this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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Oh man, one of my biggest pet peeves.
"Observation" should really be called "interaction" when referring to quantum effects. The act of observation is actually an interaction with a quantum object that collapsed the wave to a point. We are affecting the quantum object by making a measurement, not by looking at it. If we don't measure it the wave function doesn't collapse until it interacts with the wall. In this case, the wall is the "observation" that causes the wave function to collapse.
Ok, sorry for the interruption, carry on
I think the term is fine. Interaction is also too broad a term, as there are many ways to interact with something. The main intent here is to observe, interaction just follows from that.
Works the same way for the human version in this Venn diagram.
Thanks for this interaction