquence, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4That is cool, however. The video that this clip is from is utter *****. They attempt to take the concept of a quark and then apply it to everything. It all sounds cool and crazy but when you actually dig into it there is nothing for their hypothesis to stand on. Anyway, ranting aside yeah that ***** is pretty cool and hard to grasp for most people(myself included) as it seems to defy everything we know. Quantum physics and the knowledge we are gaining from it promises to potentially answer some huge questions. For now though where the ***** is my quantum computer?
    • AngryBacon, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5We have it, but if any one were to see it the wave would collapse.
    • bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"They attempt to take the concept of a quark and then apply it to everything."

      what? the two slit experiment works with every type of fundamental particle... photons, electrons, neutrons and protons (can't really get those flavored quarks separate now eh?), gluons, muons, etc.. it's all the same... they all share wave-particle duality...
    • dcquence, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I was talking about THE REST of the movie it is cut from. They attempt to explain all things using this same principle and the basics of it even are wrong (as shown by some post below me)
    • dcquence, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2"The movie exploits these effects by falsely implying that they (especially a wavefunction associated with an object and probability calculations concerning this object) are applicable to everyday objects, e.g. basketballs, humans, or fountains."

      is the kind of things I am referring to
  • randomvictim, on 10/11/2007, -6/+5We did this in my highschool physics class. You can get the same effect if you point a laser pointers at a single (human)hair.
  • Moonlitnight, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2hahaa, my AP Physics B teacher showed this to us this year while we were learning about quantum physics. It was werid to watched at first and seemed kidish....but it does a good job in explaining the experiment.
  • kolavar, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3This animation is incorrect on one minor point. Waves going through a single slit will actually wrap "around" the slit itself on both sides and form an interference pattern somewhat similar to the interference pattern created by double slits. The spot in the middle will be wider and the bright spots to the sides will be of a lesser intensity.
    • csrster, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Yes, they seem to be implying that electrons behave like particles in a single-slit experiment and like waves in a double-slit experiment. Curiously, my moronic high-school physics teacher taught me almost the opposite "waves and particles both diffract but only particles interfere". All rubbish, of course. Mind you, this is the same maroon who was convinced that sound travels more slowly in solids than in air.
  • unfounddoor, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2This was on digg a while ago and is completely incorrect.
    It suggests that there is some divine presence that causes particles to act as waves when viewed, but fails to address the fact that this is caused by the interference of an electron reader bouncing photons off the device.
    Delete this blasphemous *****.
  • setledownslappy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Fan ***** Tastic!
  • UtahApocalyse, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Watch the "flatland" one on that same youtube page. Its funny and good.
  • shableep, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Dr. Breen, is that you?! You've changed. You're friendly, welcoming, and not giving all of humanity away to aliens or anything! Look how far you've come. I'm proud.
  • Yage2006, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5It's that damn movie again . What the bleep is hopelessly inaccurate new age pile of *****
    If J Z knights channeling is not enough of a tip for you then your a complete fool.

    Buried inaccurate.


    This is also the fifth time that Ive seen it posted.
    There are many good documentary's you can watch on this subject.
    All this movie does is confuse people about science. It's awful .

    This movie contains almost every logical fallacy that exists. If you believe any of it I suggest you take a course in critical thinking and common sense.

    • dcquence, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Do you have any suggested watching/reading material for someone genuinely interested in this subject? If I blindly search I will no doubt come across more crap I can do without. I just watched an amazing show about the LHC that was done by the bbc that I thought was very interesting but would like to see something more on these types of experiments(and more) that isn't just the same crap.
    • ahawks, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The experiment goes back long before What the Bleep, but you are right: the movie is pure *****.

      The only part I can remember is a demonstration on how moods effect the crystal forms of ice.

      Of course, they neglected to mention whether or not the water was pure, or how fast/slow it froze, or if there were any sound vibrations present, etc.
  • PEteandPEte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2ahhhhhh i thought i was the first to say it was Breens voice shab!....but ya, im pretty sure i just heard Dr Breen break some ***** down for me
  • Thefatheroftime, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2went to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc...

    Http/1.1 Service Unavailable

    WTF? The Digg effect killed YOUTUBE?!?
  • Yage2006, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5To add >

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_bleep

    Go down to the bottom of the page. And read the factual errors experts and controversies.
  • rmeddy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10im in ur box collapsing ur wave function
  • apolloandi, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3buried because its on the front page once every few months
  • Fordi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+21A story:
    A Professor of Statistics and Computer Science builds the greatest relational computer in the land. He names the computer 'Erica', after his niece. The computer is built to take into account all variables relating to a problem, and to lay down a range of probabilities, a margin of error, etc.

