Right.
Two ducks, on a pond, and they're twins.
Let's say one will always be what's called spin up, and the other, spin down.
You know for a fact that if you measure duck one, and it's position is up,
duck two will be fixed in the opposite state.
Now, for some reason sub-atomic particles behave in this way under certain conditions.
This phenomenon is usually known as:
or...
However...
What's weird is that you can do this experiment across the pond,
across the world,
across the galaxy,
and measure one duck, and the other duck will always take the opposite spin position, regardless of distance.
And the effect seems to happen faster than light.
But as we all know, according to a certain German someone,
"Guten Tag! Deutsche Menschen." (Good day! German people.)
Light is the ultimate speed limit in the universe.
Nothing can break it.
So, how can they tell each other to fix their spin across space, faster than the speed of light itself?
Well,
what if they carry a little rulebook with them when they set off from Earth, telling each other what to do when they arrive?
Nup!
Experiments confirm that is NOT happening.
So, just how are the little rapscallions communicating with each other?
Well actually it's quite straightforward. It's due to a well understood effect in physics called:
Nobody fucking knows!
A now, a short message, from the universe's legal team.
[📞🌌 WHAT!?]
The universe accepts no responsiblity for violation of causality,
*Kiss kiss*
Moving on...
If you want to imagine an electron, first think of a basketball.
Now pop the basketball,
BURN IT,
because it's nothing like an electron, alright?
However...
sometimes particles such as electrons behave like pond water, in waves.
And for some reason, as soon as you put a detector next to the experiment, they fix their state and collapse into ducks,
or particles,
as though,
*~Whistling~*
So what's really going on down there at the quantum level?
Is it all waves, or particles, or is it both?
Is matter a particle and a wave fundamentally?
This is generally known as the:
and no one has a sure answer to this one either, yet.
If you're into theoretical physics pornography, by the way,
do be sure to check out the 'Double-Slit Experiment.'
And if you thought that was strange, well,
you're in luck, because it gets stranger.
For as long as you're not observing the pond, we have to say that the duck is everywhere, across all points on the pond, simultaneously.
Only once we observe the pond does it collapse into a duck.
And for all the time it's unobserved, we have it's in something called:
or...
Now, this allows us to do some cool stuff with computers.
Modern computation is built on ones and zeroes.
Or black ducks and white ducks.
That's it.
String enough together and you get computation.
And somewhere down the line, much later,
Overwatch,
eBay,
and /r/birdswitharms. [💪🐦👊]
because of quantum superposition, where ducks can be in multiple states at once, you can,
apparently,
build a computer that uses:
That is ducks in both a black, and white at the same time,
running calculations that physicists refer to as:
"Bigger than your mother's dick pic collection."
And there's some other weirdness going on.
Par exemple: (For example)
Imagine ducks in a pond, all of them are awake.
If we leave them, they'll fall asleep by evening.
But if we keep observing them, and by observing, I mean periodically shouting:
"OI, YOU LITTLE POULTRY BASTARDS!"
They'll theoretically all stay awake indefinitely.
Kind of works with particles too.
...Sort of.
A beautiful piece of math that not only made grandpimp relativity and quantum mechanics kiss and make up a bit,
but it also lead to the prediction that aren't just ducks,
but anti-ducks existing in the universe.
Which we now know to be true.
So that's neat!
These are algorithms that deal with superposition computing that we chatted about earlier.
These can be used to do some calculations,
much,
MUCH faster than classical computers, such as estimating sums.
Leading to Jay-Z's immortal line:
Right! And that's quantum mechanics.
I mean... not really, it's just a shit approximation.
But you get the idea! Sorry if it doesn't...
fit the bill.
There is a kind of interesting question underneath all of this though.
Right now, we're living in:
which rests on:
I guess? Which rests on:
and let's just go down on the universe for a moment.
*GUFFAW*
And near the bottom, everything is built on quantum mechanics, apparently.
And down here, nothing is quite as we recognize it.
Particles don't really have to find locations,
matter isn't solid,
and logic is off getting wankered by itself in the corner.
Why is nature like this, down here in the quantum world,
with spins, and charges, and wave functions?
Do universes have to be build like this, or do we live in just one variation of possibly trillions of different ways you can configure a universe?
And most importantly...
In any case, who knows what's coming next.
Maybe a quantum computing revolution.
Maybe a whole new understanding of the structure of reality itself.
Or, even harder to imagine,
maybe certain newspapers actually behaving with journalistic integrity when it comes to new media.
Not fucking likely.
[Captioner here. Normally I'd shill out for exurb1a here.]
[I still will, you should donate to his patreon and such.]
[But considering it's starting to get into the Spring months for the Northern hemisphere,]
[and this video was mostly about ducks (right?)]
[If you're considering going to a local park or duck pond to feed the ducks, be considerate.]
[Don't feed ducks white bread, it gives them diarrhea, and other mallardies.]
[Consider halved seedless grapes, frozen peas, or corn instead.]
[Alright see you if you sticked around this far!]
[❤ \🐢]
[There are no duck emojis. :c]