This is the beginning of a quantum physics series I'm starting on the channel. In future videos we will explore the physics and mathematics behind the results of this experiment, plus much more. Please let me know if you have any requests for the quantum series!

I once found a nice way to wrap my mind around the "can't know both" thing: Imagine you see a very fast car, you want to take a picture of it, to know both where it is and how fast it is going. If the car comes out blurry, you have some idea of the average speed of the car (width of the blur divided by the lens aperture time), but have some uncertainty on where exactly the car was during the shot. If the car comes out sharp, then you know exactly where it was, but with no blur, you can't know how fast it was going. You can't know both because both quantities depend on one another. This helped me *a lot*

General Physics I: Classical Mechanics General Physics II: Electromagnetism Modern Physics III: Forget what you have learnt and start from square one

I feel like I'm being pranked by the universe.

I'm back revisiting this a year (and a couple months) later and it's still my favorite video of yours. Well done 😊

2:45 _"The actual mechanisms of the machine don't matter at all."_ This is a point that's really hard for newcomers to accept, but needs to be made. Thank you for saying it.

Even more confusing is a 8:30, the Neutrons became Electrons. Then at 8:46 they became Neutrons again.

I just subscribed about a week a ago and have already watched many videos some more than once. So glad I found this channel. Why didn't I find this channel sooner but better late than never.

I saw the MIT lecture like 3 times, to understand your animations just made my concepts more concrete

Although I have heard this type of explanation before, this is the best presentation of it I have seen. Thank you for posting it.

This is a really interesting new format. I feel like you could use it on occasion, in addition to your regular videos, especially to make this kind of stuff more accessible to those less knowledgable in this field (e.g. myself)

Ok. I had a look at the lecture you mentioned. I notice there are a few errors. 1: Electron exhibit up and down spin, just two quantities. The idea of colour and shape is derived from the orientation of the magnetic field in the box, not the electron itself. 2: you need to understand spin to get superposition. 3: Neutrons have 1/3 and 2/3 spin, not binary. 4: colour and shape 'machines' are the same thing, orientated at 90 degrees to each other. 5: the machine organises the neutrons by aligning them into Up and Down, it rotates them and so does change their orientation. 6: the mechanism does matter, there is no tiny demon inside the machine, you need to have a magnetic field in a certain orientation for the effect to work. It is completely to do with the orientation of the magnetic field. 7: The reason it is always 50%/50% is due to the wave nature of the electron. Waves go up and down in equal proportion. Therefore, it in not completely random. 8: after the 1st pause, the solution as to why 50% are 'green' and 50% are blue is because the machine reorientates the electron wave, the X, Z, X axis will obviously produce a 50% mix. 9: the machines reorientate the neutrons on the x and z axis, which is why you get the 50%/50% mix. 10: no one has ever isolated a neutron or even a photon. 11: Experiment 2 produces all 'green' neutrons, as the recombination reflects the 'round' neutrons, but not the 'square' ones. The mirror 'inverts' the wave, in the same way that Circular polarization is inverted. As only the 'circular' waves are inverted at the last step, so the result produces all 'green' neutrons. 12: When the 'round' neutrons are blocked, there is no recombination in the final mirror, so all the 'square' neutrons are now polarised in the x-axis, so when passed through the z-axis (colour box') at the end, the result is 50%/50% split. 13: The reason you can't know colour and shape at the same time is because the electron only has 1/2 spin, (neutrons only 2/3 and 1/3). As there is only one property, not 2 as you have suggested. The only difference between 'shape' and 'colour' is the orientation of the magnetic components inside the box at 90 degrees. 14: the path is not a million miles long. 16: you forgot option number 6. You can change the polarisation of the electron/neutron with a mirror, which makes logical sense of reality, once you reintroduce the proven wavelike nature of matter, and stop proposing the neutron is just a particle, like a football, which it is not. Btw, you can't place a detector on both paths, as detection is a destructive process, which is the foundation of the uncertainty principle. 17: No the neutron is not square/circular and blue/green at the same time, which are orientations of spin at 0 degrees and 90 degrees to each other. The up and down spin exist at any orientation until passed through the magnetic field. 18: I am glad you mentioned the Stern-Gerlach experiment. I think you got this idea from this lecture ocw.mit.edu/courses/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2013/43a8712da99ace660cf042c1f1371b46_MIT8_04S13_Lec01.pdf. The concept of shape and colour does not exist in the physics of the electron. It was fabricated by this guy, apparently just because he believed his students were not intelligent enough to understand the idea of quantum spin. For a clearer explanation, check out these videos: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/kLuZo7mqu7XRXY0.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hq5hecWcsbyuhWg.html btw: this is not a dig at your understanding of atomic physics, but I have noticed that this concept seems to have created a lot of confusion about the nature of electron spin. Thanks to Allan Adams, who has taken it upon himself to redesign quantum mechanical principles.

