Double Slit Experiment explained! by Jim Al-Khalili

As a game developer, I can tell you its for performance reasons. Why waste processing power rendering particle behavior when there is no observer to output to.

Getting this kind of thing free and recommended for you is definitely a positive of modern life

Even if we forget about thousands of other variations of this experiment with all the timetravel, causality breaking consequences, already the fact that a single atom behaves differently going through a single slit and double slit is enough to blow my mind.

Even though I struggled over this for the last 35 years I never stop to be amazed by this. And this explanation is simply clever AND cheerful. Cheers for that!

The people are laughing but just the mere thought of it runs chills down my spine

Seen this experiment described a dozen times,,,, this is about the best one. Bravo for helping my slow brain.

This issue is what sparked my everlasting curiosity in physics and quantum mechanics, just to fall down a rabbithole of hundreds of weird and confusing data from experiments that classical laws of physics just cannot explain. there's just so much unknown, and so much to discover and learn. This specific problem in quantum mechanics not only gives plausibility to an observers universe, but also in certain specific scenarios, it fully implicates direct time travel of photons as a normal working part of the universe

I hate how they never mention that the detector is something that has to interact with the atoms, which changes the the state of the wave.

I’d say one of the Best double-slit-experiment explanations on the internet. Fills you with awe and curiosity about this wonderful universe we get to experience.

I hope this analogy helps others to understand. When people say "observing" changed the result, they do not mean the physical act of watching the experiment - they mean the act of measurement changed the PROPERTY of the thing they were watching. My analogy; when you take your temperature, the thermometer you use SUCKS heat away from you (consider a metal teaspoon in a cup of tea, the spoon gets hot because heat energy is being transferred from the liquid to the spoon. The tea is actually getting cooler by transferring heat to the spoon) Therefore, the act of using an instrument to measure the temperature of something CHANGES the temperature of that very same thing. I believe this is the same thing (but of course, probably more complex) but am happy to be corrected. It's a layman's explanation which I feel stands up

I'm not a physicist, so most of the time I'm just going about my life. But periodically, every few years, I remember this experiment, and I remember there is something about it that I find eerie. I can never remember exactly what it is, so periodically I review the experiment as I just did with this video. And once again, I'm left with the disturbing feeling that something is very wrong with our reality. It's almost like we are not supposed to be aware of certain things, we aren't supposed to be observing them, and when we do, they are altered to keep us from seeing what's really there. If I was running a simulation and didn't want my simulated agents to discover they are in a simulation and start trying to hack their way out, I would implement something to prevent discovery of the fundamental nature of their reality. Every time they tried to look at the substrate of their existence, I would show them something other than the processor they were running on. I don't know about anyone else, but this experiment has caused me to increase my estimate of the probability that we are living in a simulation.

I have watched many of videos with Jim Al-Khalili, and I can say that he is very good at explaining complex things. Very much like Jacob Bronowski, James Burke and Carl Sagan.

How do you detect an atom without interacting with it?

I learned about the double slit experiment in high school and then again in college. I never understood it as well as from your presentation. Thank you.

As commented by some, I think what we perceive as atoms (just like electrons) may exist in a quantum cloud that's governed by higher-dimensional laws than we can detect. However, our detecting equipment may cause some tiny variations in those dimensions that account for this behavior. Figuring that out is obviously non-trivial, but imo that's where the answer lies.

My layman's theory: Photons generate very subtle gravitational waves in which they themselves travel. To prove this, one can try to disturb this wave with another device. The photon detector might actually interfere with this wave, which is why the result of the experiment is surprising.

I tried the double slit experiment at home. The wife was not impressed.

"According to quantum physics, you cannot "just" observe something. That is, quantum physics recognizes that to make a observation, you must interact with the object you are observing " - Stephen Hawking.

Best explanation out there. Made me finally visualize the two slit experiment. Unplugging the detector boggles the mind. My thoughts. When you take a measurement. You are making a call on energy much like a computer operating system to generate physical reality. When you unplug the measuring device whether you like it or not you have made your intention clear you no longer intend to take a measurement and reality corresponds accordingly.

It’s often given a sort of magical interpretation where just looking at something can alter the outcome. More like coming into contact with anything will always distort it to some degree.