Detector Quotes

“Quantum particles do not behave like tennis balls, but like the quantum particles they are. To get from one place to another, they take all the possible paths in space and time as long as these paths link their starting point to their end point. The particle [...] literally went everywhere. Simultaneously. To the left and to the right of the post. And through it. And outside the room. And into the future and back - until the moment when it hit a detector on the wall.”
― Christophe Galfard, The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond

“The wave quality of light is the same as that of the electron. The wave determines the probable location of the photon of light when it is detected. The wave character of light is not vibrating stuff like a wave of water but rather a wavelike function encoding information about where you'll find the photon of light once it is detected. Until it reaches the detector plate, like the electron, it is seemingly passing through both slits simultaneously, making its mind up about its location only once it is observed [...].
It's this act of observation that is such a strange feature of quantum physics. Until I ask the detector to pick up where the electron is, the particle should be thought of as probabilistically distributed over space, with a probability described by a mathematical function that has wavelike characteristics. The effect of the two slits on this mathematical wave function alters it in such a way that the electron is forbidden from being located at some points on the detector plate. But when the particle is observed, the die is cast, probabilities disappear, and the particle must decide on a location.”
― Marcus du Sautoy, The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science

“The bullshit detector is the biggest enemy
of every religion."

From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"
('Scourges of an imaginary god')”
― A.J. Beirens

“Power is not pleasure, power is pain.”
― Amit Kalantri

“Ionizing smoke detectors unnaturally raise the background radiation levels in the human environment.”
― Steven Magee, Electrical Forensics

“Money is not as good as power, but power is as good as money.”
― Amit Kalantri

“If, years later, I do use the slit detector to observe which way the electron went, it will mean that many years earlier the electron must have passed through one slit or the other. But if I don't use the "slit detector," then the electron must have passed through both slits. This is, of course, extremely weird. My actions at the beginning of the twenty-first century can change what happened thousands of years ago when the electron began its journey. It seems that just as there are multiple futures, there are also multiple pasts, and my acts of observation in the present can decide what happened in the past. As much as it challenges any hope of ever really knowing the future, quantum physics asks whether I can ever really know the past. It seems that the past is also in a superposition of possibilities that crystallize only once they are observed.”
― Marcus du Sautoy, The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science

“I have no recollection of seeing a mercury vapor detector at facilities where mercury was in use.”
― Steven Magee

“A visiting student in La Palma was working with astronomical detector engineer and routinely breathing nitrogen gas. He later unexpectedly fainted, collapsed to the ground and went to hospital.”
― Steven Magee