I love this video!! I think you did a great job of explaining superposition!

This video follows Prof Allan's quantum mechanics course (MIT OCW) very closely. It is really beneficial for me to see this video after the lecture. It cleared all my doubts.

Another great video, thanks! These quantum ideas have never seemed that strange to me... in my tradition, we often treat the whole world that way. It makes a lot of survival tasks easier. The harder part is keeping track of what you already know :)

I've never taken a physics course (I'm a musician) but for some reason I'm curious about math and science. I like to watch your channel, PBS space-time and Fermi Labs. This is the one that explained superposition in a way I can wrap my head around. Well done, thanks!

Quantum physics series!!! I'm so excited! This has become my favorite channel on KZfaq and I'm ecstatic every time I see an update. Keep up the awesome!

I just love your videos! Please keep them coming ❤️

This was an interesting way to explain it! Never heard this version, great job! Looking forward to the rest of the series!

Great video Jade! I think the poll that took place at the side really kept me attentive throughout the video.

You make quantum physics so understandable and I’m so interested ! Thank you!

Congrats for the video and the channel! I came up with it right after watching Allan Adams's introduction to QM lecture. While watching his, I thought it would be nicer to replace his hardness/softness property with a shape property. So I think you nailed it changing that part, making it even easier to see the point. I wonder if you have any video or know of a video that explains how the real boxes work. And what the real neutrons or electrons properties are?? Thank you for sharing such interesting knowledge in such an easy to understand way! keep it up!

This is such a good video! Thanks for explaining it this well :)

Excellent explanation. Now that I (and I guess most of the viewers) understand the concept of superposition, It would be nice to see a video with you explaining the real experiment. I also fully understand when you said that we need to re-wire our brain to make quantum mechanics intuitive. I speak Portuguese as my original language, when I learnt English I had to do that re-wiring, because verbs and nouns are in different positions in the phrase in comparison to Portuguese. Nice video! :)

Once again, your explanations are just perfect...

Come for the physics, stay for the jade. You're really good at this.

That was great! Terrific Job! Thank You again. Keep them coming.I,😄love it.

This is one of the best descriptions for the lay person of quantum superposition I have heard. If professors started their discussions about QS this way, I think a lot of people would understand it quicker and with greater easy. We are hunters by nature. A hunter, regardless of quarry, starts by looking at a general area and then focuses on areas of increasing detail until they find what they are looking for, whether an animal, berry, or a quantum entangled pair. Your approach to the topic follows that path.

Love it how it is explained, thanks jade..I am not into computer science but I work in the technology infrastructure line.

Wow i'm back after some months and i see your channel exploded! Congrats on 33k subs :D. So awesome to see that here and there it actualy happens, but with your content is was just a quastion of when. Now i almost forgot the funny thing i wanted to write as i saw your title and wanted to ansver the question in it: You are Super on a Quantum level and i stand to my position ;)

I feel like at the end of these example experiments, you need a machine that tells you either the color or the shape of the neutron. The machines used in the examples are sorters, but sometimes you used them as indicators and sometimes you didn't. For example, in the experiment with the beam splitter, you use the final color sorter to show the outcome of the sorting, but the shape sorter is just used as a sorter, and its outcomes are unknown. It seems like there are assumed machines at the end of these experiments that explicitly give you a shape or a color, but these are not stated. In other words, the sorters are sometimes also being used as indicators and sometimes they are not in these examples. Just something to think about. Great video!

If I could, I would love to subscribe to this channel 10 million times. Loved all the explanations in this channel so much that I have recommended this channel to everyone whom I know.

Thanks for the explanation .... Really appreciate the techniques and methodology to teach

This video is the best way to explain Quantum Superposition, thanks a lot

Great video and smartly produced. Well done!

This was really very enlightening. Thank you!

Nice video Jade.. 👍 N tons of thanks for introducing Alan.

I think it still makes sense to say it took both paths. The reason is that if you put a detector in, then sure, you will find that it took only one path - but if you detect which one it took, it will come out 50/50 blue/green again.

I think the most intuitive analogy is with Fourier series (sums of waves). If you sum many "wave properties shape" you could get a peak of the property "colour" and viceversa. So for this two related properties, you can't get a peak in both at the same time. You need many colour waves to get a define shape, and many shape waves to get a colour define. (look for Fourier series on wikipedia can't draw here) Good video!

That first 1 minute of your video where you ask everyone watching to forget what they know and stop trying to fit the knowledge into existing moulds is probably the most genius way to start educating anyone on something new.

Fantastic; informative. Thank you for a great presentation.

I am really pleased for you clarifying that it's not that we can't know both, it's that the information, in the most literal sense, does not exist.

Great explanation!

One of the best shows to understand Quantam physics ...

Just came across yout channel, loved your explaining method! Great content! Keep up the good work! SUBBED!

I really like how your illustration at 4:38 shows the first green blob going through the shape machine and becoming colorless...BUT wouldn't it have been more accurate to show the final 50% green and 50% blue neutrons as back to blob shapes?

You are doing a really great job here! Awesome channel! 😊 👏

I watced this video twice back to back, then had my dinner and then, read Stern-Gerlach experiment, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and again watched this video, thus I found that it's like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which says it is impossible to devise an experiment that can measure simultaneously two complementary variables to arbitrary accuracy. I really appreciate your efforts mam (since I didn't know your name), but this time it really became so tough to understand for me. Again great work as you always do. Good luck.

I'm so thrilled to be learning from you. You are so smart and nice. An excellent teacher. Thank you.

Step 1: Get detectors that change the particles in no way, just measure them. Step 2: interacting only with these detectors, the particles get changed in a deterministic fashion. Step 3: Thus the detectors are changing the particles, which makes sense since measurement always has influence. Doesn't matter if you put maxwell's demon into the box, either the particles *or the particles + observer system* will still be influenced because 1 bit of information got extracted from the particle. EG, the particle that came out round isn't the same particle that went in round. The particle that went in was not luminally entangled to your knowledge *about* it's property, and the particle that came out changed to one that was.

Hi, I've been wondering about whether A.I. used in humanoid robotics will end up being able to count the way we do? This is related to a VSauce video from 4 years ago called: - "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35..." In that video it is explained how we can immediately count 3 to 5 objects without even thinking about it. Yet, toddlers go through a phase where they count differently to us and young toddlers. Also mentioned is logarithmic perception. I don't know how to articulate this (wish I had written it down when I orignally thought of it) - but I am sure I am not the first to think about it. Though I am pretty sure it involves more recent understanding (if I have this right?). I should probably read Daniel Dennett? Goes back to thinking about free will and old determinism/indeterminism questions. And throwing in newer concepts such as entropy of information, chaos theory and unpredictability, that overturn old ways of looking at the question of free will. I.e. I believe thinking about things in a deterministic/indeterministic way is an emergent way of looking at things that obscures the real processes going on underneath (a bit like looking at things in a newtonian way is an emergent reality of the quantum mechanics behind it). I am essentially wondering if the reason why we can count 3 to 5 objects straight away. But have to think about a number of objects more than that (and loose accuracy at the same time). Is not because of our limitations (though it would be connected). Or because that's the way we have evolved that best suits our survival (though again connected to that). But because of the limitations of information itself? I am wondering if any number greater than 3 to 5 is really what we think it is? - Could it be that somehow entropy is involved (I am scratching my head and being a bit vague - sorry)? Something anyway, that would mean even an A.I. would have to adopt our senses if you like - regardless of evolution? Or even physical reality? Purely a constraint caused by (the entropy?) of using information? Sorry. Thanks :P

