What we "know" about the world can change

Quantum physics gives us bizarre paradoxes which challenge the most basic facts we know about the world. We can argue against them and pretend it’s not true, or we can change the way we look at the world – and see that actually, we’re connected.

Quantum physics gives us some bizarre paradoxes. It tells us things which contradict everything we “know” about the world. Think of the last time you sat on an airplane – on the screen they have a picture of where the plane is and how fast it’s going. The pilot has to know that, or the plane won’t arrive!

But what if you have an electron, instead of an airplane? Then we meet Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This says you can know an electron’s speed or its position, but not both. The more accurately you measure its speed, the less you know its position. The more accurately you measure its position, the less you know its speed. So if you can’t say where it is and how fast it’s going, how do you work anything out? Heisenberg used a probability distribution – an equation saying all the places it might be and all the speeds it might be traveling at. He even said that the electron actually was in all those places, at all those speeds. It only chooses its path when we measure it. Bizarrely, this works just fine. Even more bizarrely, the electronics in that airplane are using quantum physics!

For our picture of the world, this is mad. Nothing can be in two places at once, never mind lots of places. Everyone finds quantum physics bizarre, including quantum physicists. And so they come up with different explanations and interpretations, trying to figure out what this tells us about how the world really is.

The most standard explanation is the Copenhagen interpretation – but even within that, there are differences. These break down like this:

• atheism: of course the electron isn’t in all those places! That’s ridiculous. It’s just a mathematical model. “What cannot be observed doesn’t exist.” (This was Bohr’s stance. It’s called “positivist” or “subjective”, and is similar to the Ensemble interpretation.)
• agnostic: we have no idea whether the electron’s in all those places or in one place. But who cares? The math works just fine. (This was Von Weizsäcker’s view.)
• believer: it’s all real. The electron really is all those places, and/or none. Its path comes into existence when we observe it. (This is “realism”, and it’s Heisenberg’s approach.)

(And if you think that’s weird – another widely-accepted interpretation is the many-worlds theory: each possibility gets its own world to happen in.)

Quantum physics contradicts what we “know” about the universe. The atheist view, positivism, says that everything we knew before is right, an electron can’t be in more than one place, and that’s that – no matter what the math says! The agnostic view just shrugs. This blog goes with realism, the “believers”: the math works, and it’s true. The electron changes when we observe it. It’s all real. The observer is influencing reality – if not actually creating it.

What we “know” about the universe can be wrong – and we can learn, and we can change. We don’t have to cling onto what we used to “know” was true. We can learn new truths. We can create new paths.

But surely this only applies to particles? Quantum physics is for very tiny, very fast things, and Newtonian physics is for normal things, like cars and people and rolling balls and airplanes. Right? Not quite. Scale up the calculations, try making a mega-equation for every electron in the airplane. If the math doesn’t kill you, you’ll discover this: it predicts the same thing as Newton’s laws. Newton’s laws are just quantum-physics-for-big-stuff. In fact, most classical physics is now seen as a special case of quantum physics. (There is gravity, though – gravity affects large objects, like us, and not tiny particles. Physicists would sell their souls en masse for a theory which combines gravity & quantum physics.)

Our assumptions about the world have to change. People try to say, “The world doesn’t work like that!” and find they’re arguing with hard math which says, “Oh, yes, it does.” We assume we’re separate. How can we affect an electron just by observing it? But we’re not – we are connected. Literally, physically. Our assumptions often rest on science, and science often rests on our assumptions, but sometimes newness enters the world. This gives us a new way of looking at the world: connection. This is the new age of enlightenment.

Instead of assuming we’re all separate, we assume we’re connected. We’re not isolated individuals, each trapped in our own lonely box of skin – we’re connected, with light and love humming a web between us. Between each other, between us and the world. We’re a part of it.

Instead of assuming we only have an effect when we choose to, we assume we’re having an effect all the time. Our happiness leaps from person to person, like a smile from a stranger on the way to work. Our sorrow reaches out into the world, asking for help. The more we know this, the more we live it, the more it’s true.