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So, we should drop the "superposition" term, or use it everywhere... like: we live in a superposition of space dimensions which happens to be 3 and to be orthogonal to each other.... So, when you walk, you do it along the superposition of these dimensions...
Hey great job. I need to contact you because i had formed a similar hypothesis like you did before 1 year ago which solved many problems of quantum mechanics so please tell me the way i can contact you
Following the analogy... It means that you can "align" the measuring device, so it always measure along the quantum state and give it's mixed Smooth-Rough value 100% of the time? ... For measuring other states 100% of the time by one end, you would need to re-aling your measuring device
Up until now, I've never seen someone explain quantum mechanics in a way that actually left me thinking "that makes sense." Thanks for making me feel a bit smarter than I was before.
If quantum mechanics makes sense to you, then you don't understand it (paraphrasing Richard Feynman.) Corollary: If someone thinks he explained quantum mechanics in a way that it makes sense, then that person doesn't understand it either.
@@alice_in_wonderland42 What we call "understanding" is actually a mental state of acceptance. For Physicists, this means no conflict with previously learned and accepted principles (conservation laws, etc.) By the way, since we are on this topic, the hypothesis of the video is incorrect. The concept of a vector rests on the very idea of superposition. A vector pointing North-West is the superposition of one vectors, one pointing North and the other pointing West. Cheers.
@@alice_in_wonderland42 This. It was a "first day of class" greeting to prepare the minds of university students. It's humor. Context matters; I'm not sure why people mythologize instinctively, even with short and inconsequential phrases.
@@alice_in_wonderland42 Sure you can understand the mathematics involved, but I don't think anyone can truly mentally conceptualise it - that's what he means. That's why it has to be explained in metaphors like this video does with rough/smooth ball detectors, Schrodinger's cat, and my new favourite, the cube attached to ribbons that makes a single full rotation by spinning 720 degrees. The world of quantum mechanics is truly a topsy turvy curly wurly inside out and upside down thing.
nick i cannot overstate how much i love this and your channel in general. the way you manage to take unintuitive concepts that are generally regarded as "impossible to grasp if you're not in the field" and actually explain them without oversimplifying to the point of inaccuracy the way they're often presented shows the incredible pedagogical talent you have developed, and i'm unimaginably thankful for having found your channel
I just can't imagine a more intuitive way to understand this. As for the quality of the video animations... there are no words to describe how well done all this is. Thank you very much!
8 years after graduating and going into a career that has nothing to do with physics, I thought my PHYS 486 knowledge was lost forever. But this video, even though it's fairly high level, brought back SO much; much more than I thought it would. I'm with Nerd Clone wanting a video on eigenvectors now.
3blue1brown did a video on them several years ago as part of their 'Essence of Linear Algebra" series. It doesn't have the same tone and style as Nick's videos, but it is really good. 3b1b in general is really good an explaining math concepts intuitively using both animations and verbal explanations. ruclips.net/video/PFDu9oVAE-g/видео.html
@@garetclaborn 3blue1brown did a video on them several years ago as part of their 'Essence of Linear Algebra" series. It doesn't have the same tone and style as Nick's videos, but it is really good. 3b1b in general is really good an explaining math concepts intuitively using both animations and verbal explanations. ruclips.net/video/PFDu9oVAE-g/видео.html
I always accepted this concepts of quantim superposition without giving it much of a thought, since I'm not a physisit it really didn't matter that much to me, but as a mathematician I love this concept, it is waaaay easier to understand and makes absolute sense to me. So thank you Nick
If you are a mathematician, just know that the video misleads a bit in order to not intimidate the audience: The vector space is actually a complex vector space. Where he says the probability is proportional to the square of something, it's the square of the modulus of that thing. It took me a long time to figure out this basic fact about quantum mechanics, because physicists will most of the time mislead you in this kind of way.
You'd probably find the first chapter of "Modern Quantum Mechanics" by Sakurai interesting. It focuses on this formalism (ie: it's mostly linear algebra : p), and I think it's pretty accessible to someone with a background on math.
If we're recommending books: I recommend Surján Péter: "Introduction to Second Quantized formalism" once you got a basic grasp on introductory quantum mechanics. It will equip you with very powerful mathematics for dealing with multiple particles.
Looking at that Vector graph with the rough and smooth axis suddenly made it click in my head and hit me like a ton of bricks why it's so completely useful to use complex numbers to represent Quantum States. Holy crap it makes so much sense now! Thank you!
@@ScienceAsylum - Do you fully appreciate how many lives you have improved by making videos that allow people to grasp concepts in very difficult fields? I hope you understand the positive impact you have had on the world, you have a life well spent. And you are an inspiration to us with autism, it shows we aren't limited by our difficulty with social interactions. Thanks man. You are a legend.
@@RUclips.apk7149 - Using complex numbers basically gives you a 2d plane while making it simple and elegant. So you can represent a full wave that way.
@@RUclips.apk7149 It also, if those states are chosen carefully, allows us to convert between trigonometric and exponential functions, allowing us to solve equations we couldn't otherwise solve.
Outstanding explanation! There are a lot of smart scientists out there but very few can break it down to a layman’s level like this. You’re doing more for science than you can imagine!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
I always thought quantum mechanics was something I could never understand, but I think you've completely changed my mindset with one video. I'm not saying I truly understand it, but this is the first time anything about quantum mechanics has made some amount of sense to me. Great video
They say if you think you understand quantum physics then you probably don't. So you are on the right track if you say you don't truly understand it. :)
@@ScienceAsylum Can you make a video or just answer me, what would happen when magnitude fights a vector? I meant to imply that magnitude and vector can change/fight each other? Does changing the magnitude can change vector and vice versa?
My man's really pondering the orb right now. Also, that "smooth vs rough" vector space seems to imply the properties of negative smoothness and negative roughness.
Ah, but he said it was just a metaphor. Since we really can't say exactly what a _state_ is, implying it's negative would be really hard to accept. Quantum mechanics, I don't care if it makes sense shut up and calculate.
Not really, quantum amplitudes are separate from the properties of the states. Also, multiplying a state vector by a complex number of length 1 doesn't change the probabilities of observing any outcome so |x> and -|x> are the same state. Amplitudes only matter when things interact, e.g. you could have destructive interference between |x> and -|x> if you had to add them during some calculation.
It is kind of like an "affine" state if you have heard that word. In essence, if you draw a line that crosses the tip of the point and the origin, that line represents the state.
Thank you. I struggled with the perception of things existing in Superposition. Just because we can think of it like that, doesn't mean things have to be until we observe them.
The version I was taught used sphere and cube as the two basis vectors. The superposition was drawn as a smoothed cube (or a flattened sphere). The detector was drawn like one of those playdough toys that squeezes the playdough out of a shaped hole. This extends to multiple states by drawing the detector with a round hole, a square hole, a triangle hole, a star hole, and so forth. Avoids having to talk about rough balls and smooth bras :P
Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion or at least Unhealthy Religion; a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover. I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny' is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series "Revising Gods Prophecy". My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun, so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
What a great way to explain quantum mechanics. Lordy, lordy, this was a very photonic video! 😉 Consider doing a video about white dwarfs. They are fascinating objects. A million years ago, I wrote an undergraduate thesis on them.
Simple ball sorter for rough balls: simply have a large rotating drum with sand paper on the walls, a smooth ball would roll almost straight down, while a rough one would be pulled to one side.
Sure, that's one way to make the sorting work. The point in this video though is that it _doesn't matter_ what sorting method you use. All that matters is that it _is_ sorted.
@@ScienceAsylum Of course, I just liked the challenge of thinking of a method. I also like that it's somewhat analogous in that sending a ball through it would change it's roughness in the same way that taking a measurement would change the state of a partical. The analogy kinda breaks down after that, though. Also, no balls can be in a state that is analogous to a superposition in the real world, which is part of why it doesn't matter how the sorting machine works.
Thanks Nick! This really cleared up the superposition myth that has permeated all of physics. I'm a former computer programmer (but not much math), but I'm learning so much from your channel. On the question of German, I had three months of German in 10th grade, then we moved to a school that didn't have German as a course. I'm going to use Babble to continue my learning. Thanks for this wonderful double whammy of excellence!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
Finally someone said it!! It's not a superposition of states. It's only 1 quantum state. It's a superposition of classical states, or of observable states...
It is just so weird. Why does it always collapse into one state? Bell's theorem implies that there are no hidden variables (among other possibilities like non-locality), so everything is truly probabilistic. Why is it probabilistic at the quantum level? When a wave function collapses into one of its probable states or positions, is it instantaneous or does it take time for it to happen?
@@ElectronFieldPulse Maybe because our mind cannot think in superposition ;) so we get entangled with one result (and our other multiversal-self with another). There are multiple interpretations of it, I have just used many-worlds although I myself prefer Copenhagen's: reality is inherently random (within rules and probability). Why? I don't know. Why gravity is and why time flows in one direction? I don't know, it just seems to be this way, the theory gives good predictions.
