Elon Musk *Still* Doesn't Understand The Double Slit Experiment - Debunking Terrible Physics

[00:00:00]I like to think that he wakes up kind of you know, in a cold sweat and starts throwing like bunches of socks around trying to work this out.

[00:00:13]Speaking of catching midwits, regular terrible physics contributor Elon Musk, he's out and about again. And as I say, he's still trying to get his head around the uh the double slit experiment. So, I like to think that he wakes up kind of you know, in a cold sweat and starts throwing like bunches of socks around trying to work this out. But, he retweeted a child's video about the double slit, well, uh what's the word I'm looking for? An animated video about the double slit experiment from online psycho Ashton Forbes who was retweeting Dr. Quantum.

[00:00:49]We have no problem with Dr. Quantum, but Ashton Forbes is a psycho who lives off the kind of blood of MH370, the MH370 tragedy. And Elon seems to think that the double slit experiment, that's what this video was explaining in a simple fashion, means that we live in a simulation. So, the double slit experiment and the and the results of the double slit are consistent with the simulation hypothesis. Like a video game, objects are randomly generated with positional certainty only when observed.

[00:01:26]Any thoughts on this? Cuz I have a few.

[00:01:29]Evaristo, come to you first.

[00:01:31]>> It It is almost impossible to parse. Like, what do you mean objects are randomly generated in a video game nonetheless? Like, you know, like stuff is generated when you go like in and out of like >> You go into a level or something like that.

[00:01:46]>> Yeah, like what do you mean randomly generated?

[00:01:49]>> [laughter] >> Also, like when observed?

[00:01:54]Like, what does this have to do with a video game?

[00:01:56]or a simulation. Like, what?

[00:01:59]>> It doesn't really make sense from a video game, right? So, a video game doesn't usually randomly generate things when you're observing it, when you're playing it, right? So, as you just said, like, if I am playing a game, it generates a level, you know, I walk through a particular door, I pick up a key or whatever, some enemies come out, some obstacles come up. You know, stuff is generated based on the coding, the rules, the story of the game. Sometimes there are, you know, random elements within that. Maybe, you know, the the level is procedurally generated, and it's slightly different each time, but there's there's a set of codes and rules underneath that, and a you know, kind of usually a maximum number of possibilities that can come out. Um so, I don't see how that correlates with video games, Christian.

[00:02:50]>> Yeah, neither do I. I think I agree that I played games which have random elements, like Minecraft or Terraria, where you, you know, you would start the game, it generates something, maybe enemies randomly spawn. But, in that case, it's because you are playing a game, there is a conscious observer, you choose to move around, and when you enter a new area, maybe some enemies spawn. So, let's immediately uh demolish a potential [snorts] misconception about quantum mechanics. When you observe something, say in the double-slit experiment, by putting a camera somewhere, it is not because there is a conscious observer who is looking at the output of the camera. The result is that when a particle goes through one of the slits, it becomes entangled with a macroscopic object. So, it becomes physically correlated with a detector or the environment, and that causes decoherence, and the thing collapses into a particular state. This has nothing to do with consciousness. This has nothing to do with a player moving an avatar around in a video game, where the code decides, "Ah, the character has entered this room, so now I need to generate some random enemies." They're just completely conceptually different things, And I think we should uh uh uh avoid falling into the trap of thinking that observations in quantum mechanics, despite the word, do not actually have to do with conscious observers.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah, absolutely. He seems to be falling into this trap. As you said, the word observation literally means like somebody watching. So, you know, we have the the wave-like properties when you're when there is no um you know, the no camera, there's no measuring device at one of the slits to see which way the particles went. Um you have the wave-like properties. He seems to be laboring under the idea that's in this meme that if somebody is watching they kind of stop doing this behavior, which is just total nonsense, right? You have to have this this measuring device, something that causes decoherence to happen at one of the slits. So, he's he's fallen he seems to have fallen into this meme where, as you said, a conscious observer has to be looking at it and then it won't do the thing. He's kind of doing the you know, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, does it you know, still make a sound kind of thing. Um I think this one, Christian, might work better for for Elon.

[00:05:00]Interested in your thoughts.

[00:05:01]>> Yeah, this one is is certainly more entertaining, but uh I guess in this case, if you're yeah, if if no one is looking at it, then nothing happens. This is more of a tree falls in the forest sort of thing.

[00:05:12]>> Exactly. But if there's no measuring device, even though Stevie Wonder is looking or not looking, blind or not blind this thing is still going to do it. You have to have the measuring device there. This is nothing, as you said, to do with with conscious observers. And the other thing as well is that it doesn't have to be as we said, it doesn't have to be a conscious observer.

[00:05:31]It doesn't even have to be a human, right? The the universe is constantly being rendered, quote unquote, by you know, measuring devices, stray photons, particles, fields things that are totally not human. So this idea that you're playing a video game and a conscious observer has to be kind of piloting the process, um, it makes no sense. Hassan, any thoughts before we move on from this?

[00:05:56]>> Yeah, I mean, so the one of the memes that you showed that beer or whatever was watching at the, you know, screen.

[00:06:03]Yeah, that So, this meme is very misleading because it's the it seems to give the picture that just because the beer has moved his or its eye is towards the screen, that's why the pattern is emerging. And that's not what's happening. You know, if you have to have a, you know, a position detecting, you know, detector near one of the slits in order to get the pattern.

[00:06:22]Just moving your eyes is not good.

[00:06:24]So, if people who don't know physics if they look at this meme, they're going to get the wrong impression that just because you move your eyes the pattern changed. And that's not what's That's not what's what's going to happen.

[00:06:34]Because you won't you know, what the what slit a particular particle went through if you don't put a position detecting, you know, detector near one of the slits.

[00:06:43]So, this is not a complete picture.

[00:06:44]>> It's interesting, actually, that the last two things we've looked at with quantum mechanics, the problem seems to have come from the use of a more colloquial word, observation, but used in a specific way in physics, right? So, an observation, a measurement in physics as as Christian says it's sort of going to decohere, it's going to make that force that that wave function to collapse.

[00:07:11]Whereas, colloquially when we say observe, we mean watch something. So, there's that that mismatch between the use of the physics word and the and the colloquial use of the word, right? And if you're not trained in something, as Elon Musk is clearly not and clearly doesn't still doesn't understand the double slit experiment, he keeps demonstrating it all the time, um, he probably shouldn't be making definitive statements about about things like this, right?

[00:07:34]>> One thing that I would say is that suppose that just the meme gives you the right picture, right? How do we know that the the picture at the top is correct.

[00:07:43]>> [laughter] >> If we never saw that pattern.

[00:07:46]We We know that that pattern happens because we have seen it.

[00:07:49]So, of course, if you just see that pattern and it doesn't go away. We We know that this happens because we have seen it.

[00:07:55]So, of course, this means nonsense.

[00:07:57]>> There's more bears behind Hassan.

[00:07:59]There's like an infinite regressive bears. But, yes, it's a it's a it's a good point.

[00:08:04]>> I want to know what you think because you're the scholars of enlightenment that I do this for.

[00:08:10]Please take a moment, if you wish, to let me know down in the comment section.

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[00:08:32]Thanks for watching.

[00:08:34]Thanks for being scientific.

[00:08:36]Thanks for being bad.