The real question is, I understand super position... it's both square and circle at the same time. However why is the split always 50% 50%, I always thought super position meant it could be in either state, and once you measure it condenses and chooses one or the other. However if were talking about 100 particles, 50 will be square and 50 circle. Almost like they can talk with each other.... and the even wierder thing is how the particle knows were measuring it, I've seen other videos on particle physics and superposition and they said this is the same with all particles, neutrons, protons, photons, electrons, and everything else. And we've also used many different techniques to measure their states like you said, lasers, magnets, etc... it's very unusual that the particles know we're measuring them and what we're measuring. Because if you measure a particle and it's square as long as you dont measure the color I'm pretty sure it stays square no matter how many times you measure the shape it'll always be square. But once you measure color and shape again it could be square or circle. This is why I believe there is a higher being like God because that seems a lot like intelligent design(almost like a programmers code).

Very interesting video. You also looked very good in this video. The only critic i have is that the lines in the mirror shape in one of the figures logicly should have been turned 90°, since it should let particles from the left pass and not from the bottom. Thus would make the figure fit better with the explenation. Again, good video and i hope you make more of them.

Good morning to Up and Atom and Brilliant, thank you so much for your Quantum Superposition teaching.

The wide angle lens really emphasizes your excitement about the subject. When you lean toward the camera you really fill the whole shot. I don’t know if this was an accident or intentional it really works.

Please could you make a video on quantum computer and why is it way better than regular computer. I like how easy you make the topics.

Fantastic 😊 Thankyou, really great work!

Loved this explanation thanks

“Anything is possible” a few seconds later, “no curvy turquoise squares allowed” makes sense

What a great video!! Thank you!

You do great stuff on this channel!

hello, in one of your videos you explain part of orbtial's theory, which books do you suggest to study more about molecular orbital's theory

😭😭😭 so gooood! Finally, I understand what does it mean by superposition.

In the example when you tested correlation between shape and color the color or shape was preserved after the second pass into the machine. In the second example the color green was not preserved after passing it into the shape machine(the second pass). Why? Is the first example an oversimplification? I see a similarity in that in both cases the final result preserves the input; a result with both color and shape. Are we assuming that we only learn of the final result and the intermediary results are hidden? If we cant know the shape and color at the same time then what about the last stage of those two examples? Update: I think I got it. I got cued into an understanding when you said that having both shapes in the result means we dont know what shape the particle is. Maybe this would have been easier to understand if you emphasized one particle at a time in the whole lecture.

For the quiz @ 7:01, I first thought that in the #1 exp, we only had circles and we got 50-50 split. In the #2 exp, we had both squares and circles and got 100 for green. So, probably the shapes are doing something. Therefore, if again we are going to have only one shape then it will give 50-50.

I learned about these experiments in highschool. I am over 35, and the spooky disturbing and charmed feelings, all at the same time, still don't go away...

I loved the way your eyes glowed with bewilderment after you said Superposition at 10:26. 😊

I had watched the first MIT lecture. So I got all the votes correct. And also I know the binary properties are spins. I know that the two properties are conjugate. That is enough to know about superposition. Thanks!

so what the hell...right!!!!

you make nice videos, keep making more videos. thanks for explaining such topics.

This was fabulous!

Did they take into account the quantum foam? Do you have a link to the construct of the colour and shape box so we can confirm your assumption?

9:53 not understanding this part since with the detector set up, it implies that the electron does take one of two paths. Does that mean half electrons are going through both paths?