Not really, it's not a superposition of *classical* states, it's a superposition of states with *some* measurables having definite values. E.g. a classical state of a point particle would have both definite position and momentum, but no quantum state can have such a property because a state with definite position would also be a superposition of states with different values of momentum and vice versa.
OMG, you're the best explainer I've ever seen. I gave up on any chance of grasping the concept a long time ago... And yet, now I have at least *some* idea! 👍 You're awesome. P.S.: The traveling light pun made me spit a little on my phone screen... Didn't see that coming! 😂
I have my introduction to quantum physics course next semester and I feel like your videos really give me an edge in the reasoning behind the concepts. I just love how completely radical thinking is required for this stuff! You're a gem mate!
if your analogy and explainer is fair to be accurate then this is super immensefully helpful to understand what quantum superposition is. this might be the easiest video for a layman to ever understand quantum mechanics at least that ive ever seen i believe. very good work
That has really taught me something I didn’t know or understand before. I love the way you have simplified this concept and the fact that there is only one state described in vector form. Thank you.
In my opinion, one of the biggest issues with this analogy is that it kinda seems as though the "quantum particle" is in some pre-determined and specific state in the basis. But that isn't accurate at all. In general, simplifying a quantum in superposition to a particle is not a great approximation of reality.
@@okaydetar821 to me it sounded like the quantum had some exact probability. It cannot have defined magnitudes on both axes and to me this video doesn't make that clear. It's not like I think the analogy is terrible, but it isn't really describing the wave-like nature of quantum.
The best explanation of superposition ever. I am interested in quantum computing and no one has made plain where the many many possibilities derive from. This makes it crystal clear. Thank you and please continue the outstanding work.
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
Amazing that you could explain this so well. Even my old physics profs and books for the lay person use analogy to explain superposition. Now, take that leap and apply this easy to understand logic to quantum entanglement/bell's theorem!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
Bohr's philosophy physics, if you really get into it, allows you to intuit the nature of this phenomenon really, really well. Nick, you did a great job at breaking down the primary misconception in popular parlance about superposition, but when you really dig into what Bohr was trying to espouse during the birth of this whole field you realize where most people lost the plot, especially anyone who ever said "shut up and calculate". Yes, particles are only in one quantum state at a time, best represented by the vectors of a probabilistic wave function composed of a superposition of complex states, but the POINT, is that those states are ONTOLOGICALLY, not epistemologically, complementary. The Heisenberg uncertainty should have been called the indeterminacy principle because it has nothing to do with our inability to NOT KNOW, and everything to do with complementary features of nature that form reality having mutually exclusive effects on the rest of nature upon each interaction, creating meaning only BY INTERACTING, meaning that quantum particles are not things as we understand them but are more so phenomena constantly in the process of manifesting through their relation to everything around them. To think about particles as deterministic objects with objectively defined characteristics at all times is to misunderstand the instructive lessons of QM. When a detector of any sort measures a particle, it is physically interacting with it, and the differences between the experimental set ups required to enact differential cartesian "cuts" between the observer and the observed, fundamentally exclude access to information about the complex makeup of the former quantum superposition. The crux is that this has NOTHING to do with humans, or our experiments, or our theories. That would make the question of what happens in quantum superposition and afterwards about our knowledge. The complementary nature of quantum phenomena extends to every piece of universe itself. We are not special because we've figured any of this out. All the detectors we use to probe nature are made of nature, it's all the same STUFF. Between the interactions of countless particles that "decohere" to form our world, the universe finds itself excluded from the totality of information about states before and after they've interacted. Someone else below in the comments asked if the orb stays rough or smooth after measurement. If you take this to heart, you immediately understand that the wavefunction begins to smear once again after measurement, and traverse the phase space of possible vectors, until the next "measurement" forces an interaction, and again, and again. There are reasons why you could expect a smooth orb to stay smooth time and again, but its not because it IS smooth outside of an interaction to manifests that smoothness at a scale at which we can read in our medium sized world. This was proven in one of the landmark experiments that Bohr and Einstein could have only wished they'd lived to see: Bell's Inequality, which demonstrates that quantum particles are indeed indeterminate between interactions. Quantum superpostions ARE something singular (if they weren't their probabilities would add to more than one) but that something is probabilistically undefined whether we're looking or not.
" where most people lost the plot, especially anyone who ever said "shut up and calculate"." I'm genuinely quite angry about these people. I lost interest in science as a teenager because of the terrible way the Quantum Mechanics was introduced. It had been my favourite subject up till then. It's only now about 15 years later that I'm learning again how wonderful it is.
i don't understand. what are they, or where are they, before an interaction (the "particles")? and do we know why/how the interaction changes them (again, the "particles")?
Thank you - finally a correct explanation of quantum superposition on RUclips. Being a retired physicist, I have been annoyed by all of the incorrect information about quantum superposition and particles simultaneously being in multiple states that I have seen heretofore on RUclips. I am glad that here you introduced the quantum state vector concept to explain superposition. I have always thought that the concept of state vectors in Hilbert space makes many of the concepts in Quantum Mechanics that many call "weird" very understandable and in some cases even intuitive once one becomes familiar with vector space operations, i.e., vector algebra. One thing I think you did not state explicitly, but should have, is that the measurement setup defines the set of basis vectors which define the possible measurement outcomes for that setup. What those who loosely say that a particle is in multiple states simultaneously mean is that the single state vector of the particle consists of a superposition of the multiple basis vector states, i.e., a superposition of the multiple possible measurement outcome states for the particular measurement setup. Of course, for anyone familiar with vector algebra, there is nothing "weird" about such a superposition principle since it is well known in vector algebra that any vector in a vector space can be expressed as the weighted sum of the orthonormal basis vectors that span the vector space, and the weightings are given by the projections (dot products) of the vector onto the basis vectors. Also, measurements are projections of the state vector onto the basis vectors and the operations are just the mathematical notations representing those projections.
I've read a lot on this topic and have watched many videos, and while I had grasped the basic concept of super position being probability, I didn't really have a mental framework for thinking about it until this video. I have no idea why I haven't yet subscribed to your channel because I've watched tons of your videos and have loved them all... subscribed now!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
@@yamesotericist4188 Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion or at least Unhealthy Religion; a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover. I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny' is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series "Revising Gods Prophecy". My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun, so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
A very clear and lucid explanation! I always hated the concept of Quantum particles Superposition meaning multiple positions at the same time.. this video is a real eye opener giving a clear concept. So far I have not seen anyone doing this before. That is truly awesome! I also love your unique concept of clones and adding a little humor. Thanks a lot Nick!
I've watched a lot you tube on superposition. This one totally nailed it for me. I feel like I get it a little bit. Who knows if tomorrow I'll be baffled again, lol. Also that cursed bra-ket thing I even understand just a little, tiny bit :) I love this channel. Thank you!
That makes way more sense than being in multiple states. An electron could absolutely be moving 30% left and 70% right if it's moving 100% in a vector that can only be calculated by us to be 30% left and 70% right. Once we launch it against something to see if it's 100% left or right we knock it into one of those. I suppose an interference pattern could then be caused by blocking a specific range of vectors it could be following causing any that would be moving along those to change directions, and while it looks like it's interfering with itself reality is that we merely blocked a vector range that makes it look as such.
@@chiepah2 But to "block" any of the vectors you would have to measure a property of the system along a specific axis, eliminating aspects along different axes. Here, we are just measuring the end position of the electron. That's the exact point of the double slit experiment: The probability function of the electron interferes with itself. This does not mean that there are multiple states of the electron that interfere with one another. It is this entity of a wave function (or vector, just different formulations of the same reality) that interferes with itself as it evolves through time.
@@fritzzz1372 I'll be honest, I don't fully understand the concept I'm thinking of so I can't fully explain it. We are trying to pinpoint the position of an electron along an xyz axis, but for some reason we can calculate that it has multiple true xyz coordinates(with some degree of probability). This could be because of where it is on it's q axis, and it's orientation along that axis makes it cross multiple points on the xyz plane (field? space?). In the double slit experiment the setup may not allow some orientations along the q axis and therefore the electron is forced to adjust to fit along that axis the same way liquid is forced to adjust to fit though a funnel.
@@chiepah2 If that is what you mean, the wave function (or vector in Hilbert Space, physically the same thing) is forced to adapt to the shape of the slits because of the potential wall. (uncrossable barrier except where the slits are) What do you mean with the q axis though?
How do you tell the difference between these two possibilities... 1) The detector makes the orb rough or smooth, based on where it comes out. 2) The detector doesn't change the orb at all, but if the particular kind of state the orb is in leads to it coming out one opening - it will ALWAYS come out that same opening. It is read as 'rough' for example, but it isn't actually.
Great video, this reminds me why I love physics. More specifically in the case of QM, learning weird stuff that puts into practice what I've learnt in linear algebra and probability.
I have been both educated and entertained at the same time! You've said it before that quantum mechanics isn't magic, other channels videos push the idea that it is. Really like your videos, keep making more.
You're the first person to successfully explain a quantum superposition to me, "successfully" meaning that I (think I) understood. Thank you very much for that!
