This stuff doesn’t map well to the English language. Basically something for which we have only a mathematical description behaves in a manner for which we have only a mathematical description. The result is now to be expressed in non-mathematical terms. Best of luck with that.
When you translate a rigorous mathematical result into English, you must be equally accurate and precise.
Most of the statements made in this article are actually either false or gibberish. Here are just a few:
reality does not exist if you are not looking at it
False. Not what quantum mechanics says.
quantum theory, which governs the world of the very small
Nope. Governs everything, large and small. And contrary to popular science writing, there are lots of examples of large scale quantum mechanical effects.
"Quantum physics' predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness,"
Nope. It doesn't. We've suspected that massive particles were quantum particles since DeBroglie wrote his PhD thesis in 1924, and had proof of it since 1927. Nothing newer or weirder is happening here at all.
If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom's past, said Truscott.
If one chooses to believe that, one is choosing to believe what no physicist has believed for almost 100 years.
"The atoms did not travel from A to B.
Yes. They did.
It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,"
Gibberish. The atom travels every spacetime path between A and B, and it is only when a particular experimental measuring apparatus [or, in this case, gimmick] is used that a particular behavior appears to be seen. But this is an illusion. Atoms are not "sometimes" particles and "sometimes" waves. They are neither of those things, but when certain kinds of measurements are performed on them, they seem to display a behavior consistent with one or the other model. But as good as a model is, it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves that our models are not reality.
This kind of nonsense gives rise to all sorts of loonieness, and professional physicists shouldn't be encouraging it. Most are highly disdainful of this sort of language.
Very astute of you. I see that all the time in math and in physics (at least that elementary part of physics I actually do understand)... If you understand the mathematics of something, the derivations, etc., it’s easy to understand. Otherwise, it can be very difficult and will surely be the source of much confusion.
When I read things in the popular press about quantum mechanics, say, I’m really no better off than someone who doesn’t understand a thing about it. The math is key.