Spiritual Principles

What Electrons and Particles Say About God and Reality

July 31, 2018

One day I was on YouTube listening to teachings on quantum mechanics (you know, like what most people do). Specifically, the double slit experiments had interesting implications about reality and ultimately God.

If you took a BB gun and shot BB’s at a 1 foot by 1 foot metal plate with a slit 1 inch by 6 inches wide in the middle, most BB’s would probably hit the middle plate. Some BB’s would actually go through the slit. If you had a dry wall behind metal plate, you would detect that a one stripe pattern behind the slit on the dry wall. It would look similar to the illustration below.

 

 

Single Slit Experiment

Now imagine if you took the same experiment in a room and filled the entire room with water. Instead of dry wall you had a pressure sensor behind the metal plate. Then you dropped a bowling ball into the room. The pattern on the pressure sensor would look like a wave.

 

Scientists performed this same experiment, except on a much smaller scale using electrons instead of BB’s. Indeed when electrons were shot at a metal plate with a single slit, a single stripe pattern emerged on the detector screen. This experiment told us that electronics were particles – tiny elements with size and mass.

Scientists then placed two slits on the metal plate in what is clasically called the double slit experiment. Scientists expected to see a two striped pattern. Electrons were to behave like particles. Instead multiple stripes on the detector screen were seen. This pattern signified the behavior of a wave. The waves would cancel out each other producing the classic multiple striped pattern. In other words, with the double slit, electrons behaved like waves instead of particles.

This was definitely strange. How could something behave like both a wave and a particle at the same time?

Turns out the experiments got stranger. The double slit experiment was again performed. This time scientists placed a detector at the double slit to observe how electrons went through the double split. Remember, with the original double slit experiment, the electrons showed an interference pattern (multiple stripes) indicative of a wave function. Well when scientists, put a detector at the double slit to observe the electrons, a 2 striped pattern emerged. The electrons reverted back to particle behavior!

 

It gets stranger still. Scientists decided to place the detector behind the double slit in between the detector and the metal plate. They surmised that the electron would then behave like a wave and the detector would measure how electrons behaved after passing through the metal plate. They reasoned that since the electrons were not being measured at the double slit, they would behave like waves and the detector could measure them in transit onto the screen detector. What as the result? The electrons again behaved like particles.

The interesting thing was that when scientists turned off the detectors, electrons reverted back to wave-like behavior.

Scientists wondered if they could outsmart the electron. They decided to leave the detectors off and then turn on the detectors partway through the experiment. They wanted to catch the electrons in the act of behaving like a wave. Scientists began the day with the detectors off, but in an interesting twist, the electrons behaved like particles! That’s with the detectors off. It was as if the electrons knew they were going to be measured, collapsed their wave function and exhibited their particle-like behavior. However, when the scientists decided to leave the detectors off for the entire day, the electrons would then revert back to wave like behavior.

 

It’s interesting to me that this is underlying reality of our universe. The universe is responsive to our observations. And I would take it further. The universe is responsive to our attitudes, thoughts and motivations. It beckons us into her wonders and mysteries.

As a Christian, I believe the Universe has a Maker. And as we study more of the universe we grasp a deeper sense of who God is.

Matthew tells us, “Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be open.” Both the double slit experiment and Scripture seems to state this underlying principle: We all find what we are truly looking for.

If we approach life expecting the blessing and goodness of God, that’s what we will get. If we approach life thinking we are cursed and that God limits our resources, then we will find that to be the case.

The Psalmist digs deeper into this, “To the righteous you show yourself righteous, to the faithful you show yourself faithful, but to the evil, you show yourself shrewd.”

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