Beyond Weird Quotes

“Quantum objects may in principle have a number of observable properties, but we can’t gather them all (Copenhagenists might in fact say ‘elicit them’) in a single go, because they can’t all exist at once. And by gathering some we may scramble the values of others.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“So long as we don’t try to figure out which slit [electrons] go through, they will behave as if they go through both at once. But if we try to pin down which slit they pass through, they only go through one. The mere act of making the measurement – even if we can be pretty sure that the measurement shouldn’t obstruct or influence the electron’s path – appears to turn a wave into a particle. Yes, appears to. Does the electron really pass through both slits at once when we’re not looking at its path? Does it change from wave to particle when we do look? These are, according to Bohr’s view of quantum mechanics, illegitimate questions, precisely because they are insisting on some microscopic description underlying the measurements we make. Bohr argued that there is nothing in quantum mechanics that permits us to formulate such a description. That is not what the Schrödinger equation is about. It just predicts the outcomes of measurements.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“[W]hereas we might have been content enough to believe that electrons in a bright beam are wave-like and can be diffracted by the double slits, it is hard to understand how one-by-one passage of what seem to be particles (judging from the discrete bright spots that appear on the screen) can produce wave-like interference. We’re forced to conclude that ‘wave-like’ electrons can interfere with themselves.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“If different physics is ‘all’ you want, you can look (say) to Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity, in which motion and gravity slow time and bend space. That’s not easy to imagine, but I reckon you can do it. You just need to imagine time passing more slowly, distances contracting: distortions of your grid references. You can put those ideas into words. In quantum theory, words are blunt tools. We give names to things and processes, but those are just labels for concepts that cannot be properly, accurately expressed in any terms but their own.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“Cabe decir que los genios tienen más posibilidades de incurrir en el error que la media.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“Creer que el genio conlleva estar libre de error es malinterpretar la naturaleza de la creatividad y el entendimiento.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird