Quantum Physics - The Various Views of Physicists on the Nature of Reality

"This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but it is in a certain sense the 'whole'; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear: TAT TVAM ASI, this is you. Or, again, in such words as 'I am in the east and in the west. I am below and above, I AM THIS WHOLE WORLD." - Erwin Schrödinger From his essay "My View of the World"

In 1985 Nick Herbert wrote a book called Quantum Reality - Beyond the New Physics. It was written for the layperson and presented quantum concepts in a very understandable and compelling way. This is one of the first books on this subject that I picked up and so started my exploration into the nature of reality.

Nick Herbert has a Ph.D. (Physics major, Math minor) from Stanford University and holds a B.Sc., Engineering Physics (Summa cum Laude) from Ohio State University. He developed with P. S. Jastram (OSU) a method for increasing energy resolution of gamma-ray scintillation detectors while at Ohio State University. He also was involved in missile engineering at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama (now known as NASA Space Center).

So it's safe to say he is well qualified in physics. Though Quantum Reality was written 22 years ago, I still consider it quite relevant and recommend reading it. In his book he condenses to eight different reality concepts the views of foremost quantum physicists at that time.

In this post we will take a look at the first two reality views discussed by Herbert.

#1 The Copenhagen Interpretation – Part 1 – There is no deep reality

Based on the views of Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Considered to be one of the most outrageous claims in quantum physics, the notion that there is no deep reality really means according to Bohr, that the world as we see it is real enough, it just exists on top of a world that is not real. Simply put (as if there is anything simple about understanding this statement), everyday phenomena are not created from phenomena, but out of an utterly different kind of being.

As strange as it seems, this happens to be the prevailing position of established physics. The Copenhagen interpretation gets its name from he fact that it was developed at Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute.

As Nick Herbert put it "Undaunted by occasional challenges by mavericks of realist persuasion, the majority of physicists swear at least nominal allegiance to Bohr's anti-realist creed. What more glaring indication of the depth of the reality crisis than the official rejection of reality itself by the bulk of the physics community?"

Bohr was none the less adamant in his renunciation of deep reality. In his own words "There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum description."

Speaking about Bohr's anti-realist position Cornell physicist N. David Mermin said "We know now that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks."

#2 The Copenhagen Interpretation – Part 2 – Reality is created by observation

While the physicists who side with the Copenhagen school of thought do not believe in a deep reality, they do acknowledge the existence of phenomenal reality. My house, your car, the street you live on, the trees in the forest and everything in the world we all see, feel, and touch are no doubt real - but nothing is really there when no one is looking. If your car is in your garage and no one is looking at it, then there really is no car in the garage. No observer, no observable reality. Object not observed, object not there.

Any system at the quantum level exists in a superposition of states. Only when there is an act of measurement does a certain state become manifest. Many practical physicists are not bothered by this requirement as long as the rules of quantum theory yield consistent results. It is the philosopher and pure theorist who turn out to be very un-comfortable with this position. Erwin Schrödinger himself was bothered by two aspects of this interpretation - the notion that a quantum system could exist in a superposition of states, and the requirement of an intelligent observer to "Collapse the wave function" and force a quantum system to manifest in a unique state.

Noting that observer-created reality themes are commonplace in philosophy, Nick Herbert quotes Bertrand Russell regarding his fascination with idealism while he was a student at Trinity College. "In this philosophy I found comfort for a time... There was a curious pleasure in making oneself believe that time and space are unreal, that matter is an illusion and the world really consists of nothing but mind."

More to come...

My Q & A With Physicist Fred Alan Wolf Regarding Wave-Particle Duality

Keeping with my original purpose here, I want to continue talking about the nature of reality. In order to do that I think some basic understanding of quantum physics is needed, which is why I initially posted about the Wave-Particle duality of light - a fundamental discovery that hints or gives a glimpse of that nature. For myself, I was unsure of some of the assumptions I had made regarding wave-particle duality.

