« We don’t reavel, we create ! »

In this work, I will be talking about the observer effect, but not in the way you’re used to hearing about it.

Let’s begin with something that may seem simple, yet is anything but. It might sound paradoxical, but the word observing doesn’t always mean the same thing.

Yes, you heard me right. You might be thinking, “Wait, what? Now even words are changing?”

Exactly. And that’s precisely why you shouldn’t underestimate this seemingly ordinary word. Observing will be the cornerstone of everything we’re about to uncover.

But don’t worry, we’ll take it step by step…

Because there’s the kind of observing we do in everyday life… and then there’s observing in quantum mechanics. And the difference between them is nothing short of profound.

In quantum mechanics, observing doesn’t just mean “looking” at something. It means measuring.

And measurement isn’t just about seeing, it’s about physical interaction.

An observation, in the quantum sense, is any interaction between a quantum system and a measuring device that extracts information about position, momentum, spin, or whatever quantity we’re looking at.

I bring up this distinction for a reason.

There’s a widespread myth that consciousness somehow causes the collapse of the wavefunction that a mind needs to be watching for something to become real.

But as theoretical physicist Sean Carroll puts it plainly:

“The quantum system does not care if you are looking. What matters is that the system interacts with another system capable of recording outcomes.”

So let’s be clear:

-Observation = A physical interaction + information being registered

-Seeing = Just perceiving with our senses

Big difference.

Now, you’ve probably heard of the observer effect.

Maybe through the famous double-slit experiment. Or maybe when someone tried to explain the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to you.

And of course, there’s Schrödinger’s cat—that mysterious creature both alive and dead in a closed box.

But honestly? That cat might be more confusing than helpful.

It’s a nice metaphor, sure, but it doesn’t really hit the heart of what’s going on. It actually hides part of the deeper truth.

To really get the observer effect, we need to dig deeper.

As I said earlier, observation in quantum mechanics means measurement.

And measurement isn’t magic ;it’s machines, detectors, tools we’ve designed to pick up on the tiniest effects particles leave behind.

We don’t see particles directly. We see the trails they leave, their consequences.

That’s how we define them.

So measurement isn’t just noticing.

It’s a physical act. A collision. An interaction.

And here’s the key: you can’t know the state of a particle unless you measure it.

And if you don’t measure it?

The system stays in superposition !

No info means no collapse.

So the system keeps evolving like a wave spread out over all possibilities. That’s how it behaves, mathematically, under the Schrödinger equation.

That’s where the uncertainty principle comes in, it reflects this built-in fuzziness when there’s no measurement.

You might ask:

“But wait, what’s so weird about that? Of course we don’t know the result until we measure. That’s true in classical physics too, right?”

That’s exactly where quantum mechanics breaks away from classical thinking.

In classical physics, we say:

“The system has a definite state, we just don’t know it until we measure it.”

That’s called epistemic uncertainty.

The state is real. It’s fixed. It’s just hidden from us until we take a look.

Like flipping a coin and hiding it under a cup.

It’s either heads or tails. You just don’t know which one yet.

The outcome already exists.

Your ignorance is about the answer, not the reality.

You might reply:

“What do you mean by ‘the outcome itself’? Are you saying the outcome doesn’t even exist?”

Now here’s where quantum mechanics turns everything upside down.

Let’s look at ignorance from the quantum perspective:

“The system doesn’t have a definite state until it is measured.”

That’s the real twist.

A particle isn’t just unknown.

It’s undecided. It’s all possibilities at once a superposition.

And when you measure it?

You don’t just find out the state—you make the state.

Here’s an example:

Think of an electron going through two slits.

It doesn’t choose one slit or the other.

It literally goes through both simultaneously.

Only when we set up a detector to ask, “Which slit did you go through?” does it commit to a single path.

That measurement collapses the wave of possibilities into a concrete outcome.

So in quantum mechanics, measurement creates reality.

Before we measure? There is no state.

After we measure? We’ve made the state real.

Compare that to classical mechanics again like our coin under the cup.

If you haven’t looked yet, the coin still has a face up. Heads or tails, it’s just waiting to be revealed.

Why the difference? Because the coin isn’t a quantum object.

At the scale of everyday things, objects behave deterministically.

We observe directly, with our senses.

But at the quantum level, our senses can’t reach. We rely on indirect evidence. We rely on consequences.

And that’s the crucial point.

Quantum mechanics doesn’t just deal with unknown results.

It deals with the absence of a definite reality until something interacts with the system.

So now you might ask, a little bewildered:

“Why do we define something based on its effects instead of what it truly is?

Why do we need consequences instead of direct perception?”

Because that’s the nature of the quantum world.

Particles like electrons, photons, quarks—they don’t behave like tiny balls.

They don’t have location, velocity, or even fixed identity the way macroscopic objects do.

We only know them through their interactions:

What spots they leave on a screen.

How they scatter.

What trails they create.

As Werner Heisenberg famously said:

“What we call reality is revealed to us only through the active intervention of measurement.”

That’s not a philosophical choice, it’s a physical necessity.

An electron doesn’t “exist” in any classical way until it interacts and leaves a trace.

That’s why we’ve learned, in physics, to define things not by what they are, but by what they do.

Particles? They’re not objects. They’re excitations in fields.

And their identities emerge only through their actions.

So physics ends up saying something strange but powerful:

“What something is, is what it does.”

That’s the heart of the observer effect.

And now, maybe you’re wondering:

Does that mean we can never know the thing-in-itself?

The hidden, deeper truth of what really is?

Kant called it the noumenon, the reality beyond appearances, beyond meas

urement.

We still don’t know.

And maybe we never will.

But maybe that’s exactly what keeps us curious, what keeps us searching.

Written by Habib Riden.