I used to think quantum theory was bullshyt. I thought it was bullshyt because somebody (several somebodies) explained it to me wrong. The theory they explained made no sense at all, and they didnt say why legitimate scientists would believe something so crazy.
So I did some reading and I finally discovered the truth: quantum theory makes no sense because its an attempt to explain the impossible results of a popular experiment. These results defy all logic, but the experiment has been repeated over and over again, with the same results.
Before I describe the experiment Ill tell you about crazy quantum theory. Then youll understand why I thought it was bullshyt.
We tend to think of a particle (an object) as occupying one place at one time. Quantum theory defies that, suggesting that one particle occupies a bunch of different places at the same time (as several points along a wave). But when we observe it, most of those points collapse, and were left with one particle in one place. Which of the many places will it finally settle on? According to the descriptions I was given, there is inherent probability in the universe, and this probability decides which spot it will rest on.
I had two problems with this. First of all, observing things doesnt change them. Interacting with them changes them. My explainers suggested that we alter the universe by becoming mentally aware of the waves. This is magic and mysticism, not science. Secondly, the idea of probability always comes from a lack of information. You hold a rock in your left fist and hold out both your arms. For me theres a fifty-fifty chance that the rock could be in either fist. But for you theres a one-hundred percent chance that the rock is in the left fist. There is no objective probability, just a lack of information on my part. Thats why we created the idea of probability. But my quantum theory explainers suggested that there is inherent, objective probability in the universe. They said that a particle has a certain chance of being in each of a bunch of different places, and that it is simultaneously in ALL of those places at the same time
until you observe it! And then it picks one of those places, but the only thing that CAUSES it to choose a specific place is the abstract idea of probability, which is a mental phenomenon that humans made up in the first place! Bullshyt!
A famous example they came up with is this: theres a radioactive particle and it has a fifty-fifty chance of emitting deadly radiation. They put the particle in a box with a cat. So the cat has a fifty-fifty chance of dying. According to this aspect of quantum theory, the cat is simultaneously both dead and alive
until you open the box and observe it, collapsing one reality and actively affirming (creating) (solidifying) the other one.
I can justify calling this bullshyt because it cant be tested
as soon as we observe anything, the other quantum possibilities are all gone! How convenient
its like Freud saying, If you DENY that you want to sleep with your mom then that just proves that youre in denial for wanting to sleep with your mom! So we can say, I see that the cat is alive and NOT dead, but thats because we successfully collapsed the dead-cat reality! Quantum theory works!
I knew quantum theory couldnt be as dumb as it sounded, because its a huge area of research and its accepted by lots of scientists. I wanted to know what it was really about, so I did some reading and found that it all comes from one experiment.
Ill oversimplify it to a disgusting extent, leaving out some juicy goodness.
Basically some scientists shot a single electron at a screen with two holes in it (like throwing a baseball at a wall with two windows in it). But instead of one electron (particle) coming out the other side, waves came out of each of the two holes (like an ocean wave crashing through two holes in a barrier). This is strange because a particle and a wave are supposed to be two different things. Theres no such thing as a sound particle: sound waves are just vibrations in the air. And they knew that electrons were particles and not waves, because matter (like you and me!) are made out of electrons, among other things. So how can a single particle (an electron) be a wave that goes through two holes at the same time?
Now it gets weirder. When the scientists did the experiment again they set up a particle-detector to detect which hole the electron went through. With the detector they could see that the electron really only went through one hole, and no wave came out the other side! But when they took the particle detector away then waves would start coming out again, but they couldnt tell which hole (or holes) the electron went through. So it seems like the particle detector caused the electron-wave to stop acting like a wave (one particle in many places) and start acting like a normal particle. They call this collapsing the wave into a particle.
Like I said, some people seem to think that by observing (consciously acknowledging) the wave we magically collapse the wave into a particle. Thats the explanation I first heard and it sounds like misplaced mysticism. The other explanation is that the particle-detector interacts with the electron-wave, and its that interaction that collapses the wave into a single particle.
Either way, the strange fact remains that a single electron begins its life by occupying a bunch of different points along a wave simultaneously
until it interacts with its environment and collapses into a single particle. Since were all made (partly) from electrons, then were all made of cool waves that have been beaten into boring particles. Every subatomic particle in your girlfriends body had lots of freedom and quantum possibilities in its youth, but the collapsed world of classical physics beat all the potential out of them, and they resigned themselves to follow Einstein & Newtons worldview, living as particles in your girlfriends body, just another dying piece of meat like the rest of us (LoL).
So where does the probability come in? Well, when the wave collapses, the normal electron appears at one point along the wave. Basically, all the other points along the wave die off and only one survives, and thats where the normal electron lives forever after. But scientists havent discovered what makes one point survive when the others die off. What they have noted is that some places along a wave have a higher chance of surviving the collapse than others, even though they dont know what causes that probability. So with their lack of information they seem to just assume that there is NOTHING that causes this probability, and they say that chance and probability are inherent in these particles. To me it seems like they just have to study more. There are other scientists who also disregard this probability in nature idea, and theyre looking for the true empirical cause for why one point on the wave survives instead of the others.
Bah
my head hurts.
So! To sum it up, quantum physics is definitely crazy nonsense. The reason I thought it was bullshyt was because the people who explained it to me didnt understand the empirical (scientific) elements of it, and they misinterpreted the nonsense basically as consciousness-magic. The results of the double-slit experiments (two holes in the screen) are crazy nonsense. The experiment has been repeated over and over again, and scientists are still trying to figure out why one particle can be a wave and go through two holes. It is a beautiful demonstration that this world is not what it appears to be, and our logic and common sense are just tools that we use to fumble around clumsily in the world of big objects. Theyre functional, and a result of the big world of classical physics. They dont seem to grasp the underlying weirdness of reality. That weirdness is what scientists are starting to dig into.
Weird though it might be, quantum mechanics works in practical ways. IBM is experimenting with quantum computers. With our digital computers, everything is 1′s and 0′s (on and off), but with quantum computers, each quantum byte can simultaneously be both. I dont totally understand it, but apparently it makes computing almost incomprehensibly fast. To use an analogy, they could conceivably make computers that could deal with more information than there are atoms in the universe. Theyve been successfully using the components, but theyre far from putting it together into something useful yet. Were just starting to toy with these computers which defy classical physics, so its completely sensible to consider the idea that were inside a much better computer, which itself might be inside a better computer, and so on, and so on
The truth is nonsense. The world is crazy nonsense.
Quantum physics makes no sense to me. I sometimes already feel like A lot of Scientist are Elitist and will manipulate results to get the answers of their liking. In some instances I feel like Quantum Physics is a result of a fantasy that cannot be properly explain(at least to make sense to people outside their little circle). I'm fascinated by the thought of it 
and would love more for it to be true, but it seems to be based on probability and not facts. Same way a lot of Science nuts feel about religion, I sometimes feel about science. I ran across this guy's interpretation of Quantum physics
i dont understand, therefore it cannot be.
That's like asking if water is real while taking a shower 
