Do electrons hate being watched?

A quantum tale of shy particles, paparazzi photons, and purple pills.

I’ve never been much good at mathematics, and I could only ever grasp physics when it was made to “feel” more tangible to me. I still have trouble with that whole thrust works in a vacuum idea. So, when I come across an intriguing bit of association - often through cartoons or my old social haunt of Dungeons & Dragons - I tend to go all esoteric and weave bizarre analogies and connections so that I can better grasp it. That’s probably why I loved the James Burke show: Connections! On to this evening, and I saw a clip on the concept of “corpuscular” and “wave” motions and patterns --> off down the rabbit hole I went!

So, from what I can manage to bang into my brain:

In 1801, Thomas Young did a curious thing with a couple of slits in a plank of wood. He passed light through them and noticed something unexpected - the light didn’t behave like a simple stream of particles. Instead, it spread out and created an interference pattern, just like overlapping ripples on a pond.

That was strange!

If light were made of particles, it should have formed two neat bands on the screen behind the slits. But no! Instead, the light seemed to act like a wave, bending and bouncing in ways that didn’t quite fit the neat, tidy logic of physics at the time. Young had crowbarred open a door to a much deeper mystery. Fast-forward about a century or so, and scientists decided to try the same experiment with electrons...and that is when things got really bizarre.

Picture this: You’re at a party, dancing like no one’s watching. You’re free, wild, a wave of possibilities. But the moment someone pulls out their phone to film you... boom... you freeze, caught in the spotlight, suddenly self-conscious. That’s kind of what electrons do in the famous double-slit experiment.

When unobserved, electrons are carefree, behaving like waves. They pass through both slits simultaneously, creating beautiful interference patterns - a dance of possibility, not certainty. But, the moment we try to observe them, they change their act entirely - determinedly performing as particles and choosing one path, or the other to form two distinct bands.

But why? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle holds the key. You can measure an electron’s position or its momentum, but never both with complete precision. To observe which slit the electron passes through, you must interact with it - usually by bouncing a photon (light particle) off it. This interaction disturbs its momentum, forcing the electron to collapse into a more mundane, particle-like state.

In essence, the moment you watch, you change the reality you’re trying to observe - the very act of observing changes reality at the quantum level. A cosmic game of "Red Light - Green Light", written into the universe’s deepest laws. (Hopefully, the photons and electrons haven't yet watched Squid Game...)

So, it’s almost as if the electrons are aware and prefer to move unnoticed, undisturbed by the prying gaze of curious scientists. Or perhaps they’re like a nervous man at a urinal, unable to perform when someone’s watching. Akin to that fabled watched pot that never boils, electrons refuse to reveal their wave-like selves under direct scrutiny. Just as Heisenberg found: reality becomes slippery when we try to grasp it too tightly. Measure an electron’s position, and its momentum vanishes into uncertainty.

Immanuel Kant would nod knowingly, reminding us that the world we see is not the world as it is, but as our minds construct it (and, sometimes, as our minds are conditioned to see it: "There are four lights!"). But, it all feels uncomfortably familiar, doesn’t it? Like Schr?dinger’s cat, existing in a strange in-between state until someone dares to look in the box. Or Zeno’s paradox, endlessly approaching certainty but never quite arriving. And then there's Einstein, ever skeptical of quantum absurdity, he remarked that “God does not play dice with the universe.” Still, it could be that the joke was on him - because the dice aren’t just rolling; they’re rolling and standing still, their state determined by our act of observation.

Or maybe God prefers marbles (hints of those infamous MiB lockers), and we’re all merely being flicked across cosmic planes, rolling around in dimensions and diversities beyond our grasp - each collision rippling and echoing with possibilities we can never know… And what about the ones-and-zeros of Neo? He chose the red pill and ventured down a rabbit hole of his own...maybe? Or maybe it’s all one and the same (or nothing at all)? What if there’s an even more enigmatic purple pill - the one that lets you linger at the edge of the mystery, laughing at the absurdity, while reality continues to blur and reshape around you? One pill to view them all and in uncertainty guide them!

Is reality always a complex collaboration - a chaotically ordered oxymoron of what is and how we see it?

Perhaps the electrons are trying to tell us something far stranger than we imagined: Reality is always shifting, shaped by both what’s out there and what we dare to observe. If so, what are we really seeing, and what remains hidden? And will we ever know?

Anyway, having thus far sought the Cheshire Cat, I thought I’d convene a random panel of reviewers to discuss the strange behavior of electrons. Through another matrix of simulation - my old pal, ChatGPT, I invited some of the greatest thinkers (and a few unexpected guests) to weigh in. Here’s how that delusional (and, of course, entirely fictitious) roundtable went…

Alan Watts leans back and sips his tea: "The boundary between observer and observed is an illusion. To watch the dance of electrons is to join it. There is no separation between what you perceive and what you are."

"Ah", says Douglas Adams, "and sometimes that dance is completely absurd. Probability has a way of surprising us, just ask the sperm whale and the bowl of petunias."

Frowning disdainfully, Jordan Peterson seeks to anchor the heightening metaphorical meanderings onto our inner state of being, insisting that "reality isn’t just a fact - it’s an ongoing process of transformation. Chaos and order exist in tension, and the structure of the universe is far more unpredictable than we like to admit." But, he's swiftly interrupted by Genghis Khan who, more pragmatically - and emphatically, slaps his hand onto the table and asserts that "unpredictability is the key to power. Control the smallest element and turn the tide of the universe.

Gandhi, ever seeking calm and equanimity seeks the middle ground by reminding everyone that "control is an illusion. True understanding is found in embracing contradictions, not resolving them." Sadly, few at the table can absorb such wisdom whilst in the heat of a discussion regarding the very fabric of existence and, in the pregnant hiccough that follows Gandhi's words, it is Arthur C Clarke that tries to regain his own momentum by paraphrasing himself: "Any sufficiently advanced quantum phenomenon is indistinguishable from magic - or perhaps a glitch in the simulation."

Rolling his eyes at such blatant hubris, Douglas Murray rides upon the coattails of the statement and notes that "magic or not, the behavior of electrons reminds us that uncertainty is the only constant. The harder we try to pin down reality, the more it slips through our grasp." "But that's only because", interjects Carl Sagan, "what we see is only the surface of a deeper truth." Confucius, smiling benevolently at such wisdom, observes further that "those who seek certainty will find only uncertainty. Wisdom lies in knowing that not all questions require answers." A gem of sagacity that had Terry Pratchett clap his hands and wryly proclaim that "the universe certainly doesn't require us to know the answers! The Universe doesn't just allow uncertainty, it thrives upon the absurdity of it (and probably even upon the absurdity of our quest for its opposite). We've basically got electrons doing quantum slapstick and all we can do is laugh like fools."

Surrounded by such giants upon whose shoulders I am not fit to stand, I can only sit back and ponder wide-eyed and mouth agape at such perplexities of Deep Thought. (See what I did there?)

Each thread I've plucked from cultural and sociological, philosophical and scientific tapestries has the potential (but not the certainty!) to be woven into a neat blanket of eureka. But, I am no seamstress, I have not the grasp in any field so profound as to do more than cuddle into blankets sown by others. And perhaps that’s a good thing.

Quantum mechanics invites us into a world that refuses to be pinned down, where the more we think we know, the more reality winks at us and says, “Try again.”

So, dear reader, I leave my threads here - pick them up and help me weave that tapestry. But, let it remain a work of befuddled wonderment, where the strange becomes strangely familiar, and the boundaries between the known and the unknown blur just enough to keep things interesting.

After all, the electrons don’t seem to mind!