The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (24 page)

Although we have described the merging of possible histories in the context of only a couple of specific examples, this way of thinking about quantum mechanics is general. Whereas classical physics describes the present as having a unique past, the probability waves of quantum mechanics enlarge the arena of history: in Feynman's formulation, the observed present represents an amalgam—a particular kind of
average—
of all possible pasts compatible with what we now see.

In the case of the double-slit and beam-splitter experiments, there are two ways for an electron or photon to get from the source to the detector screen—going left or going right—and only by combining the possible histories do we get an explanation for what we observe. If the barrier had three slits, we'd have to take account of three kinds of histories; with 300 slits, we'd need to include the contributions of the whole slew of resulting possible histories. Taking this to the limit, if we imagine cutting an enormous number of slits—so many, in fact, that the barrier effectively disappears—quantum physics says that each electron would then traverse
every
possible path on its way to a particular point on the screen, and only by combining the probabilities associated with each such history could we explain the resulting data. That may sound strange. (It is strange.) But this bizarre treatment of times past explains the data of Figure 4.4, Figure 7.1b, and every other experiment dealing with the microworld.

You might wonder how literally you should take the sum over histories description. Does an electron that strikes the detector screen
really
get there by traveling along all possible routes, or is Feynman's prescription merely a clever mathematical contrivance that gets the right answer? This is among the key questions for assessing the true nature of quantum reality, so I wish I could give you a definitive answer. But I can't. Physicists often find it extremely useful to envision a vast assemblage of combining histories; I use this picture in my own research so frequently that it certainly feels real. But that's not the same thing as saying that it
is
real. The point is that quantum calculations unambiguously tell us the probability that an electron will land at one or another point on the screen, and these predictions agree with the data, spot on. As far as the theory's verification and predictive utility are concerned, the story we tell of how the electron got to that point on the screen is of little relevance.

But surely, you'd continue to press, we can settle the issue of what really happens by changing the experimental setup so that we can also watch the supposed fuzzy mélange of possible pasts melding into the observed present. It's a good suggestion, but we already know that there has to be a hitch. In Chapter 4, we learned that probability waves are not directly observable; since Feynman's coalescing histories are nothing but a particular way of thinking about probability waves, they, too, must evade direct observation. And they do. Observations cannot tease apart individual histories; rather, observations reflect
averages
of all possible histories. So, if you change the setup to observe the electrons in flight, you will see each electron pass by your additional detector in one location or another; you will never see any fuzzy multiple histories. When you use quantum mechanics to explain
why
you saw the electron in one place or another, the answer will involve averaging over all possible histories that could have led to that intermediate observation. But the observation itself has access only to histories that have already merged. By looking at the electron in flight, you have merely pushed back the notion of what you mean by a history. Quantum mechanics is starkly efficient: it explains what you see but prevents you from seeing the explanation.

You might further ask: Why, then, is classical physics—commonsense physics—which describes motion in terms of unique histories and trajectories, at all relevant to the universe? Why does it work so well in explaining and predicting the motion of everything from baseballs to planets to comets? How come there is no evidence in day-to-day life of the strange way in which the past apparently unfolds into the present? The reason, discussed briefly in Chapter 4 and to be elaborated shortly with greater precision, is that baseballs, planets, and comets are comparatively large, at least when compared with particles like electrons. And in quantum mechanics, the larger something is, the more skewed the averaging becomes: All possible trajectories
do
contribute to the motion of a baseball in flight, but the usual path—the one single path predicted by Newton's laws—contributes
much
more than do all other paths combined. For large objects, it turns out that classical paths are, by an enormous amount, the dominant contribution to the averaging process and so they are the ones we are familiar with. But when objects are small, like electrons, quarks, and photons, many different histories contribute at roughly the same level and hence all play important parts in the averaging process.

You might finally ask: What is so special about the act of observing or measuring that it can compel all the possible histories to ante up, merge together, and yield a single outcome? How does our act of observing somehow tell a particle it's time to tally up the histories, average them out, and commit to a definite result? Why do we humans and equipment of our making have this special power? Is it special? Or might the human act of observation fit into a broader framework of environmental influence that shows, quantum mechanically speaking, we aren't so special after all? We will take up these perplexing and controversial issues in the latter half of this chapter, since not only are they pivotal to the nature of quantum reality, but they provide an important framework for thinking about quantum mechanics and the arrow of time.

