As a quick reminder: Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that somehow makes less sense the more you learn about it. It's the home of Schrodinger's famous cat -- you know, the one that's both alive and dead at the same time as long as you never open the box it's in, making it simultaneously the worst and best Christmas present ever.
Now, for Dr. Lemos' experiment, her team decided to take a picture of a cardboard cutout of a cat using light that had never actually touched the object. How? With quantum-entangled photons. Simply put, quantum entanglement is the process of splitting photons into twins, which maintain a mysterious bond with one another even when separated. If you affect one twin, it instantly affects the other, sort of like with Tomax and Xamot from G.I. Joe.
So to take a picture using entanglement, Lemos's team used lasers and crystals to create some entangled photons. Out of each entangled pair, one twin was sent toward the cardboard cat and then discarded. But the remaining twin carried information about the first, and analyzing those lonely photons (which, we can't stress enough, never ever came into contact with the cat) revealed the hauntingly perfect cat apparitions originally captured by their dead twin:
Gabriela Barreto Lemos
Yes, because the Internet has never seen a picture of a cat before!
We're not scientists, and we don't want to speak outside of our limited expertise here. But we're 99 percent sure that right there is a photograph of a ghost cat from another dimension, which has also traveled back in time.
Mr. Yee is invisible to the naked eye, and naked to the invisible eye. He may also be seen wearing one of these awesome T-shirts or making fun of the news via Facebook.
Cancel all your plans on Feb. 3 because we're doing another LIVE podcast at the UCB Sunset Theatre at 7:00 PM. Join Stanley Wong (The Big Short), Liana Maeby (South On Highland), Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien, and Alex Schmidt as they discuss the problems with the Academy Awards and what can be done to make everything right again. Get your tickets here!
Sometimes though, technology reveals things we wish we never saw. See what we mean in 7 Normal Things That Become Horror Movies Under A Microscope and 11 Everyday Things That Are Terrifying Under a Microscope.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 11 Movie Alternate Dimensions With Horrifying Downsides, and watch other videos you won't see on the site!
Also, follow us on Facebook, because we really like you. Like, a-super-lot.
429 Comments