So Quantum Mechanics are not hard after all, most explainers didn't manage to either fully understand them or failed to come up with the right analogies. Incredible video like always
For the uninitiated mathematicians watching, the "Hilbert" space used to represent quantum states is actually a *projective* Hilbert space where the "ket" vectors have unit magnitude/norm. This is done so that when the dual-space "bra" vectors are used to create inner products, such inner products yield values having complex magnitudes less than or equal to 1. Norm-squaring these inner products give probabilites as shown in the video.
The projective Hilbert space model also gives us global phase invariance, because in addition to normalizing the vectors (which gives you a hypersphere) you also need to take a quotient by the action of U(1), which gives phase invariance.
@@JivanPal When you compute the inner product of an input state ket with a bra that represents an output state vector, you need to multiply their inner product with it's complex conjugate to obtain a probability of that outcome. The norm is the magnitude of the inner product. The "norm-squared" gives the probability.
"Oh no, here it comes" said my brain as I clicked this link. Nick, you're going to be so disappointed in me (or maybe not). At this point in time, I am a quantum mechanics skeptic, because of the application of Occam's Razor. "Particles can phase in and out of existence spontaneously!", "information can travel faster than the speed of light!", "consciousness is somehow intrinsically linked to physics and collapsing the wave function of a double slit experiment actually supports quantum theory!" ... Those sound like fantastical claims to me, and you taught me better than that. Absurd claims in physics need to be held to absurd amounts of rigor, the likes of which we do not yet have the technology to hold quantum mechanics to.
This is the best video about this topic I've ever seen. It made me feel like I could understand it a bit better and I don't have to be satisfied with the explanation that quantum mechanics is simply strange and not really understandable. On top of that, your videos are so interesting and funny, it never gets boring to watch them. And by the way, your pronunciation in German is absolutely well.😁 Greetings from a crazy girl from Germany!
I remember when you used to hate analogies because you said they were misleading. I'm glad you've changed your mind, because you're really good at coming up with GOOD analogies.
@@ScienceAsylum I always found analogies and models infuriating! I still remember at 12 years old arguing with the Physics teacher that explaining electricity using water and plumbing was wrong! It is confusing as well when you can see that it is wrong.
@scottishpensioner2447 Well in physics that is all you have - models of reality! Science can never give you the true nature of reality. The real picture!
It certainly clarifies how physicists think, which is helpful. My biggest issues with QM are I don't think it's *explained* the right away, but you do it!
FINALLY there is a smart person that knows how to effectively communicate and impart complex information to us, the simple minded masses despite our short attention spans. Very well done indeed!
As a conceptual learner who really struggles with memorising the nitty gritty facts and formulas, these videos are a goldmine of information for me. They explain things in a way that I can understand WHY something works the way it does, which helps me put all the pieces together. Thank you!!
I find polarization of light to be more intuitive to understand when it comes to superposition and the fact that a superposition is a single state. But this example really helped me get away from the idea that the properties in superposition must have some interpretation in spatial dimensions.
@@aircommandslipperz it comes from the Latin meaning "in addition to", as shown in the video the superposition is the mathematical addition of the basis states vectors
You, Sir, are a Master! I love your humor, and I respect your intelligence. For me, this was the perfect explanation of “superposition”. I’m not sure that Schrödinger’s cat feels any more secure in that darned box… Wayne, The-Pain-From-Maine…
It seems like the terminology we use to measure the behavior is being confused for the behavior itself. Thank you for explaining this, it's much clearer than I ever realized.
Indeed, I have the same problem when people saying of a thought experiment that we can 'see' this spaceship travelling at such and such a relativistic speed. Are we talking about the actual passage of photons from the ships to our eyes, or something that we could measure if we could somehow 'find out' what's going on without the complexity of.light having to 'get" to us ?
"My orbs are invincible..." A line straight out of an early eighties kung-fu movie :) Well presented Nick although I doubt my Missus will understand it
Your missus won't understand about you discussing smooth orbs in a bra, but I guess it was better that Nick chose orbs over balls, because the idea of rough balls in a bra is even worse.
Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion; a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover. I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny' is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series "Revising Gods Prophecy". My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun, so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
Hello. This was one amazing video Nick. You really put a lot of thought into this and it shows. I think I have never seen a better explanation of the topic anywhere. If I had this in university I could have understood this many years ealier than I actually have.
As someone with a limited background in modern physics (electronic engineering degree) but an insatiable fascination acquired later in life, I'm constantly consuming "physics for dummies" content. For me, most of it is repetition at this point, so my hope each time is that the content provides some new way to think about a difficult concept - something I haven't already read or heard a hundred times. That way there's a small chance that I'll gain a tiny sliver of new understanding. To be sure, it's an inefficient way to learn, but when it happens, it's SO satisfying. This video is an example of such content. Thank you so much, Mr. Lucid!
Nice to see the complex metaphor of using math to model physics explained in detail, helping everyone to not be confused when projecting expectations using those metaphors. Kudos.
This is the first video that actually made me understand this. When you said we were doing away with spin and electrons, I knew it was going to be good.
I think it really comes down to how you define a “state”. Of course the system is always in a single “state” however complex that state might be. But we can also see the state as the combination of several states. That is what we call “superposition”. More or less, a quantum particle is always in a superposition, whatever state it’s in, due to the uncertainty principle. However, there exists the simplest, most statistically accurate state that cannot be seen as the combination of simpler states. That is the ground state of QHO, which meets the limit of uncertainty principle.
His point is that a combination of multiple states is still one state. In the same way that, e.g. wouldn't say that 10 is multiple different numbers just because 10=2+5=1+9=8+2, etc., The sum of two states is still one state. Or, perhaps more aptly, even though a vector can be written using two scalars, it's still just a single object. It's like the velocity vector he shows at 5:54 -- you can break it up into two other vectors, one on the x axis and one on the y axis, and that's totally mathematically valid, but it's still just one vector and there's still just one velocity.
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...? This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it? *** Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
@@yamesotericist4188 Are you trolling? The whole point of the video is that quantum mechanics doesn't require anything mystical - it's just counterintuitive. And consciousness has nothing to do with it at all. That's just woo woo.
Thank you! Yes, this helped a LOT. I have been wracking my brains for years trying to figure this out. I am very literal in the way I interpret linguistic meaning so your explanation helped tremendously.
"Okay, that's an acceptable analogy" NO! No, it is NOT! Or, perhaps it is an accurate analogy, but it still means that the way superposition is treated, and how physicists in quantum mechanics treat states, are very strange. There are two main issues I have with this explanation. Point One: Vectors and states So, we start with the supposition of this quantum orb. Their texture. These orbs can either be “smooth” or “rough”. While these definitions can be arbitrary, part of the point as stated earlier in the video was that quantum mechanics measures the vectors of what we consider quite abstract states, so fine, no problem. After all, Nerd Clone even points out that we could choose to interpret the meaning of “smooth” and “rough” to be mapped to the coefficient of friction that the orbs have. Great! Then 4:30 happens. Instead of having texture being a linear scale, you inexplicably have the states of “smooth” and “rough” act as orthogonal basis to your axis. Why? How does that make sense? Indeed, any issues that causes are summarily glossed over, causing me to wonder things like: - What is [ -1|Smooth> ]? What would that even mean, physically? - Similarly, what is [ -1|Rough> ]? - What if there is some combination of negative and positive for the whole state, such as [ (-sqrt(2)/2)|Smooth> + (sqrt(2)/2)|Rough ]? - If “smooth” and “rough” do not correlate to the opposite ends of a spectrum, as was first supposed, then what do they *actually* represent? And so on… Point Two: The “detector” Now that we have orbs of unknown state, we want to measure it. Instead of using a measurement such as Nerd Clone suggested earlier, you instead create this sorting device. Well, “sorting” is a bit generous. A real sorting device would be able to sort from “least rough” to “most rough”, or something like that. Instead, you have a label-er (as RUclips auto-correct has decided that “labeler” is not a word). It measures *something*, and instead of telling us what that something it measures is, it uses that measurement to place the orb into the label of “smooth” or “rough”. (As a small point, I really dislike how quantum measurements always delete the previous state and replacing them with their newly “measured” state, rather than, you know, measuring their state and reporting what it is. But that’s a more conceptual problem. I understand how physically neigh impossible it is to do that, so I accept the reality, as much as it annoys me.) No. The real issue is thus: At first, “smooth” and “rough” were opposite ends of a spectrum, but then later you defined them as separate orthogonal axis, but *now* the detector acts as though “smooth” and “rough” are the opposite ends of a spectrum again! That is, consider the cookie moving on the 2d surface, we can map that movement to the X and Y axis. But the detector we would use for cookie movement would act as though X and Y were merely opposing points on the spectrum of movement instead of their true representation, fully independent axis that can be different values with no effect on the other! If “smooth” and “rough” really *are* supposed to be on independent axis, then why is there only one detector? Shouldn’t there be at least two detectors, one to determine the X-axis, and one for the Y-axis? And, limiting ourselves to "labeling" the outputs, wouldn’t it make sense to have them each have three possible outputs: negative, zero, and positive? So, what’s going on?