Calculating quantum mechanical averages requires significant technical training. And understanding fully how, when, and where the averages are tallied requires concepts that physicists are still working hard to formulate. But one key lesson can be stated simply: quantum mechanics is the ultimate prochoice arena: every possible "choice" something might make in going from here to there is included in the quantum mechanical probability associated with one possible outcome or another.

Classical and quantum physics treat the past in very different ways.

It is totally at odds with our classical upbringing to imagine one indivisible object—one electron or one photon—simultaneously moving along more than one path. Even those of us with the greatest of self-control would have a hard time resisting the temptation to sneak a peek: as the electron or photon passes through the doubly slit screen or the beam splitter, why not take a quick look to see what path it
really
follows on its way to the detector? In the double-slit experiment, why not put little detectors in front of each slit to tell you whether the electron went through one opening, the other, or both (while still allowing the electron to carry on toward the main detector)? In the beam-splitter experiment, why not put, on each pathway leading from the beam splitter, a little detector that will tell if the photon took the left route, the right route, or both routes (again, while allowing the photon to keep going onward toward the detector)?

The answer is that you
can
insert these additional detectors, but if you do, you will find two things. First, each electron and each photon will always be found to go through one and only one of the detectors; that is, you can determine which path each electron or photon follows, and you will find that it always goes one way or the other, not both. Second, you will also find that the resulting data recorded by the main detectors have changed. Instead of getting the interference patterns of Figure 4.3b and 7.1b, you get the results expected from classical physics, as in Figure 4.3a. By introducing new elements—the new detectors—you have inadvertently changed the experiments. And the change is such that the paradox you were
just
about to reveal—that you now know which path each particle took, so how could there be any interference with another path that the particle demonstrably did not take?—is averted. The reason follows immediately from the last section. Your new observation singles out those histories that could have preceded whatever your new observation revealed. And since this observation determined which path the photon took,
we consider only those histories that traverse this path, thus eliminatingthe possibility of interference.

Niels Bohr liked to summarize such things using his
principle of complementarity.
Every electron, every photon, every
thing,
in fact, has both wavelike and particlelike aspects. They are complementary features. Thinking purely in the conventional particle framework—in which particles move along single, unique trajectories—is incomplete, because it misses the wavelike aspects demonstrated by interference patterns.
¹⁶
Thinking purely in the wavelike framework is incomplete, because it misses the particlelike aspects demonstrated by measurements that find localized particles that can be, for example, recorded by a single dot on a screen. (See Figure 4.4.) A complete picture requires both complementary aspects to be taken into account. In any given situation you can force one feature to be more prominent by virtue of how you choose to interact. If you allow the electrons to travel from source to screen unobserved, their wavelike qualities can emerge, yielding interference. But if you observe the electron en route, you know which path it took, so you'd be at a loss to explain interference. Reality comes to the rescue. Your observation prunes the branches of quantum history. It forces the electron to behave as a particle; since particles go one way
or
the other, no interference pattern forms, so there's nothing to explain.

Nature does weird things. It lives on the edge. But it is careful to bob and weave from the fatal punch of logical paradox.

These experiments are remarkable. They provide simple but powerful proof that our world is governed by the quantum laws found by physicists in the twentieth century, and not by the classical laws found by Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein—laws we now recognize as powerful and insightful approximations for describing events at large enough scales. Already we have seen that the quantum laws challenge conventional notions of what happened in the past—those unobserved events that are responsible for what we now see. Some simple variations of these experiments take this challenge to our intuitive notion of how things unfold in time to an even greater, even more surprising level.

The first variation is called the
delayed-choice
experiment and was suggested in 1980 by the eminent physicist John Wheeler. The experiment brushes up against an eerily odd-sounding question: Does the past depend on the future? Note that this is not the same as asking whether we can go back and change the past (a subject we take up in Chapter 15). Instead, Wheeler's experiment, which has been carried out and analyzed in considerable detail, exposes a provocative interplay between events we imagine having taken place in the past, even the distant past, and those we see taking place right now.

