Does our conscience affect external subatomic particles? (double slit experiment)

[stan1980]

I have no formal physics qualifications but this experiment does look fascinating. I think everyone should watch this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

So can anyone more qualified confirm what this experiment seems to be suggesting; that our conscience or mere observation has an affect on how subatomic particles behave?

And if so, what are the reasons or theories behind it all? Does anyone have any idea?

 

[Washington]

I have no formal physics qualifications but this experiment does look fascinating. I think everyone should watch this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

So can anyone more qualified confirm what this experiment seems to be suggesting; that our conscience or mere observation has an affect on how subatomic particles behave?

And if so, what are the reasons or theories behind it all? Does anyone have any idea?

The observation is actually a "mechanical measuring." A instrument measures (observes) the process, not a human mind. What the human mind does is look at the results of the instrument's observation. You could turn on the whole apparatus, leave the building, and when you came back the results would be the same.

For the first part of the experiment HERE is a hands on site.

 

[stan1980]

So it is just the measuring instrument effecting the particles?

 

[Washington]

So it is just the measuring instrument effecting the particles?

Yeah. Crazy as it is.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I have no formal physics qualifications but this experiment does look fascinating. I think everyone should watch this short video:

So can anyone more qualified confirm what this experiment seems to be suggesting; that our conscience or mere observation has an affect on how subatomic particles behave?

I've seen the video before, and I don't think it's suggesting this. But I don't like how, at ~4:30, it concludes that the electron made a decision before it set out.

The 'observer effect' is introduced not by the human conciousness being aware of the particle's position, but rather by the mechanism by which the measurement is done in the first place.

For example, a standard mercury-in-glass thermometer must absorb some thermal energy to record a temperature, and therefore changes the temperature of the body which it is measuring.

Likewise, the detector must interact with the electron in order to determine where the hell it is. In this way it collapses the wavefunction, and we get the standard particle pattern.