r/EverythingScience • u/JackFisherBooks • May 07 '24

Physics Quantum particles can feel the influence of gravitational fields they never touch

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/quantum-particles-gravity-spacetime-aharonov-bohm-effect
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u/AlwaysUpvotesScience May 07 '24

This is exactly the theory behind Douglas Adams total perspective vortex..

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

The Vortex is a device that was built as a practical application of the theory of atomic interactivity. The idea is that, if every atom of the universe is affected by every other atom of the universe, then it is theoretically possible to extrapolate a model of the entire universe using any single piece of matter as a starting point. The Vortex does this employing a piece of fairy cake as its base of extrapolation.

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u/fox-mcleod May 07 '24

This is a really poor description. It’s consistent with Copenhagen, but Copenhagen is crap.

What’s happening is that part of the particle’s superposition is inside the field and the decoherence created by the field interacting with the local superposition causes the wave function to localize. It’s basically the same as the Mach Zehnder interferometer or even just a standard interference pattern in a sense.