Quantum physics, a coherent explanation

A philosophical view of the obtained data, what scientist do not understand

The double-slit experiment discovered the physical behavior that gave the basis for quantum physics. Scientists came to a conclusion with the data from that experiment, and have been researching with an erroneous assumption ever since. The scientific interpretation of the results does not add up. Let us try with philosophy.

What is the famous double-slit experiment?

This experiment, as we know it now, was performed by the physics student Erwin Schrödinger. He was not looking for the result that the experiment yielded. He wanted to demonstrate and measure how particles moved through air. To that end, he built a photon cannon.

In order to measure the trajectory of the photons, he guided them through a narrow slit, allowing only one photon to pass to the second measuring station. The impact zones. A wall.

The experiment had a particle cannon, a filter panel, with a vertical slit the width of a photon, and an impact zone for the fired projectile.

Once the devices were in place, he turned on the machine and began the measurements.

As expected, because the slit was so narrow, some photon hit the filter, and others passed through the slit and hit the impact zone.

Being particles, the trajectory is like that of a bullet. When many bullets are fired, the silhouette of the slit is copied in the impact zone. The passing photons behave like a beam of light.

Imagine a piece of paper with a narrow rectangular cut in front of a flashlight, you will see only the beam of light passing through the slit. That was the result from the experiment, and it was expected. Everyone knew that photons are particles and behave like particles. Nothing new.

But, as many times in the discoveries of science, chance enters the game. The researcher went to the bathroom and left the machine on.

When he returned, he saw something totally unexpected. A mistake?

There was a pattern of silhouettes of the filter in the impact zone. Instead of one, they were many.

He calibrated the devices again and started firing, obtaining the predictable result. But he didn’t know what the error was that produced the strange results.

He could not find anything different, that could explain such an error in the data. The only difference was going to the bathroom. It seemed totally illogical to him. And, it is.

Quantum physics, viewed from how we understand the universe, is totally illogical.

But the data is real. And, if we analyze it from the experiments, we understand its logic. What is illogical is how humans think the universe works.

One of the two is illogical. But the universe doesn’t cheat. It has rules and is neutral. It’s not illogical, only our thinking about it is.

So he replicated going to the bathroom, left the lab for a few minutes and when he came back, you can’t imagine his astonishment, again multiple figures on the wall.

Totally baffled of that error, that could be reproduced.

That is the basis of scientific research. You have an idea of how something works, describe it, and define an experiment to prove your thesis. You document the results of the experiment. They must be reproduced by others and yield the same data.

The data is explained with logical reasoning. A theory of why something happens in a certain way.

He was missing an explanation, and the truth is, he didn’t have one. He spent weeks going to the bathroom, and always getting the same result.

Furthermore, he decided to make a change, instead of one slit, he made two. A double slit. He fired the cannon again with him as a witness. The result was as expected. Two silhouettes of the slits marked in the impact zone.

So he set up the experiment again, and went to the bathroom. When he returned, he was stunned by what he saw. He expected four silhouettes in the impact zone. He found a total different pattern.

An unexpected result of an experiment that had failed in the first instance, which added up to more questions than answers.

He realized it was a certain pattern in the impact zone.

This pattern was predictable with calculations, if you took into account that the particles moved in waves instead of straight lines.

How does the motion of a wave look like?

When you throw a stone into a pool of water, it produces a circular motion of waves that travel in ripples. Those waves will continue until they hit something, bounce off and continue. In a bathtub, the effect of the waves continuing to flow can be observed. When it meets a limit, it creates a new wave. Then that wave bounces off the edges, creating other waves in a mathematically predictable pattern.

This wave behavior gave him a reasonable and predictable explanation.

The unexpected mysterious about scientific discovery.

You test one theory and by chance discover another conclusion. In this case, one of the most important discovering in physics in the century. He even got a Nobel Prize for it.

A casual scientific discovery.

Sometimes it happens while I’m philosophizing, I am thinking about an issue, I start to write to reason it well, clarify the idea, and then came to a different conclusion.

But with modern science you can’t ramble. Data is data.

The scientific conclusion of this experiment, which gave rise to the whole field of quantum physics, is that photons can behave like solid particles, move like lasers. Or, that they can behave like a wave, in a non-solid state.

But, I do not agree with that conclusion. The data has other meaning.

Everyone, for more than 100 years, since the experiment was first performed, agrees with the conclusion of the double-slit experiment.

Let’s go back to the experiment. I agree with the observations made, they conclude that photons can behave in two different ways: as waves and as particles. This discovery had a great impact because it changed the world of physics forever.

But the conclusion is missing half of what was observed.

Something fundamental to understand the behavior of the photons in the universe. What was the variable that triggered the supposed error, and we ignored it in the conclusion of the experiment?

The double slit experiment is the scientific proof of the following statement: there is always a probability that photons behave differently. There are only two possibilities. They behave as particles, or they behave as waves.

Scientists interpret these two options as a possibility that the photon is either a wave or a particle.

Each situation has a probability with two possibilities.

=============== Time ================⇒

… Probability + probability + probability + probability + probability…

Those probabilities follow each other in time. One after the other and so on.

My hypothesis is different.

Probability is not chance, but an expression of a factor with two possibilities: “is a human brain observing and collecting data?”

Logical conclusion: the photon is aware that it is being observed.

A scientist will never come to that conclusion, because it puts the one conducting the experiment inside the experiment. Modern science with its rules do not allow it. The problem is that the universe doesn’t give a damn about the established rules for analyzing the surrounding universe.

Something is wrong: either the universe, which does not behave according to our rules, or our rules to study and try to understand the workings of the universe. I leave it up to you to deduce a conclusion.

It is remarkable, that every time they replicate the experiment, scientists do not come to such a basic conclusion.

They have even done variations of the experiment by setting up different observing points.

If the measure point is by the slit, the particles behave like a laser. If the measurement is done near the impact point, they behave like a wave.

As if they know they are still being observed and recorded.

My conclusion from the double slit experiment is different. Same input data. The smallest particles in the universe are aware of the presence of a human brain observing them.

Coming to a different conclusion, from the established, is that it opens up new possibilities for interpreting the universe and our interaction with it.

There is an interaction, and it is scientifically proven that the smallest particles in the universe interact with our presence. If a human brain is observing, they act linearly, and if it is not observing, they act in a wavelike fashion.

The universe has a binary awareness, it understands our presence or non-presence. A way of thinking that invites to continue discovering, reflecting, interpreting, and defining how the universe works.

This interpretation of the data collected from the double slit experiment is more logical than the current theory that particles change their behavior randomly.

It is a fascinating subject. This logical interpretation of the data, opens a different way of thinking about how the universe, and our relationship to it, function.

This basic conclusion is not institutionalized in modern science.

They are still searching for a unifying theory that unites the two physical concepts that describe how the universe works.

The general theory of relativity, and the theory of magnetic fields. The so-called “theory of everything”.

Modern scientists are still searching for a mathematical equation that explains all the behavior of the universe.

The divine particle, or the god particle.

My philosophical conclusion is:

That, which unites the two theoretical frameworks, is our brain. We are the gods of our universe.

I should clarify, I have copied a couple of paragraphs from my forthcoming book, from the chapter “A Theory of Everything.”

If you are interested in the topic, and related ones, you can subscribe to my weekly philosophy newsletter and I will keep you informed.

Ps: This is not science, it is philosophy. Meaning: it is a different way to decipher the collected data.

Originally published at Philosophy Odyssey (Subscribe)