I find superposition best to understand by considering that the singular neutron made a "projection" along both routes simultaneously, following all paths at once before collapsing all variations into one singular particle at the detector. The presence of a wall in one path then collapses the projection early. This does not occur when the neutron meets it as technically it hasn't moved, rather it exists simultaneously at all possible points on both lines, and if one path is obstructed, the neutron path collapses into one singular line on the path it may take. This means it registers as a line, not a particle, and theoretically never moves, yet still arrives at the destination of the next input. The detectors therefore register the valid "spline" of the neutron due to it interacting, however the obstructed spline collapses instantaneously, preventing interaction and thus detection. That's how I understand it, anyways, even if that's not exactly how it works, god, physics and alcohol is a great combo

This video is so informative!! Made my day!!! Support to a great creator!✌✌

Here to support an awesome creator.

Is just me or do the 4 popular courses on Brilliant never change?

In both experiment 1 and 2, when neutrons come out of the final colour sorting machine, it is shown to be having a certain fixed shape in the animation, shouldn't it be shown as a blurry cloud too since we can't know both the shape and colour at the same time?

Thank you for your great explanation! I´m a little less superconfused. But still a bit in terms of what is the consequence of superposition on the events that happen in the real world that is bigger than atoms? :-) Or is there another video for that question or is there no answer to that question yet?

This is a good overview of quantum uncertainty but I think to really understand what a superposition is it's important to talk about the double-slit experiment. I've never really associated Stern-Gerlach with superposition. Another interesting topic is the nature of polarization and the insights it gives on quantum identity (specifically that it doesn't exist.)

you are just amazing, love your videos!!!

Your videos are very cool. I'm excited to the next one.

Excellent explanation..

So this means that by checking the shape you need to interact with it possibly changing its color (or shape) by touching hit? Is that what happens then?

at 4:31 do you only send the circle shaped neutrons into the second color box or do you send both shapes?

Yes, that's the same thing I figured out that you couldn't know the shape & the color at the same time. I'm starting to understand a bit better now!

Another great video! Love the voice.

5:22 “Then they’re all recombined…” if you’re sending one neutron at a time, what are you “recombining” the sent neutron with?

2:52 "Or it could be magnets and other fancy expensive equipment." Magnets? Gosh, and to think all of these years I've been taking them for granted by only using them to hold notes onto my refrigerator. Like, "Don't forget to buy more Post-It notes," or "This is a refrigerator." It's videos like these that remind me that not everyone in this world is so fortunate. God bless the Magnolia tree. ...or wherever magnets come from.

Similar to observing particles in the double slit experiment. 👌🏼✨

6:19 Hahahahah this was exactly my reaction

Great video!!! I love superposition. There was once a meme about "USB superposition." And it claimed that, until the USB was successfully plugged in, the "blocking part" was on both sides of the plug lol. At about 8:30, you called the neutrons electrons. Just wanted to give you a heads up as not to confuse anyone.

Waiting this for a long time

when a particle is in superposition is it interacting with something?

In my data universe cloud computing storage device, the model has been revealed countless times, but the most difficult to control is the superposition of the quantum state of the data cloud, revealing the dimensional psychedelic space of its antimatter quadrant shape, which will surprise you. The conclusion is that the overall field must conform to its cosmic string singularity effect! Only revealed three times in three years! Or one-time superposition of quantum states of spectral utility of different chaotic color systems.

Finally understood thanks to you Maam 🔥

Allan Adams is really really cool! I like him too! He's very smart and has a scientist's soul.

Question if you send a neutron through the shape sorter and it shows square and then send it through a colour sorter and it shows green if you Then resend that same neutron through the shape sorter again does it still come out square or is it possible that it would come out as a circle?

So, I don't exactly know much about quantum mechanics; mainly just asking this because i'm curious. On the third experiment where the square neutron path is a million miles long, could the square neutron change its shape/color? Like, can a particle change its properties over a length of time or amount of distance?

Ok, so after sorting the color and shape, if we take a single neutron, say a blue square one, and run it through the machines again, would the outcome be any one of the four possible combinations with a 25% probability of each?