Atomic Clocks Prove Reality Is Stranger Than You Think | NOVA | PBS

I am excited and unexcited about atomic clocks, at the same time.

It's really misleading to just say that observing something changes it without explaining that to observe something is a physical process, requiring physical interactions between particles. The onyl way humans know to observe anything is to bounce some kind of particle off it, in most cases a photon of light, and then have some kind of receptor receive that particle, in most cases our eye, and eventually translate that into information. Once we discovered that a smaller particle could see finer details, we started bouncing an electron off stuff and having a receptor receive that and a computer translate it into information, an electron microscope. But we're still physically bouncing a particle off whatever we want to see- so if that thing we want to see is super small- and we hit it with a photon or an electron which is at least as large maybe larger- is it any wonder it "changes" it? No- what's crazy is how it changes it- it doesn't just knock it off course, it fundamentally changes the thing's very nature. It seems to transform from some kind of smeared out wave of probability into the little particle we're used to. What's even weirder is, if you observe it at one point, it seems to have retroactive effects that changed its behavior before you observed it. It's like nature is saying "Oh, you're looking - well let me back up then and preserve continuity- whew, that was almost embarrassing..." Damn little jitter bugs, you can't catch'em- they'll just pop right out of your little box like it's not there. You can either know where they are, or how fast they're going- but never both because that would allow you to trap them, then they'd have to tunnel out of your little box, and that's far too vulgar of a display. Nature much prefers to keep up pretenses, everything is nice and smooth, analogue- nothing to see here. Walls are solid, what goes up always comes down, and the world is analogue, not made of discreet packets. Until you look closer, turns out, if the packets are tiny enough relative to us, the resolution is high- it just feels analogue/continuous to us. You would never know you live in a digital world where everything comes in discreet packets. Nor that the bits are in constant motion, never still, seething like some kind of quantum froth in constant flux.

I got a C in Quantum Mechanics at Stanford. Richard Feynman stated: " If you think you understand Quantum Theory, you don't." That made me feel better.

Watched this NOVA documentary yesterday & it was fascinating to learn that in 1927 Albert Einstein & other great Physicists met to discuss Quantum Theory & now its almost 100 years old! Great show PBS, you are my favorite network/channel!

I thought I was awake until The Obscured Principles by Dorian Caine showed me how deep the programming actually goes. It pulls back the curtain on the psychological and spiritual tools used to keep humanity obedient and distracted. This book found me at the exact right moment and now nothing looks the same. Real truth that challenges everything you believe about freedom and power.

I think the thing people forget when thinking about the observer effect is that you, and any instrument doing the measuring, is also made of physics. There is no observation, only interaction.

Strontium clocks more precisely measure how late I was for a meeting.

Jay Sanders is one of the best narrators out there. I’d listen to Sanders read the phone book, if that was a thing anymore.

It’s not observing it that changes it. It’s measurement or interacting with other particles.

Even though we talk about "observing" subatomic particles, we ourselves are just collections of those same particles. It leads to this strange logical loop where subatomic particles are essentially observing other subatomic particles (using tools made of subatomic particles). It’s a mind-bending paradox.

I still have my vintage fossil watch with a sundial on it. It works great when interacting with photons

I am glad that many of the audio, graphical and script writing artists who used to find work on BBC Horizon - until it gave up on quality around 2012 - must have found safe haven at PBS ;)

Isn't just that it's not that we observe it, like some say it needs consciousness to make the wave function collapse, but simply that you have to measure it, which requires emiting or absorbing energy to "observe" it ?!?

Some peeps wonder how we got along with so many things. When l was young we just learned where to drive by memory, and maps We had one phone at home, and no computers, and we got along swimmingly. :)

McLovin knows what time it is!

I wonder if the uncertainty has to do with the fact we are all moving through space at a high speed with no way to ever stop in order to do any experiments while truly remaining still compared to the rest of the universe. Its like being on a fast train and trying to understand what you see out the window by only getting a fast glimpse before its gone.

aww one of my Fav Scientist Sean Carroll. such a brilliant man always enjoy listening to him.. thanks for sharing

people think "observing" means a consciousness has to be involved. It just means interaction with another system. It doesn't have to be a detector with a person watching.

Before GPS we used Thomas Guides on our laps as we drove 😅

Nova is awesome, time well spent and enjoyed.