This was a fantastic explanation! Thank you for making this video. I think you've highlighted the danger of oversimplifying. Quantum mechanics is complex and counterintuitive, and to quickly explain concepts to lay people like me requires a degree of "dumbing down." However, the typical explanations of superposition oversimplify to the point that the metaphors are misleading. People then think that they understand, and from this flawed understanding draw conclusions that make sense in the context of what they've been taught, but have no basis in reality. This gives rise to all sorts of magical thinking that they believe is supported by science. You're shown that by dialing down the simplification just a bit, the viewer now has enough information to at least have a cohesive understanding.
I love that you went with a cookie to illustrate velocity vectors. Reminds me of how one way to represent scalar quantities like mass and certain supernatural units is in reference to Twinkies...
If I were to infer something from this, it is that a quantum object has a defined vector value for a given property prior to measurement. If it does, how does that reconcile with wave like behavior, such as constructive/destructive interference?
In this case, you would need a "recombinder" [sic] that inverts the roughness detector, that is an upper smooth path and lower rough path are recombined into a uniform beam. A single orb in an arbitrary state would then take both paths (coherently, a la Young Double Slit Experiment), and those 2 paths would then interfere. E.g., if you put a delay on say the rough path, it would created a phase-shift (delta), and turn the initial state: cos(phi)|smooth> + sin(phi)|rough> into the final state: cos(phi)|smooth> + sin(phi)exp(i*delta)|rough>
Whether you use vectors or matrices or functions makes no difference to the particles. It's just that vectors tend to be more _useful_ for discrete properties (like spin) whereas functions tend to be more useful for continuous properties (like position).
@@DrDeuteron - On a fundamental level, it is thought that these particles are actually waves in 3 dimensions though, right? It is only when they interact with something else that they collapse into one state. Or become entangled with our universal wave function in the words of multiple worlds theory.
That really makes sense! Now I think I understand what quantum superposition is. Expecting more videos in this topic in future. As always great explanation. 👍👍
Great analogy, it shows clearly that the states are states of probability, not ‘real’ states, and given that our ability to measure the states has a hard limit that can’t get rid of the probabilities, it’s necessary that the models we use contains the probabilities as states.
Why? Because Science Asylum said so? It is absolutely clear that the wavefunction is real. They are very real states. All this talk about probabilities arises out of the Copenhagen interpretation and the "shut up and calculate" approach, i.e. that once the wavefunction collapses we get this and that probability to find the subatomic entity in this or that location.
That's not how I understood it. My understanding is that it's not a probability at all, it's an actual state, it's just the limits of our measuring methods that forces it to map to one of two extremes resulting in a probability that the in-between states end up falling on one end or the other of our measurement.
@@T1Oracle as the video states, this is not a matter of limitation on our measuring methods. Say that, "right now", a particle is in a state that can be described as a definite position state. Like, it's definitely "right here". If I decide to describe this state using possible velocities as my basis, than the answer will be "it can be at any velocity at all", that is, it'll be a "superposition" of all possible velocities. This is the same as if I had a vector and changed the basis I'm using to describe it from one to which it's perfectly aligned to one in which it isn't. Now, here's the important part: anything that is "perfectly aligned" in the position basis will be "perfectly unaligned" on the velocities basis. This is, in fact, a much more general property of transformation of vectors (think the sorting box) - it's a mathematical necessity from the very basic assumptions that go into quantum mechanics and which is experimentally confirmed. Now, whether the wave function "really exists" or is "just a way to describe probabilities" is, amusingly, irrelevant for quantum mechanics: quantum mechanics can make no predictions, as far as I know, to discern that experimentally (but it can put bounds on the options). This is a matter of interpretation of quantum mechanics, like @Commodore-64 longplays was getting at, even though I don't think the video committed either way: the video explains how this works "mathematically" in quantum mechanics, which can't commit either way.
actually, when the orb goes through the detector they become entangled and in a superposition of the orb leaving both ways. it’s only when the orb and the detector interact with the environment the two options decohere, wave function can no longer “flow” from both to a shared state. being part of the environment we find ourselves on one side of the split. the probabilities work as described though ;)
Isn’t that simply the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’, and as such only one of a number of possible interpretations of quantum mechanics? …Please don’t slay me for asking btw, I am but one simple layman among a great many.
Who else thought that speaking of rough and soft balls for over 10 minutes was setting up a Manscaped sponsor, only to be shocked when Babbel popped up at the end? Perhaps today's sponsor was in a superposition state and the "Texture detector, Texturdetektor, Détecteur de texture" had to pick one and only sponsor state....?
This video is brilliant, i never thought of superposition like this. To make and example in real life computers use binary code and that's use only 0 and 1 but actually the components inside the computer use electric values that go from 0 to 5 Volts. The power that go through the cable could be 2.3 volts but the computer is only able to read that as a 0 or a 1 ans so the computer will approximate the value to 0. 2.3 volts is a superposition
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
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Pog
So, we should drop the "superposition" term, or use it everywhere... like: we live in a superposition of space dimensions which happens to be 3 and to be orthogonal to each other.... So, when you walk, you do it along the superposition of these dimensions...
Hey great job. I need to contact you because i had formed a similar hypothesis like you did before 1 year ago which solved many problems of quantum mechanics so please tell me the way i can contact you
Following the analogy... It means that you can "align" the measuring device, so it always measure along the quantum state and give it's mixed Smooth-Rough value 100% of the time? ... For measuring other states 100% of the time by one end, you would need to re-aling your measuring device
Please make a video about how attraction forces work?
Up until now, I've never seen someone explain quantum mechanics in a way that actually left me thinking "that makes sense." Thanks for making me feel a bit smarter than I was before.
If quantum mechanics makes sense to you, then you don't understand it (paraphrasing Richard Feynman.)
Corollary: If someone thinks he explained quantum mechanics in a way that it makes sense, then that person doesn't understand it either.
@@raphaelklaussen1951 Feynman didn't literally meant that
And QM and can be understood Feynman understood it he was just being Humble
@@alice_in_wonderland42 What we call "understanding" is actually a mental state of acceptance. For Physicists, this means no conflict with previously learned and accepted principles (conservation laws, etc.)
By the way, since we are on this topic, the hypothesis of the video is incorrect. The concept of a vector rests on the very idea of superposition. A vector pointing North-West is the superposition of one vectors, one pointing North and the other pointing West.
Cheers.
@@alice_in_wonderland42 This. It was a "first day of class" greeting to prepare the minds of university students. It's humor. Context matters; I'm not sure why people mythologize instinctively, even with short and inconsequential phrases.
@@alice_in_wonderland42 Sure you can understand the mathematics involved, but I don't think anyone can truly mentally conceptualise it - that's what he means. That's why it has to be explained in metaphors like this video does with rough/smooth ball detectors, Schrodinger's cat, and my new favourite, the cube attached to ribbons that makes a single full rotation by spinning 720 degrees. The world of quantum mechanics is truly a topsy turvy curly wurly inside out and upside down thing.
nick i cannot overstate how much i love this and your channel in general. the way you manage to take unintuitive concepts that are generally regarded as "impossible to grasp if you're not in the field" and actually explain them without oversimplifying to the point of inaccuracy the way they're often presented shows the incredible pedagogical talent you have developed, and i'm unimaginably thankful for having found your channel
Thanks! 🤓
@@ScienceAsylum That emoji looks like your 'nerd clone' 😀
@@pratikdedhia Ha. So true
@@pratikdedhia Haha Ikr
It makes us happy doenst? By far my favorite channel in the whole internet!
I just can't imagine a more intuitive way to understand this. As for the quality of the video animations... there are no words to describe how well done all this is. Thank you very much!
You're welcome! Glad you liked it.
8 years after graduating and going into a career that has nothing to do with physics, I thought my PHYS 486 knowledge was lost forever. But this video, even though it's fairly high level, brought back SO much; much more than I thought it would. I'm with Nerd Clone wanting a video on eigenvectors now.
I also await eigenvector with baited breath
3blue1brown did a video on them several years ago as part of their 'Essence of Linear Algebra" series. It doesn't have the same tone and style as Nick's videos, but it is really good. 3b1b in general is really good an explaining math concepts intuitively using both animations and verbal explanations. ruclips.net/video/PFDu9oVAE-g/видео.html
@@garetclaborn 3blue1brown did a video on them several years ago as part of their 'Essence of Linear Algebra" series. It doesn't have the same tone and style as Nick's videos, but it is really good. 3b1b in general is really good an explaining math concepts intuitively using both animations and verbal explanations. ruclips.net/video/PFDu9oVAE-g/видео.html
I always accepted this concepts of quantim superposition without giving it much of a thought, since I'm not a physisit it really didn't matter that much to me, but as a mathematician I love this concept, it is waaaay easier to understand and makes absolute sense to me. So thank you Nick
The infinite spectrum of superpositions between smoothe and rough. The infinite number of quantifiable single states. That's a tongue twister...
If you are a mathematician, just know that the video misleads a bit in order to not intimidate the audience: The vector space is actually a complex vector space. Where he says the probability is proportional to the square of something, it's the square of the modulus of that thing. It took me a long time to figure out this basic fact about quantum mechanics, because physicists will most of the time mislead you in this kind of way.
