this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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So the thing is, "observe" here means that you want to look at an electron to see which path it's taking. How do you "observe" it? By hurling a photon at it, at light speed, it smashes into the electron, changing its course, and then back to you.
Once you define what's actually happening, it becomes a lot less mysterious why "observation" changes the results.
I once had it explained to me in a way that finally clicked:
What if beings from the 42nd dimension wanted to observe life on our planet? The problem is that they're from the 42nd dimension, so they can't just sit and "watch" us in our basic four-dimensional world. However, what they can do is stir up electrons in our atmosphere until they start a lightning storm. Then they can "observe" the lightning. It turns out that they can learn a lot from the lightning itself, but at the same time it may have some effect on life here on Earth.