In the last five decades, astronomers have achieved numerous significant breakthroughs that enhance our understanding of the cosmos and its beginnings. These include measuring the cosmic microwave background, which serves as residual radiation from the Big Bang. Big Bang , with extremely high precision to help paint a picture of the first nanoseconds of the universe. They realized that how galaxies were traveling was being affected by an unseen force called dark matter That constitutes approximately one-fourth of the universe. They also found a new "ghostly" particle that moves through matter with minimal interaction, known as the neutrino .
Scientists have kept working on unraveling many of the core queries regarding how the universe and all its components interact, yet they've barely scratched the surface when it comes to addressing the simplest yet most evasive query that both philosophers and researchers have chased ever since humans developed self-awareness: What makes our existence special, why did we end up here, and what sets this moment apart?
Or, as the late physicist Dr. John Wheeler said in an interview with Discover Magazine In 2002: "Why does existence exist?"
“I’d be willing to have this arm cut off if I could understand how come the quantum? If I could understand how existence comes about,” Wheeler once said in a past interview I believe this is an area that many individuals do not typically engage with; however, I feel it has the greatest potential to provide a significant boost to the entire scientific community.
Wheeler served as an ideological leader in the development of quantum cosmology and is honored through numerous contributions to the field, notably including the introduction of the term "black holes."
He gained recognition for his knack for expanding the limits of what could be achieved in physics through innovative concepts. Described as someone "fond of both poetry and philosophy," he understood deeply how words can influence thoughts, according to Richard Webb’s biography from 2008, featured in a publication. Nature , Wheeler was “wont to write lectures on the blackboard simultaneously with both hands.”
One of his ideas, which he called the “participatory universe,” posits that our own observations could actually be what is creating our physical reality.
The idea could be depicted in a drawing of the letter “U,” where an observer stands on one column of the letter looking backward at the past history of the universe, said Dr. Bob Wald, a theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago who was Wheeler’s student at Princeton University between 1968 and 1972.
“He was very taken with the thought that no phenomenon becomes a true phenomena until it has been observed,” Wald told Pawonation.coma video call. “The idea is that the past history of the universe has become definite when someone or people now are observing things about the past universe.”
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Wheeler was an iconic scientist who learned from Niels Bohr and contributed significantly with the development of the most well-known atomic model known as the Bohr model. Additionally, Wheeler also collaborated extensively with Albert Einstein , assisting him in formulating his theory of general relativity. She was known as “physicist’s physicist” Who delved into "the concept of concepts," Wheeler motivated numerous pupils throughout his approximately half-century tenure as an educator and fostered their groundbreaking findings. Among his protégés was Hugh Everett III, who presented the theory of "multiple universes." proposes that countless parallel universes exist .
"In Everett's mathematical framework, these possibilities existed simultaneously and had the potential to converge and vanish," Wheeler stated previously. interview . “It was only when one got to the point where one had an irreversible act of observation that one of these became materialized … If there's anything designed to confuse somebody about what quantum mechanics is all about, this does it.”
Wheeler’s idea of the participatory universe is rooted in quantum mechanics, which allows a particle to be in two places at once by being in what is called a superposition state This scenario is illustrated, for instance, by the well-known theoretical concept. Schrödinger's Cat experiment In this scenario, a cat is put inside a box containing radioactive substances that might cause its death. During this theoretical demonstration, the researcher monitoring the test would remain unaware of whether the feline survived or perished until opening the container. Consequently, both possibilities existed simultaneously: The cat remained alive, and the cat was dead.
The famous “ two-slit experiment As shown similarly with photons, this phenomenon revealed that these particles could exhibit properties of both particles and waves. The study indicated that when not being observed, the particles behaved as waves going through both slits simultaneously. Yet, upon observation, they manifested as particles moving through just one slit or the other.
Wheeler suggested his version of the "delayed choice" experiment as well. While the double-slit test demonstrates how observations made prior to or during the event affect its conclusion, Wheeler’s setup revealed that postponed observations could alter the outcomes post-particles passing through the slits.
One can choose at the quantum scale whether an entity will take two paths to reach its ultimate destination or just follow a single path," Wheeler explained during an interview. "The choice can be made even after the journey has been completed. It might seem paradoxical, but it functions nonetheless.
Dr. Andrei Linde, an emeritus professor from Stanford University and co-author of the multiverse theory, suggests visualizing the scenario where you open the box containing Schrödinger’s Cat after a three-day lag. In this situation, the cat would have expired or survived within the box, giving the impression that the result had been decided three days prior as anticipated. According to Linde, observers then register these events retroactively.
To align with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, one must consider both outcomes as equally real and recognize that the universe comprises these two distinct branches: one where the cat is deceased and another where the cat remains alive.
"By watching the cat, we are discovering whether we reside in one of them," Linde stated.
Dr. Alexei Nesteruk, who serves as a visiting lecturer and researcher in the philosophy of cosmology and quantum physics at the University of Portsmouth in England, mentioned that Wheeler’s concept of the participatory universe was considered quite radical upon its introduction in the 1970s and did not gain traction within the scientific community until later.
Numerous physicists were skeptical about this idea as they deemed it intangible and somewhat esoteric," Nesteruk stated during a telephone conversation with Pawonation.com. "They remained unconvinced by his hopeful outlook that physics would eventually develop a theory capable of explaining comprehensibility and consciousness within the framework of our understanding of the physical universe.
Ultimately, it alters our conventional understanding of how time functions. Rather than the past shaping the present, which then shapes the future, Wheeler’s concept reverses this notion, proposing that the future can influence the past.
“This past becomes a construct of the human mind [working in the direction of] the future,” Nesteruk said. “This is a really interesting idea because it completely breaks down a naïve physical understanding of the past of the universe as the past of itself. It's not the past in itself. It's the past for us.”
However, the field’s initial rejection of the idea has started to change. In fact, an idea like the participatory universe that accounts for the role of the observer in determining something’s quantum state could help explain some mathematical conundrums that have appeared in quantum physics, Linde said.
“The question is really whether the unobserved universe makes any sense in physics if you would not include this consciousness,” Linde told Pawonation.coma phone interview. “That is a far cry from what standard physicists would study, but Wheeler was not just any physicist.”
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