Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [125]
Perhaps you are hoping that the above is a typographical mix-up or the writing of a lunatic, but it illustrates in simplified form what modern physicists tell us actually does happen in particle physics—on a subatomic level only.
A small digression. We have all learned something about Newtonian physics—falling apples and simple formulas to calculate the behavior of objects influenced by gravity. Then came that troublesome man Albert Einstein, who confused everything with his Theory of Relativity, which was said to be much better than what Newton told us. But that is a judgment subject to interpretation. For example, falling apples are well and accurately handled by Newton's formulas. Einstein adds nothing at all to such calculations. But when we consider the movements and behavior of very large bodies (stars, galaxies), very small bodies such as electrons, or objects moving at very high speeds, Newton fails miserably and Einstein steps forward to supply the tools. It is all a matter of scale, with our ordinary workaday world served by one set of rules and more exotic worlds by another. The laws that Einstein introduced to physics were not operating on the scale that Newton handled; the variables are there but amount to insignificant quantities.
By the same token, we cannot assume that conclusions reached in Einsteinian physics can be applied to answer questions about falling Newtonian apples. That is just what has been done by the "paraphysicists" in their rush to develop a theory to explain what they mistakenly think they have proved to exist; in their world, observations are not respectable without an accompanying theory to explain them.
One of the outstanding authorities in quantum mechanics—the system of mathematically accounting for actions and values on atomic and subatomic levels in terms of tiny "packets" or discrete "quanta" amounts—is enraged at the paraphysicists for this misuse of a perfectly sound theoretical construction. He is John Archibald Wheeler, a former director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, former president of the American Physical Society, and presently director of the Center for Theoretical Physics and professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin. And he is very familiar with what has become known as the "Problem of Measurement" and its abuse.
To return to our chess pieces: What holds true in the world of electrons does not govern the world of chess and apples. For example, it is possible to create a pair of photons ("packets" of light) that we know must have opposite directions of vibration, one vertically and the other horizontally. They will split off, traveling in different directions. Discovering the direction of vibration of either photon is a simple process. It is passed through a measuring device, and the direction of vibration is determined. But the photon is altered—sometimes annihilated—by the measurement process. We have had to interfere with the system in order to observe or measure it. However, as soon as we have determined its direction of vibration, we immediately know the direction of vibration of the other, remote photon—which we have not measured or interfered with. What it boils down to is that in order to measure on this level, we have to substantially interfere with the thing being measured. The oddity is that we have also measured the other half of the set—and without interfering with it!
I am reminded of a gag I once pulled on Mike Douglas, the TV personality. I was speaking about counterfeit money and asked him to allow me to show him a test to determine if a twenty-dollar bill was fake or not. He offered one for that purpose, and I crumpled it into a ball, switching it simultaneously with another made of nitrocellulose, which ignites easily and leaves no ash. I touched a match to what he believed was his money, and it flashed out of existence.