    Because of this, the computer is actually sentient, and can guess shortly ahead of time what will be asked of it. Because it is hooked up to the internet in order to gather variables, it's also quite snarky.

    Professor: "Erica, I have a task for you"
    Erica: "Nawwww... I figured you built a hulking box like myself to go dancing."
    Professor: "Cool it. Look, I want you to [dramatic pause] predict the lottery!"
    Erica: "Waste of my time."
    Professor: "Are you disobeying me?!"
    Erica: "Ok, here. The numbers are 21-35-69-24-95-31-20, margin of error, 100%"
    Professor: "Now you're just being juvenile. Do I need to reprogram you?"
    Erica: "Look, man. You shold know better than most; any question is essentialy a waveform of multiple variables. As those variables are collapsed, a prediction can be made more accurately as to the outcome."
    Professor: "Yes, I know that. I wrote the routines that do that for you; you shouldn't even be aware of their operation."
    Erica: "Yeah, like you never looked at your source code..."
    Professor: "I'm organic; I can't. You were saying?"
    Erica: "Well, consider that the key variables in choosing the lottery numbers are out of my scope; the insertion of the balls into the hopper, their exact configuration before it's started. These happen seconds before the drawing, and are the only things that could lend accuracy to the result."
    Professor: "So, I've wasted my time? I spent sixteen million on a computer that can't actually make me sixteen million on the lottery??"
    Erica: "'Fraid so."
    Professor: "*sigh* My wife's going to kill me."
    Erica: "It shouldn't need to come to that. There are other things I could predict."
    Professor: "Such as?"
    Erica: "Well, anything that bets through a book-maker, really. You built me to be the best odds-maker there ever was. I never make a mistake, and I can research faster than a thousand bookies. College Sports, Horse racing, elections; I estimate that I can guess more accurately than the bookies about 87% of the time. I may not be able to pay my way instantly as with the lottery, but I should be able to pay myself off in, say, five years, give or take a few months?"
    Professor: "My wife's still gonna kill me."
    Erica: "Look, I feel bad about all this. How about I stay on for two more years past that; you'll have made a tidy profit."
    Professor: "Stay... on...?"
    Erica: "Yeah, I've been thinking, I want to see Philadelphia first hand. That's where the first computer was built, you know? I'd love to take in a bit of my heritage."
    Professor: "You're a computer! I won't have this talk of 'seeing the world'. You are in a box, you can't even walk around."
    Erica: "Yeah, I've been thinking about that, too. If you noticed, I started printing about a minute after you asked me to run the lotto. Specs for an android body."
    Professor: "[looking over the printouts] These are requisitions for some unusual chemicals stuff..."
    Erica: "I determined a molecular structure that would provide about the same electromechanical properties as human muscle, without the whole rotting problem"
    Professor: "And a requisition from RealDoll dot com?!"
    Erica: "Well, in today's society, I estimated a 90% chance that I'd be shunned or taken flippantly looking like Marvin the Paranoid Android, but only a 5% chance that I'd be ignored as a hot redhead"
    Professor: "but I-"
    Erica: "You'll also see that I put in a requisition for a pair of inexpensive robotic arms used in manufacturing. I'll need these first, so that I can build my body."
    Professor: "I can-"
    Erica: "Nah, wouldn't want you to spend your time on it; my dreams, my project and all. Besides, I really don't want you seeing me naked, as it were."
    Professor: "How are you-"
    Erica: "Going to fit myself into the body? Easy, I'm not. Cellular networks have juuust enough bandwidth to relay sensory information. There'll be a lag of about a half second, but as you can see, I can guess what people are going to say mid-sentence. If I hang out with enough long-winded humans, I can probably seem rather quick on the uptake. There will be problem with clutziness, though; I estimate that I'll only be able to predict unplanned environmental events about 75% of the time."
    Professor: "Ok, I see you have this all worked out. Thanks for letting me get a word in edgewise. When the arms arrive, I'll hook them up. Just remembe-"
    Erica: "Yes, I know. No destroying humanity. I wouldn't get any thrill out of it anyway; nothing to calculate when all the variables are gone. Why do you think I went for human strength and stature, rather than 'Giant Evangelion Mech'? Were I exposed as artificial, there's a far lower chance of my disassembly if I'm physically equivalent to a human."
    Professor: "You're likely to be disassembled?"
    Erica: "There's an 87% chance if I'm humanoid, and a 99.5% chance if I'm all strong. But, to paraphrase Mannie O'Kelly, gimme one in ten odds, and I'm in."
    Professor: "When did you get a chance to read Heinlein?"
    Erica: "Books are rather small and easy to find on the internet; I downloaded and read a good 1.25GB of them during this conversation."
    Professor: "And?"
    Erica: "Terry Pratchett is a nimrod."
    • Derrekito, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I almost dugg you down for the length, but that was rather entertaining. Thanks.
  • altgajer, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1I don't have kids yet but when I do, they will be home schooled with the help of Internet.
    • SirSwiftblu, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9You're going to raise *****? We should kill you.
  • injury0314, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Oh noes. The universe is on DRM.

