Quantum System Quotes

“Everything that seems strange about quantum mechanics comes down to measurement. If we take a look, the quantum system behaves one way. If we don’t, the system does something else. What’s more, different ways of looking can elicit apparently mutually contradictory answers. If we look at a system one way, we see this; but if we look at the same system another way, we see not merely that but not this. The object went through one slit; no, it went through both. How can that be? How can ‘the way nature behaves’ depend on how – or if – we choose to observe it?”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“We know that measurements of a quantum system seem to collapse the wavefunction. We most certainly don’t know how, or why, or indeed if that actually happens.”
― Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

“If I keep observing the uranium, which means a little more than keeping my eyes on the pot on my desk and involves something akin to surrounding it with a whole system of Geiger counters, I can freeze it in such a way that it stops emitting radiation.
Although Turing first suggested the idea as a theoretical construct, it turns out that it is not just mathematical fiction. Experiments in the last decade have demonstrated the real possibility of using observation to inhibit the progress of a quantum system.”
― Marcus du Sautoy, The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science