You'd probably find the first chapter of "Modern Quantum Mechanics" by Sakurai interesting. It focuses on this formalism (ie: it's mostly linear algebra : p), and I think it's pretty accessible to someone with a background on math.
@@alonamaloh can you explain that simply?
If we're recommending books: I recommend Surján Péter: "Introduction to Second Quantized formalism" once you got a basic grasp on introductory quantum mechanics. It will equip you with very powerful mathematics for dealing with multiple particles.
Looking at that Vector graph with the rough and smooth axis suddenly made it click in my head and hit me like a ton of bricks why it's so completely useful to use complex numbers to represent Quantum States. Holy crap it makes so much sense now! Thank you!
Glad I could help! 🤓
@@ScienceAsylum - Do you fully appreciate how many lives you have improved by making videos that allow people to grasp concepts in very difficult fields? I hope you understand the positive impact you have had on the world, you have a life well spent. And you are an inspiration to us with autism, it shows we aren't limited by our difficulty with social interactions. Thanks man. You are a legend.
@@RUclips.apk7149 - Using complex numbers basically gives you a 2d plane while making it simple and elegant. So you can represent a full wave that way.
@@RUclips.apk7149 It also, if those states are chosen carefully, allows us to convert between trigonometric and exponential functions, allowing us to solve equations we couldn't otherwise solve.
@@ScienceAsylum the only bit i didn't understand is the changing of smooth and rough when measured, like what does that even mean
You are an amazing science communicator. Thank you for your hard work.
Nick has the Best Science Channel on RUclips! 😀
"we're going to be traveling light" if not that scene with laughter i wouldnt even realize the wordplay
When I heard it I uttered "agh" and a split second later I saw "agh" on the screen.
A good pun is what it is.
I'm even only getting it now. I think.
Just like the photon: we are going to be traveling light....
(Photons are traveling light)
Edit: (and have no mass)
Where was the drum roll?
I didn't get the pun until I pondered your comment for a good half minute... the Agh finally makes sense!
Outstanding explanation! There are a lot of smart scientists out there but very few can break it down to a layman’s level like this. You’re doing more for science than you can imagine!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
I always thought quantum mechanics was something I could never understand, but I think you've completely changed my mindset with one video. I'm not saying I truly understand it, but this is the first time anything about quantum mechanics has made some amount of sense to me. Great video
Glad I could help! 🤓
They say if you think you understand quantum physics then you probably don't. So you are on the right track if you say you don't truly understand it. :)
@@ScienceAsylum Can you make a video or just answer me, what would happen when magnitude fights a vector? I meant to imply that magnitude and vector can change/fight each other? Does changing the magnitude can change vector and vice versa?
My man's really pondering the orb right now.
Also, that "smooth vs rough" vector space seems to imply the properties of negative smoothness and negative roughness.
Ah, but he said it was just a metaphor. Since we really can't say exactly what a _state_ is, implying it's negative would be really hard to accept. Quantum mechanics, I don't care if it makes sense shut up and calculate.
Not really, quantum amplitudes are separate from the properties of the states. Also, multiplying a state vector by a complex number of length 1 doesn't change the probabilities of observing any outcome so |x> and -|x> are the same state. Amplitudes only matter when things interact, e.g. you could have destructive interference between |x> and -|x> if you had to add them during some calculation.
It is kind of like an "affine" state if you have heard that word. In essence, if you draw a line that crosses the tip of the point and the origin, that line represents the state.
@@alexrecuenco the term is actually projective, not affine: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_projective_space
The negative smoothness is _technically_ different from positive smoothness, but it only matters during interference because of the square.
Thank you. I struggled with the perception of things existing in Superposition. Just because we can think of it like that, doesn't mean things have to be until we observe them.
This makes more sense than any other superposition videos I have watched in 10 years
The version I was taught used sphere and cube as the two basis vectors. The superposition was drawn as a smoothed cube (or a flattened sphere).
The detector was drawn like one of those playdough toys that squeezes the playdough out of a shaped hole.
This extends to multiple states by drawing the detector with a round hole, a square hole, a triangle hole, a star hole, and so forth.
Avoids having to talk about rough balls and smooth bras :P
Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion
or at least Unhealthy Religion;
a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover.
I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny'
is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series
"Revising Gods Prophecy".
My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun,
so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make
you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
They all go in the square hole though
What a great way to explain quantum mechanics. Lordy, lordy, this was a very photonic video! 😉
Consider doing a video about white dwarfs. They are fascinating objects. A million years ago, I wrote an undergraduate thesis on them.
Simple ball sorter for rough balls: simply have a large rotating drum with sand paper on the walls, a smooth ball would roll almost straight down, while a rough one would be pulled to one side.
Sure, that's one way to make the sorting work. The point in this video though is that it _doesn't matter_ what sorting method you use. All that matters is that it _is_ sorted.
@@ScienceAsylum Of course, I just liked the challenge of thinking of a method. I also like that it's somewhat analogous in that sending a ball through it would change it's roughness in the same way that taking a measurement would change the state of a partical. The analogy kinda breaks down after that, though. Also, no balls can be in a state that is analogous to a superposition in the real world, which is part of why it doesn't matter how the sorting machine works.
Thanks Nick! This really cleared up the superposition myth that has permeated all of physics. I'm a former computer programmer (but not much math), but I'm learning so much from your channel. On the question of German, I had three months of German in 10th grade, then we moved to a school that didn't have German as a course. I'm going to use Babble to continue my learning. Thanks for this wonderful double whammy of excellence!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
computer programmer (but not much math) BRUH programming is a branch of math, u are just being humble
You can very much program without much math. Source: I'm a programmer lol
The bra vector isn't important until we start taking measurements :)
Glad I'm not the only one 😂
I didn’t get all of what was said in the video so I’m content with getting this joke. I guess I’m more a real world guy than a QM guy.
Hands seem best for this measurement despite their bias.
@@brothermine2292 Warm hands.
It's the ket vector that really messes with your head though... 😵💫
The ability to grasp a concept is great, but the ability to convey that concept in such a way that others can also grasp it, is greater.
Thank you.
Finally someone said it!! It's not a superposition of states. It's only 1 quantum state. It's a superposition of classical states, or of observable states...
Exactly!
It is just so weird. Why does it always collapse into one state? Bell's theorem implies that there are no hidden variables (among other possibilities like non-locality), so everything is truly probabilistic. Why is it probabilistic at the quantum level? When a wave function collapses into one of its probable states or positions, is it instantaneous or does it take time for it to happen?
@@ElectronFieldPulse Maybe because our mind cannot think in superposition ;) so we get entangled with one result (and our other multiversal-self with another). There are multiple interpretations of it, I have just used many-worlds although I myself prefer Copenhagen's: reality is inherently random (within rules and probability). Why? I don't know. Why gravity is and why time flows in one direction? I don't know, it just seems to be this way, the theory gives good predictions.
@@firdacz - Ya, I am not sure it will ever be possible to declare that rhe CI or the MWT is correct. I don't think we can test for it.
Not really, it's not a superposition of *classical* states, it's a superposition of states with *some* measurables having definite values. E.g. a classical state of a point particle would have both definite position and momentum, but no quantum state can have such a property because a state with definite position would also be a superposition of states with different values of momentum and vice versa.
"I called in back up" holy damn, I'm cracking up. I love how complex your clone world keeps getting.
OMG, you're the best explainer I've ever seen.
I gave up on any chance of grasping the concept a long time ago... And yet, now I have at least *some* idea! 👍 You're awesome.
P.S.: The traveling light pun made me spit a little on my phone screen... Didn't see that coming! 😂
Glad you liked it. Thanks for the support!
I have my introduction to quantum physics course next semester and I feel like your videos really give me an edge in the reasoning behind the concepts. I just love how completely radical thinking is required for this stuff! You're a gem mate!
Good luck with the quantum course!
You are one of the very few physicists in the world that actually understands physics to a level that can be explained to a child.
if your analogy and explainer is fair to be accurate then this is super immensefully helpful to understand what quantum superposition is. this might be the easiest video for a layman to ever understand quantum mechanics at least that ive ever seen i believe. very good work
That has really taught me something I didn’t know or understand before. I love the way you have simplified this concept and the fact that there is only one state described in vector form. Thank you.
Happy to help 🤓
Wow, it feels like the superposition is on a Hawking's radiation level of "simplified to make it misleading".
I love this channel
It is starting to sound like someone gets some profit from this.
In my opinion, one of the biggest issues with this analogy is that it kinda seems as though the "quantum particle" is in some pre-determined and specific state in the basis. But that isn't accurate at all. In general, simplifying a quantum in superposition to a particle is not a great approximation of reality.
@@thestralspirit He said pretty clearly that it is based on statistical probability, so I am not sure where you got that interpretation from.
@@okaydetar821 to me it sounded like the quantum had some exact probability. It cannot have defined magnitudes on both axes and to me this video doesn't make that clear.