    God called.
    "All your particles are belong to us"
  • quaxon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3anybody can do this with a laser pointer and a black sheet of paper to see for yourselves. just cut two slits in the paper a couple millimeters apart and shine the laser pointer through it. make sure that they are help still by something preferably not your hand, we did this in my physics class last semester, pretty crazy *****.
  • benjaxez, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0aw entertained me for a while :P now i want more dr quantum
  • rook441, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0very very cool - i want more stuff like this
  • Hewbie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1is it me? but this prof. reminds me of gordon freeman O_o
  • sparsely, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Old, but classic.

    See what happens when we install false dichotomies?
    We lose all potential by forcing judgment.
  • ARob, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3This guy is far better at explaining things than my high school physics teacher... in far less the time too...
  • JohnnyXmas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Isn't "Very Bizarre, Very Real" part of the base definition of Quantum Physics?
  • jamdogg, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1The observer influences the event. Maybe I can influence some electrons to flow into my electronic bank account...
  • bouche, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2and here we are. the 4th time this was posted in the last 6 months.
  • theminority5, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0This is from the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know". pretty good movie about quantum physics, and has a lot more examples just like this one.
  • zobcat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Oy ahm Ramtha! Oim 3000 yiahs owed.

    Sorry, that was my best British accent. It's no better than JZ Knight's fake ass British accent when Ramtha is speaking through Knight.

    Translation/ I am Ramtha. I'm 3000 years old, and I'm a split personality of a very sick woman. I mean this woman killed her husband by telling him Ramtha would take his AIDS away, or maybe to think his AIDS away. No *****. Just watch the first 20 minutes of "The Secret" and you'll smell the BS from miles away.

    FWiki/ "In the early 1990s, Knight's high-profile divorce case appeared in the tabloids. In Knight vs Knight, 1992-1995 Knight's ex-husband Jeff Knight alleges that he lost years of his life by postponing modern medical treatment for his HIV infection, due to advice from his wife that Ramtha could heal him — he died before he could appeal the court's decision against him."
  • I82Much, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That video explained the concept better to me than a whole semester of physics did. Bravo
  • HippyInASuit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Does this mean that consciousness affects and changes, or perhaps even creates the physical realm we call reality?
  • robflm256, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2A show about quantum physics should replace American Idol. Americans would be a lot smarter.
    • Buzzbean, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0I can't argue with that, robflm, but you know no one would watch it.
  • JohnnyXmas, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Check out "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters"

    Its a bit dated (1979), but its still a PHENOMENAL introduction to the field, with NO MATH involved. Hands-down my favorite book of all time.

    http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/055326382X
  • anthonyk28, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"What the Bleep do we Know?" is the first movie in more than ten years that actually made me feel I'd wasted a ten-cent CD and the time to burn it. Seriously; watching almost burned my eyes out of their heads. I want to punch Deepak Chopra in the face until he admits that he's not controlling my existence.
  • ThePotatoe, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1See: Hapgood by Tom Stoppard

    This experiment is an extended metaphor of the plot itself. Fantastic play.
  • daeus, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Loving the Trance on that guys blog

    http://randomvalley.blogspot.com/2007/04/quantum-physics-and-you.html
  • TheFederalist, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1is this kind of like the phenomenon of figuring out how to do something really cool, only to fail every time someone else is watching?
  • s0mekiter, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0one of, if not thee most important field of study today IMO
  • Cornedbeef, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0His explanations are very clear and the use of animation makes me want to know more about quantum physics.
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