Transcript The Strange World of Quantum Physics

The Strange World of Quantum Physics
What sort of things would you not accept as a
scientific explanation for something? Why
not?
-
Fairies at the bottom of the garden
Mind-power
Magic
A god
Dreams
Astrology (the way planets are aligned
make a difference to your day)
- Energies stored in special crystals
- aliens
Every action
has an equal
and opposite
reaction.
Force
(F=ma)
The basic belief of
science is that
everything has a
physical cause.
Everything that
happens in the world
can be explained in a
physical way.
1. Write out what science believes and put
a box around it.
2. Give an example of a physical law, and
what it could explain eg it really hurts
when someone steps on your foot with a
stiletoe ....that is because Pressure = Force/
Area
3. Why doesn’t science accept miracles?
**Do you believe any non-scientific causes
can actually affect the way things happen in
the world? Why/ why not?
Which of the following are TRUE,
according to science?
– something can’t be in two places at
once.
– things actually exist: there is a real
world out there
– It is impossible to change what happens
just by looking at it.
In fact, all these
things are FALSE!
According to
quantum physics,
the world is NOT
what you think it
is..it is much
stranger…and
maybe miracles
are possible!
The Strange World of
Quantum Physics
Physics has discovered that tiny particles – the stuff things
are made of, behaves in a very strange way.
Imagine the tiny (quantum) particle is a cat. You put ink on the
quantum cat’s paws. You let the quantum cat into the sitting room &
you do this several times. You see that half the time, the paw prints
show she went to the sofa. And half the time, she went to under the
table. Nothing surprising. She likes both equally.
You clean up and you start the experiment again. You let the
quantum cat in but this time, YOU DON’T LOOK where she is going.
Where do you find the paw prints?
There are two tracks of prints. She went
to both sofa and chair, at the same time.
So you decide to LOOK. What happens?
Now it goes back to normal…after each time,
there is only one track of paw prints, either on
the sofa, or on the chair. .
You try one more thing. You put a detector in front
of the table, and in front of the sofa. You don’t
look. What happens?
BOTH detectors go off, showing the cat
went through BOTH, at the same time.
Very very small particles (the stuff everything else is
made of) behave very strangely.
• They can be everywhere and nowhere at the
same time. They don’t have any definite place
they have to be.
• What happens only happens when you look at
it. Until you check to see where they are, there
is no answer about where they are…
What this means is that there is no “real world” out
there, unless it is “being looked at” in some way.
Being looked at, makes it happen. (this is called
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Copenhagen
Indeterminacy)
?
1. Draw 3 diagrams to show what
happens
- normally when you let the
quantum cat into the room:
where does the cat go?
- when you don’t look.
- when you put detectors in front
of the table and sofa, but don’t
look. What do they show?
2. Explain what happens when
someone tries to see what is
happening. How does it change what
happens?
**If the world is not “physical” in the
way scientists first thought it was –
but full of quantum weirdness – does
this make it more or less likely that
someone like God could influence
events easily? Why?
Which of the following are TRUE,
according to science?
– something can’t be in two places at
once.
– things actually exist - there is a real
world out there
– It is impossible to change what
happens just by looking at it.
Quantum physics shows
that there are NONPHYSICAL causes: nothing is
certain, until a “looker”
looks at it. And everything
is only a possibility, until it is
“looked” at.
Does that make miracles
more or less possible?
Could God’s mind be
deciding what happens?
Perhaps the Universe only
exists because it is in the
Mind of God??.
Health Warning!!
Quantum Physics is STILL
physics – it only tells us
about the physical world.
It CANNOT tell us whether
a spiritual being such as
God is “looking” at the
world to make it real !!