First to recap what has already been discussed, light is either a wave or a particle depending on whether it has been observed or not. Meaning if you are looking for a particle one will manifest, if you are not looking, only a wave will be present. See Light: Wave, Particle, or Both.

Regarding the double-slit experiment, I assumed that if a person were in the room while the so-called individual particles were being fired at the registering screen – no wave-interference pattern would manifest. If a person were not there, there would be no evidence of particle “hits” on the screen, only an ever-growing ring pattern would form – wave-interference.

I wanted to get some clarification on this matter so I turned to well known physicist Fred Alan Wolf, here is a little about him as stated in the Wikipedia:

Fred Alan Wolf (born December 3, 1934) is a theoretical physicist and writer on the subjects of quantum physics, consciousness, and their relationship, and has also authored of a number of popular works.

Wolf's fascination with physics began one afternoon as a child at a local matinée, when the newsreel revealed the awesome power and might of the world's first atomic explosion. Wolf received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UCLA in 1963 and began researching the field of high atmospheric particle behavior following a nuclear explosion.

Dr. Wolf has appeared as the resident physicist on the Discovery Channel program The Know Zone and on radio talk shows and television shows across the United States and abroad. Wolf also appeared in the films What the #$*! Do We Know!? (2004) and The Secret.


So I sent an email to Dr. Wolf regarding my assumption, here is his reply:

S. L. Strickland: I have created a blog on blogspot as a kind of layman's perspective on quantum physics - slanting toward observer created or influenced reality. I really love this stuff and wish I knew more. But I need to get some of my understanding correct so I don't post something that's inaccurate or down right wrong.

Regarding wave-particle duality and the double slit experiment. I need to know if I have this right. If you are firing one particle at a time you initially see a single strike for each particle hit on the screen (the ones that make it through), right?

Fred Alan Wolf: Yes, each particle makes a single spot.


S. L. Strickland: Eventually after a while you will find the interference pattern associated with the wave aspect of the particle/photon. Okay, in a post you mentioned that the instrument does not collapse the wave function, I assume only a conscious observer can do that then? So, if you are there the entire time watching this - does the wave interference ever show up?

Fred Alan Wolf: It depends on what you are trying to see. If you are watching a slit, and either you don't see the particle pass through a particular slit or you do see the particle pass through that slit, the interference pattern will disappear for only those particles you do or do not see accordingly. The resulting pattern will be a sum of dots: one pattern from one slit and one from the other without interference. However those particles that manage to pass through beyond detection (by this I mean a definite record of either no particle passed or a record that a particle passed recorded by your instrument) they will show the interference pattern. Hence it depends on your detecting an event or detecting a no-event for sure.

S. L. Strickland: I understand that a particle is not a particle until it is observed, else it is a wave or probability wave. See I could be way off base here, and it's bugging me to death.


Fred Alan Wolf: You have it correct. See above.

S. L. Strickland: I have seen pictures of the experiment showing the wave pattern, but it's made up of individual dots, which seem to indicate individual particles, if no one was there to watch, why are there individual dots - even though a ring pattern forms - if the particle does not manifest when not being observed?

Fred Alan Wolf: If no one observed how did you see the dots? You certainly saw them and so did the experimenter who recorded them. Once a massive record is made, the effect of the observer is negligible.


S. L. Strickland: Out of curiosity, how seriously is Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Theory being taken these days? I swear my gut instinct tells me that all possibilities manifest in other universes, I don't know why, but it feels right. Makes me wonder if you can actually experience your own death - or do you simply shunt off to the next reality when an accident happens here - you go to the next probable timeline and never know it happened. This is what I think about most all the time. I could go on about this stuff, but I'll give you a break.

Fred Alan Wolf: Very seriously, especially by those in the quantum computer research.

S. L. Strickland: I realize this is pretty elementary stuff for you compared to the questions you usually get.

Fred Alan Wolf: You should get a hold of Parallel Universes and The Yoga of Time Travel for more.