To get a feel for the physics, imagine you are an art collector and Mr. Smithers, chairman of the new Springfield Art and Beautification Society, is coming to look at various works you have put up for sale. You know, however, that his real interest is in
The Full Monty,
a painting in your collection that you never felt quite fit, but one that was left to you by your beloved great-uncle Monty Burns, so that deciding whether to sell it is quite an emotional struggle. After Mr. Smithers arrives, you talk about your collection, recent auctions, the current show at the Metropolitan; surprisingly, you learn that, years back, Smithers was your great-uncle's top aide. By the end of the conversation you decide that you are willing to part with
The Full Monty:
There are so many other works you want, and you must exercise restraint or your collection will have no focus. In the world of art collecting, you have always told yourself, sometimes more is less.

As you reflect back upon this decision, in retrospect it seems that you had actually already decided to sell before Mr. Smithers arrived. Although you have always had a certain affection for
The Full Monty,
you have long been wary of amassing a sprawling collection and late-twentieth-century erotic-nuclear realism is an intimidating area for all but the most seasoned collector. Even though you remember that before your visitor's arrival you had been thinking that you didn't know what to do, from your current vantage point it seems as though you really did. It is not quite that future events have affected the past, but your enjoyable meeting with Mr. Smithers and your subsequent declaration of your willingness to sell have illuminated the past in a way that makes definite particular things that seemed undecided at the time. It is as though the meeting and your declaration helped you to accept a decision that was already made, one that was waiting to be ushered forth into the light of day. The future has helped you tell a more complete story of what was going on in the past.

Of course, in this example, future events are affecting only your perception or interpretation of the past, so the events are neither puzzling nor surprising. But the delayed-choice experiment of Wheeler transports this psychological interplay between the future and the past into the quantum realm, where it becomes both precise and startling. We begin with the experiment in Figure 7.1a, modified by turning the laser down so it fires one photon at a time, as in Figure 7.1b, and also by attaching a new photon detector next to the beam splitter. If the new detector is switched off (see Figure 7.2b), then we are back in the original experimental setup and the photons generate an interference pattern on the photographic screen. But if the new detector is switched on (Figure 7.2a), it tells us which path each photon traveled: if it detects a photon, then the photon took that path; if it fails to detect a photon, then the photon took the other path. Such "which-path" information, as it's called, compels the photon to act like a particle, so the wavelike interference pattern is no longer generated.

Figure 7.2 (a) By turning on "which-path" detectors, we spoil the interference pattern. (b) When the new detectors are switched off, we're back in the situation of Figure 7.1 and the interference pattern gets built up.

Now let's change things, à la Wheeler, by moving the new photon detector far downstream along one of the two pathways. In principle, the pathways can be as long as you like, so the new detector can be a considerable distance away from the beam splitter. Again, if this new photon detector is switched off, we are in the usual situation and the photons fill out an interference pattern on the screen. If it is switched on, it provides which-path information and thus precludes the existence of an interference pattern.

The new weirdness comes from the fact that the which-path measurement takes place long
after
the photon had to "decide" at the beam splitter whether to act as a wave and travel both paths or to act as a particle and travel only one. When the photon is passing through the beam splitter, it can't "know" whether the new detector is switched on or off—as a matter of fact, the experiment can be arranged so that the on/off switch on the detector is set
after
the photon has passed the splitter. To be prepared for the possibility that the detector is off, the photon's quantum wave had better split and travel both paths, so that an amalgam of the two can produce the observed interference pattern. But if the new detector turns out to have been on—or if it was switched on after the photon fully cleared the splitter—it would seem to present the photon with an identity crisis: on passing through the splitter, it had already committed itself to its wavelike character by traveling both paths, but now, sometime after making this choice, it "realizes" that it needs to come down squarely on the side of being a particle that travels one and only one path.

Somehow, though, the photons always get it right. Whenever the detector is on—again, even if the choice to turn it on is delayed until long after a given photon has passed through the beam splitter—the photon acts fully like a particle. It is found to be on one and only one route to the screen (if we were to put photon detectors way downstream along both routes, each photon emitted by the laser would be detected by one or the other detector, never both); the resulting data show no interference pattern. Whenever the new detector is off—again, even if this decision is made after each photon has passed the splitter—the photons act fully like a wave, yielding the famous interference pattern showing that they've traveled both paths. It's as if the photons adjust their behavior in the past according to the future choice of whether the new detector is switched on; it's as though the photons have a "premonition" of the experimental situation they will encounter farther downstream, and act accordingly. It's as if a consistent and definite history becomes manifest only after the future to which it leads has been fully settled.
⁴

