Quantum physics cartoon

Meh, I don't like how he talks about the electron as if it's alive. He oversimplifies it to the point of giving the wrong impression. Electrons aren't aware they are being observed and they certainly don't make decisions.

Thank you, Vares. I got the notion from watching that clip that they were warming up to use electrom mischief to support some nuttball idea.
I find quantum mechanics (at least the limited part I understand) interesting, but I don't buy into the pop culture and new age notions that sometimes uses it to bolster their claims. The idea that since an electron can do weird stuff, therefore so can anything else seems silly to me. At least IMHO.

Im no physicist but isnt pretty much everything made of electrons (amongst other tiny building blocks)

Heck, I just though it was a neat cartoon that illustrated the basics in an easy to understand manner, although the reference that an electron could "know" something weakened the presentation.
The parent site itself does seem to have have its own strange little agenda, but that's a different story.

Meh, I don't like how he talks about the electron as if it's alive. He oversimplifies it to the point of giving the wrong impression. Electrons aren't aware they are being observed and they certainly don't make decisions.

- Did you not even watch the film?????

They behave differently under observation than not, so terms like 'aware of' and 'decide' are the best possible ways we have to describe this.

How else can you describe what they do?

I have studied quantum mechanics extensively. Trust me, there are vastly better ways to describe this phenomena than using words like "aware" and "decide"

I realize that sounds obnoxious and elitist, but it's really not meant too.

So, then why didn't you share what those words are?

Ok, this is exactally my point. A concept like quantum mechanics can't be explained by just blithely throwing out a few easy words. If you are really interested in understanding this kind of stuff it will take years of study.

But, if you want a video that gives you at least an idea of what it's all about then check out this series:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program_d.html

It's a total of three hours, but it's worth it if you are really interested. It explains it in easy to understand concepts without being insulting to your intelligence.

Pffft! you should all know by now, God did it. There is no such thing as electrons or Quantum Mechanics. Just ask Kevn.

You cannot teach concepts to people without using imagery and concepts they already have in their heads. You build using what they know.

The problem being that what 90% of the people here 'know' is, its easier to put a new idea through the shreader of their 'truth' than it is to investigate the deeper meaning behind those ideas.

All I will say is, I've implimented many of the concepts behind the 'What The Bleep?' movie through extensive further reading and study. No amount of poo-pooing from the peanut gallery will change the fundamental fact that it works for me.

-Ghoti

In a nut shell, the video gives the impression that there is some kind of spiritual “woo-woo” stuff going on, while the science shows there isn't.

What physical interaction constitutes a measurement?

Until the advent of quantum decoherence theory in the late 20th century, a major conceptual problem of quantum mechanics and especially the Copenhagen interpretation was the lack of a distinctive criterion for a given physical interaction to qualify as "a measurement" and cause a wavefunction to collapse. This best illustrated by the Schrödinger's cat paradox.

Major philosophical and metaphysical questions surround this issue:

* The concept of weak measurements.
* Macroscopic systems (such as chairs or cats) do not exhibit counterintuitive quantum properties, which can only be observed in microscopic particles such as electrons or photons. This invites the question of when a system is "big enough" to behave classically and not quantum mechanically?

Quantum decoherence theory has successfully addressed other questions that previously haunted quantum measurement theory:

* Does a measurement depend on the existence of a self-aware observer?

Answer: No. Coupling an isolated quantum system to another quantum system with many degrees of freedom generically transfers the coherence of the first system into mutual coherence of the two systems. The initially isolated quantum system then appears to "collapse." Interpreting the second system as a measurement apparatus, as in the von Neumann scheme, shows that no consciousness or self-awareness is necessary for collapse of the first system.

* What interactions are strong enough to constitute a measurement?

This question is quantitatively answered by decoherence theory, given a model for the measurement apparatus. The scaling of the measurement effects with the system/apparatus interaction strength usually only weakly depends on the choice of a model for the apparatus, so one can give a generic description of the strength of a measurement induced by a given interaction.

* Does measurement actually determine the state?

The question of whether a measurement actually determines the state, is deeply related to the Wavefunction collapse.

Most versions of the Copenhagen interpretation answer this question with an unqualified "yes".