S. L. Strickland: Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate your work and books.
Sincerely Shannon Strickland
(I am a guy - thanking my mom for the gender confusing name)

Okay, so that’s what I thought. I had seen a picture (see Light: Wave, Particle, or Both) where a pattern of individual dots was on a screen, but there was also a wave-interference pattern on the same screen, which had confused me a bit. If there was wave interference, then no dot pattern should be there – because no particle would be manifest. On the other hand is someone was watching, then only dots should be present with no interference pattern. What Dr. Wolf is saying I believe is you would see both if you are in the room, the dots for every particle you detected, and the interference pattern for those you did not detect. Makes perfect sense.

The implications for the nature of reality are astounding to me; we truly do form reality by our observation of it, on some level.

Dr. Wolf has a very interesting blog you should check out called the yoga of time travel.
More to come...

US-British Scientists Test Invisibility Cloak in Lab

Well this isn't exactly the kind of quantum physics and nature of reality topic I do here, but it is a major physics breakthrough and I figured it deserved a quick mention here. It’s not a Romulan or Klingon cloaking device like those seen on the many Star Trek incarnations, but it’s a very big step in the right direction.

In October 2006, US and British scientists successfully tested a device that hid a small copper cylinder from microwaves in testing done at Duke University. The device works by deflecting microwaves around the object and then re-routing the waves around the object and restoring them to their original trajectory on the other side, as if they had simply passed though empty space.

While it works for microwaves, at the moment there is still no way to render an object invisible to the human eye – at least not yet. The cloak is made of 10 fiberglass rings covered with copper elements and is classified as a “metamaterial”. This “metamaterial” is an artificial composite that is engineered to produce a change in direction of electromagnetic waves.

In the experiment, the scientists initially measured microwaves traveling over empty space with no objects in the way. Then they placed a copper cylinder in the path of the waves and measured the scattering of the microwaves. Finally the researches placed the invisibility cloak over the cylinder and ran the test again. Although it did not completely cancel out the disturbances in the microwaves, they were significantly reduced – effectively rendering the copper cylinder invisible to microwave emissions.

In theory the same principle could be applied to visible light, but the materials required would have to be much smaller. The rule is, the metamaterial must be smaller than the wavelength of radiation (in this case light).

The wavelength of visible light is less than a micron, so your metamaterial microstructure has to be a few tens of nanometers across, and current nanotechnology is still in it’s infancy.

Light: Wave, Particle, or Both?

From the previous post we know that energy is not continuous, but is quantized, coming in discrete amounts. If energy were continuous then no atom could exist because the electron would spiral into the nucleus according to classical physics. Now let’s take a look into a more bizarre case.

There is in my opinion no better example than the often-discussed wave-particle duality in quantum physics. In essence it defines the quantum element (atoms, electrons, quarks, photons, etc.) as either a wave or a particle depending on if the element has been observed or not. As is always the case, the element will manifest as a particle when observed, but will remain a probability wave when not observed. The fundamental fact behind this is that the particle does not exist until it is observed - it is not a real object that exists independent of observation.

A stream of subatomic particles such as electrons or even light itself is beamed toward a screen. Between the screen and the light/particle source is a barrier that contains two parallel slits. If the slits are open, the light is projected through and out to the screen. The slits can be opened or closed independently at will.The particle stream intensity is reduced until only one particle at a time passes through either of the slits. Meaning a single particle is emitted, it then comes to the barrier where it passes through the slits or hits the barrier and is absorbed. We cannot predict where a particle will land even if the beam is well aimed. If a particle reaches the highly sensitive registering screen it will leave a small spot. Typical everyday thinking would suggest at this point that each particle must pass through one slit or the other to reach the screen.

Unfortunately this is not a time for normal common-sense thinking. Strangely enough, if you have one of the slits closed, more particles will reach certain areas of the screen than if you leave both slits open. There is absolutely no way to make sense of this fact if one thinks of the beam as composed of individual particles shot one at a time toward the screen. One would think that with two slits open, twice as many particles would reach the screen.