It's not like I think the analogy is terrible, but it isn't really describing the wave-like nature of quantum.
@@thestralspirit Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, but the exact probability IS well defined by the wave function of a given sytem.
"We didn't change the cookie state, only the way we represent it mathematically." That's brilliant. This way of thinking is so refreshing.
The best explanation of superposition ever. I am interested in quantum computing and no one has made plain where the many many possibilities derive from. This makes it crystal clear. Thank you and please continue the outstanding work.
This is fantastic! When teaching undergrad general physics, I didn't realize bra-ket notation could be introduced in such an inutivite way
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
Don't know how I missed this one. This is the most straight forward thing I've ever seen on qm. Good one, Nick
Thanks! Glad you liked it 🤓
Amazing that you could explain this so well. Even my old physics profs and books for the lay person use analogy to explain superposition. Now, take that leap and apply this easy to understand logic to quantum entanglement/bell's theorem!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
here and now@@ashifarman4813
Bohr's philosophy physics, if you really get into it, allows you to intuit the nature of this phenomenon really, really well. Nick, you did a great job at breaking down the primary misconception in popular parlance about superposition, but when you really dig into what Bohr was trying to espouse during the birth of this whole field you realize where most people lost the plot, especially anyone who ever said "shut up and calculate". Yes, particles are only in one quantum state at a time, best represented by the vectors of a probabilistic wave function composed of a superposition of complex states, but the POINT, is that those states are ONTOLOGICALLY, not epistemologically, complementary. The Heisenberg uncertainty should have been called the indeterminacy principle because it has nothing to do with our inability to NOT KNOW, and everything to do with complementary features of nature that form reality having mutually exclusive effects on the rest of nature upon each interaction, creating meaning only BY INTERACTING, meaning that quantum particles are not things as we understand them but are more so phenomena constantly in the process of manifesting through their relation to everything around them. To think about particles as deterministic objects with objectively defined characteristics at all times is to misunderstand the instructive lessons of QM.
When a detector of any sort measures a particle, it is physically interacting with it, and the differences between the experimental set ups required to enact differential cartesian "cuts" between the observer and the observed, fundamentally exclude access to information about the complex makeup of the former quantum superposition. The crux is that this has NOTHING to do with humans, or our experiments, or our theories. That would make the question of what happens in quantum superposition and afterwards about our knowledge. The complementary nature of quantum phenomena extends to every piece of universe itself. We are not special because we've figured any of this out. All the detectors we use to probe nature are made of nature, it's all the same STUFF. Between the interactions of countless particles that "decohere" to form our world, the universe finds itself excluded from the totality of information about states before and after they've interacted. Someone else below in the comments asked if the orb stays rough or smooth after measurement. If you take this to heart, you immediately understand that the wavefunction begins to smear once again after measurement, and traverse the phase space of possible vectors, until the next "measurement" forces an interaction, and again, and again. There are reasons why you could expect a smooth orb to stay smooth time and again, but its not because it IS smooth outside of an interaction to manifests that smoothness at a scale at which we can read in our medium sized world. This was proven in one of the landmark experiments that Bohr and Einstein could have only wished they'd lived to see: Bell's Inequality, which demonstrates that quantum particles are indeed indeterminate between interactions. Quantum superpostions ARE something singular (if they weren't their probabilities would add to more than one) but that something is probabilistically undefined whether we're looking or not.
what can i read to understand Bohr's philosophy of physics?
@@HFVXML Look up Meeting the Universe Halfway by Karen Barad. It's not an easy read, but its worth it.
" where most people lost the plot, especially anyone who ever said "shut up and calculate"." I'm genuinely quite angry about these people. I lost interest in science as a teenager because of the terrible way the Quantum Mechanics was introduced. It had been my favourite subject up till then. It's only now about 15 years later that I'm learning again how wonderful it is.
" inability to NOT KNOW" What does this mean? We seem perfectly able to not know.
i don't understand. what are they, or where are they, before an interaction (the "particles")? and do we know why/how the interaction changes them (again, the "particles")?
Thank you - finally a correct explanation of quantum superposition on RUclips.
Being a retired physicist, I have been annoyed by all of the incorrect information about quantum superposition and particles simultaneously being in multiple states that I have seen heretofore on RUclips.
I am glad that here you introduced the quantum state vector concept to explain superposition. I have always thought that the concept of state vectors in Hilbert space makes many of the concepts in Quantum Mechanics that many call "weird" very understandable and in some cases even intuitive once one becomes familiar with vector space operations, i.e., vector algebra.
One thing I think you did not state explicitly, but should have, is that the measurement setup defines the set of basis vectors which define the possible measurement outcomes for that setup.
What those who loosely say that a particle is in multiple states simultaneously mean is that the single state vector of the particle consists of a superposition of the multiple basis vector states, i.e., a superposition of the multiple possible measurement outcome states for the particular measurement setup.
Of course, for anyone familiar with vector algebra, there is nothing "weird" about such a superposition principle since it is well known in vector algebra that any vector in a vector space can be expressed as the weighted sum of the orthonormal basis vectors that span the vector space, and the weightings are given by the projections (dot products) of the vector onto the basis vectors.
Also, measurements are projections of the state vector onto the basis vectors and the operations are just the mathematical notations representing those projections.
Thanks for the information! I love how care-free these videos are ^w^
You're welcome 🤓
@@ScienceAsylum and the king also replies to comments! ^w^
I've read a lot on this topic and have watched many videos, and while I had grasped the basic concept of super position being probability, I didn't really have a mental framework for thinking about it until this video. I have no idea why I haven't yet subscribed to your channel because I've watched tons of your videos and have loved them all... subscribed now!
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
@@yamesotericist4188 Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion
or at least Unhealthy Religion;
a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover.
I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny'
is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series
"Revising Gods Prophecy".
My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun,
so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make
you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
I’ve asked my friends in Eng Phys about this exact question, and they’ve never given me a satisfying answer. You just did, thank you!
Glad I could help 🤓
A very clear and lucid explanation! I always hated the concept of Quantum particles Superposition meaning multiple positions at the same time.. this video is a real eye opener giving a clear concept. So far I have not seen anyone doing this before. That is truly awesome! I also love your unique concept of clones and adding a little humor. Thanks a lot Nick!
I've watched a lot you tube on superposition. This one totally nailed it for me. I feel like I get it a little bit. Who knows if tomorrow I'll be baffled again, lol. Also that cursed bra-ket thing I even understand just a little, tiny bit :) I love this channel. Thank you!
Glad I could help! 🤓
You explanations are controversal, yet always correct.
That makes way more sense than being in multiple states. An electron could absolutely be moving 30% left and 70% right if it's moving 100% in a vector that can only be calculated by us to be 30% left and 70% right. Once we launch it against something to see if it's 100% left or right we knock it into one of those. I suppose an interference pattern could then be caused by blocking a specific range of vectors it could be following causing any that would be moving along those to change directions, and while it looks like it's interfering with itself reality is that we merely blocked a vector range that makes it look as such.
but your not blocking the electrons in the double slit experiment, you just measure where they hit the screen.
@Fritzzz3 We could be blocking superposition vectors without blocking basic vectors.
@@chiepah2 But to "block" any of the vectors you would have to measure a property of the system along a specific axis, eliminating aspects along different axes. Here, we are just measuring the end position of the electron. That's the exact point of the double slit experiment: The probability function of the electron interferes with itself. This does not mean that there are multiple states of the electron that interfere with one another.
It is this entity of a wave function (or vector, just different formulations of the same reality) that interferes with itself as it evolves through time.
@@fritzzz1372 I'll be honest, I don't fully understand the concept I'm thinking of so I can't fully explain it. We are trying to pinpoint the position of an electron along an xyz axis, but for some reason we can calculate that it has multiple true xyz coordinates(with some degree of probability). This could be because of where it is on it's q axis, and it's orientation along that axis makes it cross multiple points on the xyz plane (field? space?). In the double slit experiment the setup may not allow some orientations along the q axis and therefore the electron is forced to adjust to fit along that axis the same way liquid is forced to adjust to fit though a funnel.
@@chiepah2 If that is what you mean, the wave function (or vector in Hilbert Space, physically the same thing) is forced to adapt to the shape of the slits because of the potential wall. (uncrossable barrier except where the slits are)
What do you mean with the q axis though?
That was the coolest explanation about double slit experiment and wave functions I ever seen!
How do you tell the difference between these two possibilities...
1) The detector makes the orb rough or smooth, based on where it comes out.
2) The detector doesn't change the orb at all, but if the particular kind of state the orb is in leads to it coming out one opening - it will ALWAYS come out that same opening. It is read as 'rough' for example, but it isn't actually.
the point where it really clicked for me is the cookie's momentum having only one state in spite of having two component vectos along the axes
Great video, this reminds me why I love physics. More specifically in the case of QM, learning weird stuff that puts into practice what I've learnt in linear algebra and probability.
Linear algebra is _so_ powerful in QM.
This is literally one of the best quantum mechanics videos on youtube
I have been both educated and entertained at the same time! You've said it before that quantum mechanics isn't magic, other channels videos push the idea that it is. Really like your videos, keep making more.
