Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

the data force us to treat quantum mechanics with utmost respect, and so we scientists have worked tirelessly to make sense of this counterintuitive feature.36 The problem is, the more we’ve worked, the weirder things have become. There is nothing in the quantum equations that shows how reality transitions from the fuzzy mixture of many possibilities to the single definite outcome you witness upon undertaking a measurement. In fact, if we assume—as seems utterly sensible—that the same successful quantum equations apply not just to the electrons (and other particles) you may be studying but also to the electrons (and other particles) that make up your equipment, and those making up you, and those making up your brain, then according to the mathematics the transition shouldn’t happen at all. If an electron is hovering both here and there, then your equipment should find that it is both here and there, and upon reading the equipment’s display, your brain should think the electron is both here and there. That is, after you perform a measurement, the quantum fuzziness of the particles you are studying should infect your equipment, your brain, and presumably your conscious awareness, causing your thoughts to hover in a fuzzy mixture of multiple outcomes. And yet, after each and every measurement, you report nothing of the sort. You report that you witnessed a single, definite result. The challenge, known as the quantum measurement problem, is to resolve the puzzling disparity be...