There is a similarity to your experience of deciding to sell
The Full
Monty.
Before meeting with Mr. Smithers, you were in an ambiguous, undecided, fuzzy, mixed state of being both willing and unwilling to sell the painting. But talking together about the art world and learning of Smithers's affection for your great-uncle made you increasingly comfortable with the idea of selling. The conversation led to a firm decision, which in turn allowed a history of the decision to crystallize out of the previous uncertainty. In retrospect it felt as if the decision had really been made all along. But if you hadn't gotten on so well with Mr. Smithers, if he hadn't given you confidence that
The Full Monty
would be in trustworthy hands, you might very well have decided not to sell. And the story of the past that you might tell in this situation could easily involve a recognition that you'd actually decided long ago
not
to sell—that no matter how sensible it might be to sell the painting, deep down you've always known that the sentimental connection was just too strong to let it go. The actual past, of course, did not change one bit. Yet a different experience now would lead you to describe a different history.

In the psychological arena, rewriting or reinterpreting the past is commonplace; our story of the past is often informed by our experiences in the present. But in the arena of physics—an arena we normally consider to be objective and set in stone—a future contingency of history makes one's head spin. To make the spinning even more severe, Wheeler imagines a cosmic version of the delayed choice experiment in which the light source is not a laboratory laser but, instead, a powerful quasar in deep space. The beam splitter is not a laboratory variety, either, but is an intervening galaxy whose gravitational pull can act like a lens that focuses passing photons and directs them toward earth, as in Figure 7.3. Although no one has as yet carried out this experiment, in principle, if enough photons from the quasar are collected, they should fill out an interference pattern on a long-exposure photographic plate, just as in the laboratory beam-splitter experiment. But if we were to put another photon detector right near the end of one route or the other, it would provide which-path information for the photons, thereby destroying the interference pattern.

What's striking about this version is that, from our perspective, the photons could have been traveling for many billions of years. Their decision to go one way around the galaxy, like a particle, or both ways, like a wave, would seem to have been made long before the detector, any of us, or even the earth existed. Yet, billions of years later, the detector was built, installed along one of the paths the photons take to reach earth, and switched on. And these recent acts somehow ensure that the photons under consideration act like particles. They act as though they have been traveling along precisely one path or the other on their long journey to earth. But if, after a few minutes, we turn off the detector, the photons that subsequently reach the photographic plate start to build up an interference pattern, indicating that for billions of years they have been traveling in tandem with their ghostly partners, taking opposite paths around the galaxy.

Figure 7.3 Light from a distant quasar, split and focused by an intervening galaxy, will, in principle, yield an interference pattern. If an additional detector, which allows the determination of the path taken by each photon, were switched on, the ensuing photons would no longer fill out an interference pattern.

Has our turning the detector on or off in the twenty-first century had an effect on the motion of photons some billions of years earlier? Certainly not. Quantum mechanics does not deny that the past has happened, and happened fully. Tension arises simply because the concept of
past
according to the quantum is different from the concept of
past
according to classical intuition. Our classical upbringing makes us long to say that a given photon
did
this or
did
that. But in a quantum world, our world, this reasoning imposes upon the photon a reality that is too restrictive. As we have seen, in quantum mechanics the norm is an indeterminate, fuzzy, hybrid reality consisting of many strands, which only crystallizes into a more familiar, definite reality when a suitable observation is carried out. It is not that the photon, billions of years ago, decided to go one way around the galaxy or the other, or both. Instead, for billions of years it has been in the quantum norm—a hybrid of the possibilities.

The act of observation links this unfamiliar quantum reality with everyday classical experience. Observations we make today cause one of the strands of quantum history to gain prominence in our recounting of the past. In this sense, then, although the quantum evolution from the past until now is unaffected by anything we do now, the story we tell of the past can bear the imprint of today's actions. If we insert photon detectors along the two pathways light takes to a screen, then our story of the past will include a description of which pathway each photon took; by inserting the photon detectors, we ensure that which-path information is an essential and definitive detail of our story. But, if we don't insert the photon detectors, our story of the past will, of necessity, be different. Without the photon detectors, we can't recount anything about which path the photons took; without the photon detectors, which-path details are fundamentally unavailable. Both stories are valid. Both stories are interesting. They just describe different situations.