Children teach quantum physics
If you’re ever wondering how quantum physics and children (particularly grandchildren) are alike, consider this:
- You can measure where the child is, or how quickly he or she is running around the house, but never both at the same time.
- Given the amount of time the child enters a room and the time an object is broken or a cookie jar in a different location is opened, you can only conclude the child was at both places at the same time.
- You don’t know if the child is awake or asleep at naptime until you open the door to find out.
- Observing the child alters his or her behaviour (see previous point).
- When the child falls down and skins his or her knee, your heart hurts instantly, regardless of distance. That’s very spooky.
- A child’s state is passionately happy, sad, angry, hungry, you name it. But this is always compartmentalised, and never anything in between.
- Watching the child play with others (especially in a large group) leads to the conclusion that the individual child has particle properties as he or she asserts his or her self. But the child also has wave properties as he or she disappears in the crowd and reappears at will.
- The smaller the child is, the more uncertainty you encounter. However at the macro level, uncertainty is never removed.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by erix!