It would seem that when both slits are open, the single particle fired from the source, is actually taking both paths (slits) at once and somehow interfering with itself before reaching the screen. It is as if the particle has turned into a wave - extending itself over the entire path then dividing into sub-waves after passing through both slits. If the sub-waves converge in-phase with each other, a spot is made on the screen. Should the waves converge out-of-phase, nothing hits the screen, the waves are canceled out. In fact the pattern made on the screen after this has been going on for sometime looks like a wave interference pattern, much like ripples in a lake.

Here is something to think about, if the electron is watched while traveling on it's path, it will only be found at one slit or the other, never both. If the electron is not observed while on its path, it will apparently take all possible paths. If you look at the screen while observing the electron, you will see it register as a tiny point - as you would expect from a particle. But go away for a time and return - you will find an ever extending concentric ring pattern much like that made when you drop a pebble in water - indicating wave interference. A random stream of separated particles could never produce such a pattern - but these are separate particles and the pattern of interference is real. So how can an interference pattern be created when only one particle at a time is being fired through the slits?

The Quantum Era Begins

Let's take a look at some of the initial experiments, the beginning of the quantum era and see what led scientists to embrace these seemingly bizarre ideas on the nature of reality. Isaac Newton’s treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics. In the early 20th century, Newtonian physics was still the science of the day, describing everyday events and objects such as gravity and orbits of planets with near perfection, but new experiments on a much smaller scale were showing results which could not be explained by classical physics.

For example, it was well known that electrons orbited the nucleus of an atom. However, if they did so in a manner which resembled the planets orbiting the sun (the prevailing view of the time), classical physics predicted that the electrons would spiral in and crash into the nucleus within a fraction of a second. Obviously that doesn't happen, or every electron in every atom of the universe would spiral into every nucleus and the universe would cease to exist instantly. That incorrect prediction, along with other experiments that failed classical predictions, showed scientists that something new was needed to explain events at the atomic level.

In 1900 Max Planck suggests that radiation is quantized (it comes in discrete amounts), discovering what is now called Planck’s Constant. This discovery describes a phenomenon occurring in microscopic particles such as electrons and photons in which certain physical properties occur in fixed amounts rather than assuming a continuous range of possible values. It is this very property that allows a physical universe and matter to exist at all. With Max Planck’s discovery of Planck’s Constant, the era of quantum physics is born.

Thinking About the Nature of Reality

Just how many people actually think about things such as the nature of reality? I am sure many people never even give it a second thought and are quite satisfied with what appears to simply exist, giving no thought to what may be behind it all. Then there are scientists who work to reveal the most fundamental forces and particles in the universe, attempting to understand the nature of reality in quantum physical terms. Others, like myself just want to know what it all means in terms of existence as an apparently separate sentient being, one of countless others in a vast "out-there" universe.

Notice I mentioned "apparently separate" sentient being, the deeper into the quantum domain we go, the more we explore consciousness, the more we find that there is less and less separation between "us" and the "out-there" world at large. It appears that the universe is more a unified whole rather than a realm of separate physical objects. Certainly this seems impossible to anyone that has not thought along these lines, but it's a concept that has been embraced by many in the scientific community.

A Brief Introduction

I have been interested in science my entire life, I chose a career in electronics engineering, mainly because I have always been a huge Star Trek fan. I was always "fascinated" (no pun intended) when Mr. Spock would go to work on the computer of repair some malfunctioning system on the ship. But in the last 15 years or so I've had a great interest in the nature of reality and quantum physics - which seem to go hand in hand. Through the years I have acquired many books on the subject, from David Bohm's "Quantum Theory" - addressed mainly to advanced undergraduate students, to "Quantum Reality" by Nick Herbert - addressed to the non-scientist in terms that with a little effort, most anyone can understand. I prefer the latter, but I have found that the more I read about quantum physics, the more I can go back to Bohm's book and actually understand some of the concepts he wrote about.

Though math will surely come up, this blog will not be about the math at all, it's about trying to understand the underlying nature of reality in layman's terms. I expect religion to come up as well, again this is not about religious beliefs, the intent here is to understand the nature of reality as science today understands it, along with philosophical beliefs and metaphysical concepts that help shape our preconceptions of reality.