By: Zoey Salaj
On social media, there is a phrase that has grown in popularity with the poetry and reading community in the last year: “To be known is to be changed”. In essence, the very act of knowing someone (in this case, through friendship or romance) can change the trajectory of someone’s life forever. The observer effect in physics is a bit like that. It suggests that the mere act of observing something can alter the thing being observed. This is especially true in the world of quantum mechanics.
To begin, the Peek-a-Boo Paradox. Particles, like electrons, don’t behave like tiny, solid balls. Instead, they exist in a sort of fuzzy, wave-like state where they can be in multiple places at once. This is described by something called a wave function. When we decide to observe or measure where exactly an electron is, we disturb its natural state. It’s like playing peek-a-boo with a baby, the moment you reveal your face, the baby’s reaction changes everything. Similarly, measuring the electron forces it to “choose” a specific location, collapsing its wave function into a single point. This is observed as an interference pattern.
A very famous experiment was conducted surrounding the observer effect in 1801 by British polymath Thomas Young titled the Double Slit Experiment. In this experiment, electrons are shot through two slits, creating an interference pattern (wave function) on a screen across. Though, when a detector is placed at the slits to see which slit the electrons go through, the electrons start behaving like particles, and the interference pattern disappears. In other words, by trying to observe the interference pattern, the electrons’ movements change entirely.
The observer effect stops us from being able to see many aspects of physics in action. The very act of looking can change what we see. Experiments like the Double Slit Experiment allow us to observe key principles of quantum mechanics in action.
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