The Double Slit Experiment (Engy, please read!)

Hi guys,

I have a topic completely apart from FE/RE.  I need someone with actual knowledge of Quantum Mechanics to reply to this.

I've read pages and pages and pages relating to the double slit experiment.  Basically, it proves light is both a particle and a wave.  I understand it, basically (well, as much as I can understand physics stuff, anyhow).

I need to know the answer to one question, and I haven't found anything conclusive in my research. 

Does the double slit experiment, in any way, touch on the effect of thought/consciousness?

I would like an unbiased answer, so when I get it, I will let you guys in on why I want to know.  Until then, please let me know what you know.   

~Tiffany

I want to say no, but there are some rather weird happenings in QM.  Like the 'Sum Over Histories' concept where an object takes every possible path between two points simultaneously and instantly, but by simply observing the object, all these waveforms collapse into the one we observe.  That by the way, is one of the stranger aspects to come from the double slit experiment.

Anyway, I think the film "What the bleep do we know?" tried to bind the thought/consciousness idea with quantum mechanics.  I've never seen it, however, so I can not really say.  It's not something I've put much thought in.

About all I can verify from personal experience is that the light waves from a single source passing through two slits does indeed cause an interference effect. All the experiment requires is a piece of non translucent paper (with two vertical slits roughly 5mm apart) and a fairly strong light source. If done correctly placing the slits over one eye any looking at a light source will result in a series of vertical black lines visible to the naked eye.

As for the single photon experiments in question I have heard the part about a single photon interfering with itself but not the effect of observations themselves. Yes a very intriguing question indeed, i think Feynman got it right when he said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

As for the single photon experiments in question I have heard the part about a single photon interfering with itself but not the effect of observations themselves. Yes a very intriguing question indeed, i think Feynman got it right when he said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

You can't observe it, as this act will change the outcome.

Not sure how the double-slit experiment could touch with thought or consciousness ... but Bell's Interconnectedness Theorem brings some interesting questions about consciousness to my mind.  Bell's Theorem is a result of the Einstein-Podoski-Rosen effect. 

From Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert:

..Well, the third thing is this interconnectedness. Einstein said the world cannot be like this, because this interconnectedness goes faster than light. With this quantum interconnectedness, two objects could come together, meet, and then each go into the universe, and they would still be connected. Instantaneously one would know what the fate of the other one was. Einstein said, now that can never be; that's like voodoo -- in fact, he used the word -- it's like telepathy, he said; he said it's spooky, it's ghostlike. Almost his last words in his biography were, "On this I absolutely stand firm. The world is not like this." He died in '55, and ten years later Bell showed that the world must be like this. It's kind of ironic. Bell himself said, "My theorem answers some of Einstein's questions in a way that Einstein would have liked the least."

Keep in mind that Bell's theorem requires that reality, not phenomena, be super-luminal. 

What do you think the double-slit experiment has to say about consciousness?

Thanks for your input; I basically got the same information from what I'd read...

So, there's someone who held a seminar I attended, who stated (quote) "Even quantum mechanics, a crazy through-the-rabbit-hole science, proves the effect that positive thought has on reality with experiments like the double-slit experiment."

So, I looked into it, and I couldn't find anything.  I talked to Sean (my fiance), and he thought she might be referring to the uncertainty principle, which basically says that... something like, when you're trying to observe things that get smaller and smaller (smaller than electrons), you can't observe them reliably because the results won't be repeatable.  But this was basically attributed to the energy given off by any instruments which were used to try and "see" the infintesimally small items. 

Or, at least, that's what I gathered.  I might be wrong, it's kind of late and I've been doing a LOT of research on more important things lately.

But that's why I asked.

Oh, and BTW, sorry for not replying sooner.  I don't get online all that often, and I don't surf the web at work.