Top Highlights

• Mind over matter upsets the applecart of physics through this discovery, that the act of observation—mere looking—
• with the intention of measuring something about it, such as its mass, position, momentum, and so on. The instant this intention is specified, the object complies—that’s the under-the-table part. No one has an accepted explanation for it. Heisenberg described this in the most definite terms: “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed ...
• The real question isn’t whether you are creating reality—all of us are—but how deeply your interventions go. Is there anything that is real “out there” independent of us? Our answer is no. Everything known to be real, from a subatomic particle to billions of galaxies, from the big bang to the possible end of the universe, is keyed to observation an...
• But light, when behaving like matter, travels in particles (photons) that are discrete packets of energy. In Latin, the word for “how much” is quantum, and this was the name chosen by physicist Max Planck, who originated the quantum revolution in December 1900 and won the Nobel Prize in 1918. The term denotes the smallest amount or packet of energy...
• until the end of his life—his breakthrough with relativity was headed for a collision with quantum theory, whose equations are not compatible with General Relativity. This collision plagues physicists even today, and it caused a rupture in the story of what is real and what isn’t. The difficulty doesn’t sound earthshaking on the surface. It’s simpl...