You're the first person to successfully explain a quantum superposition to me, "successfully" meaning that I (think I) understood. Thank you very much for that!
So Quantum Mechanics are not hard after all, most explainers didn't manage to either fully understand them or failed to come up with the right analogies. Incredible video like always
Very well explained, although now I really want an Eigen vector video.
Kahn Academy actually has a video on Eigenvectors. As does 3b1b....which is excellent.
For the uninitiated mathematicians watching, the "Hilbert" space used to represent quantum states is actually a *projective* Hilbert space where the "ket" vectors have unit magnitude/norm. This is done so that when the dual-space "bra" vectors are used to create inner products, such inner products yield values having complex magnitudes less than or equal to 1. Norm-squaring these inner products give probabilites as shown in the video.
The projective Hilbert space model also gives us global phase invariance, because in addition to normalizing the vectors (which gives you a hypersphere) you also need to take a quotient by the action of U(1), which gives phase invariance.
@@noobyfromhell: Exactly. I was about to write the same.
I don’t know what the replies mean but sound cool. I just about get the ‘norm squaring’ I think if it refers to the example in the video.
Minor correction: It's just the norm, not the norm squared. The norm is itself the square of the magnitude.
@@JivanPal When you compute the inner product of an input state ket with a bra that represents an output state vector, you need to multiply their inner product with it's complex conjugate to obtain a probability of that outcome. The norm is the magnitude of the inner product. The "norm-squared" gives the probability.
"Oh no, here it comes" said my brain as I clicked this link. Nick, you're going to be so disappointed in me (or maybe not). At this point in time, I am a quantum mechanics skeptic, because of the application of Occam's Razor. "Particles can phase in and out of existence spontaneously!", "information can travel faster than the speed of light!", "consciousness is somehow intrinsically linked to physics and collapsing the wave function of a double slit experiment actually supports quantum theory!"
... Those sound like fantastical claims to me, and you taught me better than that. Absurd claims in physics need to be held to absurd amounts of rigor, the likes of which we do not yet have the technology to hold quantum mechanics to.
Great video and it really help me to understand Bra Ket notation finally.
Now about those Eigen Vectors …
I suggest LInear Algebra with W. Gilbert Strang from MIT on YT. He makes it so easy.
This is the best video about this topic I've ever seen. It made me feel like I could understand it a bit better and I don't have to be satisfied with the explanation that quantum mechanics is simply strange and not really understandable. On top of that, your videos are so interesting and funny, it never gets boring to watch them.
And by the way, your pronunciation in German is absolutely well.😁
Greetings from a crazy girl from Germany!
Glad I could help 🤓
I remember when you used to hate analogies because you said they were misleading. I'm glad you've changed your mind, because you're really good at coming up with GOOD analogies.
Thanks. I still don't like them. I've just accepted that they help others.
@@ScienceAsylum I always found analogies and models infuriating! I still remember at 12 years old arguing with the Physics teacher that explaining electricity using water and plumbing was wrong! It is confusing as well when you can see that it is wrong.
@scottishpensioner2447 Well in physics that is all you have - models of reality! Science can never give you the true nature of reality. The real picture!
It certainly clarifies how physicists think, which is helpful. My biggest issues with QM are I don't think it's *explained* the right away, but you do it!
QM is not interpreted the right way either! So we have no hope 😂
FINALLY there is a smart person that knows how to effectively communicate and impart complex information to us, the simple minded masses despite our short attention spans. Very well done indeed!
Glad you liked it! 🤓
Nick, mysteries become obvious when YOU explain them! Love it!
6:57 Bra vector isnt important until we start taking measurements.
Is that a joke? 😂😂
As a conceptual learner who really struggles with memorising the nitty gritty facts and formulas, these videos are a goldmine of information for me. They explain things in a way that I can understand WHY something works the way it does, which helps me put all the pieces together. Thank you!!
This both kept my attetion and actually MADE SENSE!! The youtube algorith is finally dishing the goods
I find polarization of light to be more intuitive to understand when it comes to superposition and the fact that a superposition is a single state. But this example really helped me get away from the idea that the properties in superposition must have some interpretation in spatial dimensions.
This is the first time I ever understood superpositions. Thank you!
You're welcome! 🤓
@@ScienceAsylum does the 'super' in superpositions refers to infinite positions?
@@aircommandslipperz it comes from the Latin meaning "in addition to", as shown in the video the superposition is the mathematical addition of the basis states vectors
You, Sir, are a Master! I love your humor, and I respect your intelligence. For me, this was the perfect explanation of “superposition”. I’m not sure that Schrödinger’s cat feels any more secure in that darned box…
Wayne, The-Pain-From-Maine…
This was a wonderfully enlightening video. This concept actually kind of makes sense now. Thanks for the great science!
It seems like the terminology we use to measure the behavior is being confused for the behavior itself. Thank you for explaining this, it's much clearer than I ever realized.
Indeed, I have the same problem when people saying of a thought experiment that we can 'see' this spaceship travelling at such and such a relativistic speed. Are we talking about the actual passage of photons from the ships to our eyes, or something that we could measure if we could somehow 'find out' what's going on without the complexity of.light having to 'get" to us ?
"My orbs are invincible..."
A line straight out of an early eighties kung-fu movie :)
Well presented Nick although I doubt my Missus will understand it
Your missus won't understand about you discussing smooth orbs in a bra, but I guess it was better that Nick chose orbs over balls, because the idea of rough balls in a bra is even worse.
By far the best video on superpositioning. Explained neatly and presented in an understandable way for those first exploring quantum mechanics.
Science-Denial comes in Huge Waves and always has come in huge Waves from Religion;
a Thing that Atheist-RUclipsrs criticize and cover.
I hope you give me one single Chance to convince you 'Smart+Funny'
is what they are, when i now recommend you Holy Koolaids Video-Series
"Revising Gods Prophecy".
My comment is random but meant so share Sicence-Fun,
so c'mon, give me this 1 Chance to convince you Atheist-Content can make
you laugh and/or keep you Updated.
I'll have to say it again, you manage to get very complex topics and make it into accessible information. Great work!
The best explanation of superposition that I’ve ever heard. It’s clear and insightful.
Its nice to see science explained without pretending its magic
You always find the best analogies to get your point across.
Also
*Texture detector, texture detector, texture detector*
Hello. This was one amazing video Nick. You really put a lot of thought into this and it shows. I think I have never seen a better explanation of the topic anywhere. If I had this in university I could have understood this many years ealier than I actually have.
I think I got far too excited when I saw this notification...
No I think I had the appropriate level of excitement
Well I think you didn't have a high enough level of excitement to be honest...
You had me at "We're talking about balls in the land of make-believe."
As someone with a limited background in modern physics (electronic engineering degree) but an insatiable fascination acquired later in life, I'm constantly consuming "physics for dummies" content. For me, most of it is repetition at this point, so my hope each time is that the content provides some new way to think about a difficult concept - something I haven't already read or heard a hundred times. That way there's a small chance that I'll gain a tiny sliver of new understanding. To be sure, it's an inefficient way to learn, but when it happens, it's SO satisfying. This video is an example of such content. Thank you so much, Mr. Lucid!
Glad I could help 🤓
Man, this was an insanely brilliant and robust explanation. Thank you!
I thought your "layman" type of description, was pretty well "spot-on". cheerio
Thanks!
Nice to see the complex metaphor of using math to model physics explained in detail, helping everyone to not be confused when projecting expectations using those metaphors. Kudos.
This was genius. Loved everything, including the humor! Thanks so much :)
This is the first video that actually made me understand this. When you said we were doing away with spin and electrons, I knew it was going to be good.
I think it really comes down to how you define a “state”. Of course the system is always in a single “state” however complex that state might be. But we can also see the state as the combination of several states. That is what we call “superposition”. More or less, a quantum particle is always in a superposition, whatever state it’s in, due to the uncertainty principle.
However, there exists the simplest, most statistically accurate state that cannot be seen as the combination of simpler states. That is the ground state of QHO, which meets the limit of uncertainty principle.
His point is that a combination of multiple states is still one state. In the same way that, e.g. wouldn't say that 10 is multiple different numbers just because 10=2+5=1+9=8+2, etc., The sum of two states is still one state. Or, perhaps more aptly, even though a vector can be written using two scalars, it's still just a single object. It's like the velocity vector he shows at 5:54 -- you can break it up into two other vectors, one on the x axis and one on the y axis, and that's totally mathematically valid, but it's still just one vector and there's still just one velocity.
GREAT!! BUT!! If you really are like this, try to at least roughly explain the essence of the screenshot of my mystical online ROULETTE game, depicted on my icon??? HM...?
This is the SECRET of all SECRETS, isn't it?
***
Consciousness has the property of creating reality. You can influence the creation process. Any method of influence is just a way of influencing the process, the process itself cannot be changed.
@@yamesotericist4188 Are you trolling? The whole point of the video is that quantum mechanics doesn't require anything mystical - it's just counterintuitive.
And consciousness has nothing to do with it at all. That's just woo woo.
@@yamesotericist4188 your kool-aid is getting warm
Thank you! Yes, this helped a LOT. I have been wracking my brains for years trying to figure this out. I am very literal in the way I interpret linguistic meaning so your explanation helped tremendously.
Finally someone Who explains Quantum Mechanics right!
That spinning ball joke got me good even though I have read and heard it many times before 😂. Classic
what does he even mumble in that part?
"Okay, that's an acceptable analogy"
NO! No, it is NOT!
Or, perhaps it is an accurate analogy, but it still means that the way superposition is treated, and how physicists in quantum mechanics treat states, are very strange.
There are two main issues I have with this explanation.
Point One: Vectors and states
So, we start with the supposition of this quantum orb. Their texture. These orbs can either be “smooth” or “rough”. While these definitions can be arbitrary, part of the point as stated earlier in the video was that quantum mechanics measures the vectors of what we consider quite abstract states, so fine, no problem. After all, Nerd Clone even points out that we could choose to interpret the meaning of “smooth” and “rough” to be mapped to the coefficient of friction that the orbs have. Great!
Then 4:30 happens.
Instead of having texture being a linear scale, you inexplicably have the states of “smooth” and “rough” act as orthogonal basis to your axis. Why? How does that make sense?
Indeed, any issues that causes are summarily glossed over, causing me to wonder things like:
- What is [ -1|Smooth> ]? What would that even mean, physically?
- Similarly, what is [ -1|Rough> ]?
- What if there is some combination of negative and positive for the whole state, such as [ (-sqrt(2)/2)|Smooth> + (sqrt(2)/2)|Rough ]?
- If “smooth” and “rough” do not correlate to the opposite ends of a spectrum, as was first supposed, then what do they *actually* represent?
And so on…
Point Two: The “detector”
Now that we have orbs of unknown state, we want to measure it. Instead of using a measurement such as Nerd Clone suggested earlier, you instead create this sorting device. Well, “sorting” is a bit generous. A real sorting device would be able to sort from “least rough” to “most rough”, or something like that. Instead, you have a label-er (as RUclips auto-correct has decided that “labeler” is not a word). It measures *something*, and instead of telling us what that something it measures is, it uses that measurement to place the orb into the label of “smooth” or “rough”.
(As a small point, I really dislike how quantum measurements always delete the previous state and replacing them with their newly “measured” state, rather than, you know, measuring their state and reporting what it is. But that’s a more conceptual problem. I understand how physically neigh impossible it is to do that, so I accept the reality, as much as it annoys me.)
No. The real issue is thus: At first, “smooth” and “rough” were opposite ends of a spectrum, but then later you defined them as separate orthogonal axis, but *now* the detector acts as though “smooth” and “rough” are the opposite ends of a spectrum again!
That is, consider the cookie moving on the 2d surface, we can map that movement to the X and Y axis. But the detector we would use for cookie movement would act as though X and Y were merely opposing points on the spectrum of movement instead of their true representation, fully independent axis that can be different values with no effect on the other!
If “smooth” and “rough” really *are* supposed to be on independent axis, then why is there only one detector? Shouldn’t there be at least two detectors, one to determine the X-axis, and one for the Y-axis? And, limiting ourselves to "labeling" the outputs, wouldn’t it make sense to have them each have three possible outputs: negative, zero, and positive?
So, what’s going on?
Exactly! His explanation made the least amount of sense to me.
Looked for this comment, need explanation.
Interesting comment, deserving of reply.
This was a fantastic explanation! Thank you for making this video.
I think you've highlighted the danger of oversimplifying. Quantum mechanics is complex and counterintuitive, and to quickly explain concepts to lay people like me requires a degree of "dumbing down." However, the typical explanations of superposition oversimplify to the point that the metaphors are misleading. People then think that they understand, and from this flawed understanding draw conclusions that make sense in the context of what they've been taught, but have no basis in reality. This gives rise to all sorts of magical thinking that they believe is supported by science.
You're shown that by dialing down the simplification just a bit, the viewer now has enough information to at least have a cohesive understanding.
1:10 Let us ponder the Orbs
I love that you went with a cookie to illustrate velocity vectors. Reminds me of how one way to represent scalar quantities like mass and certain supernatural units is in reference to Twinkies...
Cookies were the first thing that popped into my head.
As Winston might say, "That's a fast cookie."
This deserves some kind of award
If I were to infer something from this, it is that a quantum object has a defined vector value for a given property prior to measurement. If it does, how does that reconcile with wave like behavior, such as constructive/destructive interference?
In this case, you would need a "recombinder" [sic] that inverts the roughness detector, that is an upper smooth path and lower rough path are recombined into a uniform beam. A single orb in an arbitrary state would then take both paths (coherently, a la Young Double Slit Experiment), and those 2 paths would then interfere. E.g., if you put a delay on say the rough path, it would created a phase-shift (delta), and turn the initial state:
cos(phi)|smooth> + sin(phi)|rough>
into the final state:
cos(phi)|smooth> + sin(phi)exp(i*delta)|rough>
Whether you use vectors or matrices or functions makes no difference to the particles. It's just that vectors tend to be more _useful_ for discrete properties (like spin) whereas functions tend to be more useful for continuous properties (like position).
And functions *are* vectors, in the mathematical sense
To put it simple: wave-like behavior is rotation of the vectors; interference is the addition of the rotated vectors.
@@DrDeuteron - On a fundamental level, it is thought that these particles are actually waves in 3 dimensions though, right? It is only when they interact with something else that they collapse into one state. Or become entangled with our universal wave function in the words of multiple worlds theory.
It was a good decision to call them orbs instead of balls
After all these years I finally understand superposition. Thank you.
That really makes sense! Now I think I understand what quantum superposition is. Expecting more videos in this topic in future.
As always great explanation.
👍👍
Glad I could help 🤓
Great analogy, it shows clearly that the states are states of probability, not ‘real’ states, and given that our ability to measure the states has a hard limit that can’t get rid of the probabilities, it’s necessary that the models we use contains the probabilities as states.
Why? Because Science Asylum said so? It is absolutely clear that the wavefunction is real. They are very real states. All this talk about probabilities arises out of the Copenhagen interpretation and the "shut up and calculate" approach, i.e. that once the wavefunction collapses we get this and that probability to find the subatomic entity in this or that location.
@@DavidGolder what do you mean by “the wave function is real”?
That's not how I understood it. My understanding is that it's not a probability at all, it's an actual state, it's just the limits of our measuring methods that forces it to map to one of two extremes resulting in a probability that the in-between states end up falling on one end or the other of our measurement.
@@T1Oracle as the video states, this is not a matter of limitation on our measuring methods.
Say that, "right now", a particle is in a state that can be described as a definite position state. Like, it's definitely "right here". If I decide to describe this state using possible velocities as my basis, than the answer will be "it can be at any velocity at all", that is, it'll be a "superposition" of all possible velocities. This is the same as if I had a vector and changed the basis I'm using to describe it from one to which it's perfectly aligned to one in which it isn't.
Now, here's the important part: anything that is "perfectly aligned" in the position basis will be "perfectly unaligned" on the velocities basis. This is, in fact, a much more general property of transformation of vectors (think the sorting box) - it's a mathematical necessity from the very basic assumptions that go into quantum mechanics and which is experimentally confirmed.
Now, whether the wave function "really exists" or is "just a way to describe probabilities" is, amusingly, irrelevant for quantum mechanics: quantum mechanics can make no predictions, as far as I know, to discern that experimentally (but it can put bounds on the options). This is a matter of interpretation of quantum mechanics, like @Commodore-64 longplays was getting at, even though I don't think the video committed either way: the video explains how this works "mathematically" in quantum mechanics, which can't commit either way.
this is definitely a new breath of air with all the woo woo about this floating around
actually, when the orb goes through the detector they become entangled and in a superposition of the orb leaving both ways. it’s only when the orb and the detector interact with the environment the two options decohere, wave function can no longer “flow” from both to a shared state. being part of the environment we find ourselves on one side of the split. the probabilities work as described though ;)
Isn’t that simply the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’, and as such only one of a number of possible interpretations of quantum mechanics?
…Please don’t slay me for asking btw, I am but one simple layman among a great many.
Who else thought that speaking of rough and soft balls for over 10 minutes was setting up a Manscaped sponsor, only to be shocked when Babbel popped up at the end?
Perhaps today's sponsor was in a superposition state and the "Texture detector, Texturdetektor, Détecteur de texture" had to pick one and only sponsor state....?
My curiosity is elevated by your video
This video is brilliant, i never thought of superposition like this.
To make and example in real life computers use binary code and that's use only 0 and 1 but actually the components inside the computer use electric values that go from 0 to 5 Volts.
The power that go through the cable could be 2.3 volts but the computer is only able to read that as a 0 or a 1 ans so the computer will approximate the value to 0.
2.3 volts is a superposition
But 2.3 volts will never result in a 1 instead of a 0, right? It is fully deterministic.
@@ElectronFieldPulse 2.3 it's an exaggerated value, normally it's way closer to 5 or to 0, not almost in between
I like it. Observed reality approximates quantum states.