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Response:

Calculated Shard: 93 (from laksa119)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa093.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-superposition/\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-superposition/\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/","crawl_time":1775933561,"first_indexed_time":1673458260,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,bigthink!\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/ s443","src_root_hash":"11001312780336798293","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Quantum superposition begs us to ask, \"What is real?\" - Big Think","meta_descriptions":["Quantum mechanics shows us that the same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Series\n13.8\n—\nJanuary 11, 2023\nQuantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?”\nQuantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real.\nTraditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this.\nCredit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright\nKey Takeaways\nIn the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured.\nThis is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. \nAnalogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?”\nSign up for Big Think on Substack\nThe most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.\nThis is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics.\nThe world of the\nvery, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves.\nString energy\nIn 1913, Bohr\ndevised a model\nfor the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit.\nClarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen\nboth as particles and waves\n. This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and\nHeisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle\ngave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with.\nA little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics.\nIn the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a\nstanding wave\nappears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes.\nThe Born legacy\nDe Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions.\nIn a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s. \nThe solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the\nwave function\n. Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits.\nHowever, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean? \nPhysicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John.\nBorn proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the\nprobability\nof finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolves\nin time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only give\nprobabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probability\nevolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. \nQuantum superposition\nThis is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to\nthis\nphysicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probability\nof finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens before\nthe measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a\nsuperposition\nof many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made. \nA possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered. \nAre all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as\nquantum superposition\n, is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article.","attrs_markdown":"# Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?”\n[Big Think Home](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/)\n\nOpen search\n\nOpen main menu\n\n- [Search](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/)\n  Popular Searches\n  \n  [Critical thinking](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/search\/?q=critical+thinking)[Philosophy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/search\/?q=philosophy)[Emotional Intelligence](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/search\/?q=emotional+intelligence)[Free Will](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/search\/?q=free+will)\n  \n  [Latest Videos](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/videos\/)\n  \n  [Latest Articles](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/latest-articles\/)\n- [Topics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/about)\n  ## [Philosophy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/philosophy\/)\n  - [Ethics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/ethics\/)\n  - [Religion](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/religion\/)\n  - [Flourishing](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/flourishing\/)\n  - [Knowledge](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/knowledge\/)\n  - [Philosophy of Science](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/philosophy-of-science\/)\n  - [Philosophy of Art](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/philosophy-of-art\/)\n  - [Language](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/language\/)\n  - [Political Theory](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/political-theory\/)\n  - [Identity](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/identity\/)\n  - [Meaning & Purpose](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/meaning-purpose\/)\n  \n  ## [Science & Tech](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/science-tech\/)\n  - [Physics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/physics\/)\n  - [Biology](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/biology\/)\n  - [Aerospace](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/aerospace\/)\n  - [Health](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/health\/)\n  - [Geology](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/geology\/)\n  - [Computing](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/computing\/)\n  - [Engineering](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/engineering\/)\n  - [Energy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/energy\/)\n  - [Biotechnology](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/biotechnology\/)\n  - [Astronomy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/astronomy\/)\n  \n  ## [Mind & Behavior](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/mind-behavior\/)\n  - [Psychology](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/psychology\/)\n  - [Neuroscience](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/neuroscience\/)\n  - [Decision-Making](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/decision-making\/)\n  - [Mental Health](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/mental-health\/)\n  - [Consciousness](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/consciousness\/)\n  - [Emotional Intelligence](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/emotional-intelligence\/)\n  - [Personality](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/personality\/)\n  - [Relationships](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/relationships\/)\n  - [Parenting](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/parenting\/)\n  \n  ## [Business](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/business\/)\n  - [Entrepreneurship](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/entrepreneurship\/)\n  - [Leadership](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/leadership\/)\n  - [Finance](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/finance\/)\n  - [Marketing](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/marketing\/)\n  - [Innovation](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/innovation\/)\n  - [Strategy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/strategy\/)\n  - [Management](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/management\/)\n  - [Artificial Intelligence](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/ai\/)\n  - [Startups](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/startups\/)\n  - [Economics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/economics\/)\n  \n  ## [History & Society](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/history-society\/)\n  - [History](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/history\/)\n  - [Literature](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/literature\/)\n  - [Art](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/art\/)\n  - [Music](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/music\/)\n  - [Film](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/film\/)\n  - [Progress](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/progress\/)\n  - [Culture](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/culture\/)\n  - [Sociology](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/sociology\/)\n  - [Policy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/policy\/)\n  - [Geopolitics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/t\/geopolitics\/)\n\n- [Latest](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/latest\/)\n- [Videos](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/)\n  Latest Videos\n  \n  [![A man sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop in a modern room with brick walls, large windows, bookshelves, and minimal decor.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-09-at-11.24.37-AM-1.png?w=256&h=256&crop=1)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/series\/full-interview\/excellence-stulberg\/)\n  \n  [Over-optimizing your life is making you fragile, not better](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/series\/full-interview\/excellence-stulberg\/)\n  \n  with  [Brad Stulberg](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/brad-stulberg\/)\n  \n  [![A woman in a black suit sits on a stool in a white room, gesturing with one hand. 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This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this.\n\nCredit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright\n\nKey Takeaways\n\n- In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured.\n- This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.\n- Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?”\n\n[Get the Big Think newsletter on Substack](https:\/\/bigthinkmedia.substack.com\/)\n\nSeries\n\n[A brief history of quantum mechanics](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/collections\/brief-history-quantum-mechanics\/)\n\n[![a computer generated image of a quantum mechanics phenomenon.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/quantum.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/collections\/brief-history-quantum-mechanics\/)\n\n[![a black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/max-planck.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics\/)\n\n[Max Planck and how the dramatic birth of quantum physics changed the world](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics\/)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Untitled_Artwork.gif?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/)\n\n[Quantum jumps: How Niels Bohr’s idea changed the world](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Untitled_Artwork-2.gif?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-nature-of-light\/)\n\n[The paradox of light goes beyond wave-particle duality](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-nature-of-light\/)\n\n[![a yellow drawing of a man's face with a wave pattern.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/nose-with-butchers-paper-effect.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/wave-particle-duality-matter\/)\n\n[Not just light: Everything is a wave, including you](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/wave-particle-duality-matter\/)\n\n[![image of subatomic particles](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/max_planck.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-uncertainty-language\/)\n\n[Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-uncertainty-language\/)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/BT_thumb_template_mother-54.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-mystery-interaction\/)\n\n[Quantum mystery: Do things only exist once we interact with them?](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-mystery-interaction\/)\n\n[![a man playing a violin in front of a piano.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/einstein.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/einstein-quantum-ghost\/)\n\n[Einstein’s quantum ghost is here to stay](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/einstein-quantum-ghost\/)\n\n[![quantum entanglement qubit ER = EPR](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/quantum-entanglement_Web.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-entanglement-hidden-variable\/)\n\n[Could a hidden variable explain the weirdness of quantum physics?](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-entanglement-hidden-variable\/)\n\n[![a quantum cat on a blue background.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/schrodingerscat2.jpg?w=640)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-mechanics-philosophy\/)\n\n[The weirdness of quantum mechanics forces scientists to confront philosophy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-mechanics-philosophy\/)\n\n[13\\.8](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/) —\n\nJanuary 11, 2023\n# Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?”\nQuantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real.\n\n![atoms](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/atoms-1.jpg)\n\nTraditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this.\n\nCredit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright\n\nKey Takeaways\n\n- In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured.\n- This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.\n- Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?”\n\n[Marcelo Gleiser](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\nCopy a link to the article entitled http:\/\/Quantum%20superposition%20begs%20us%20to%20ask,%20“What%20is%20real?”\n\n[Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/)\n\n[Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on Twitter (X)](https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/&text=Quantum%20superposition%20begs%20us%20to%20ask%2C%20%26%238220%3BWhat%20is%20real%3F%26%238221%3B)\n\n[Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/sharing\/share-offsite\/?url=https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-superposition\/)\n\nSign up for Big Think on Substack\n\nThe most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.\n\n[Subscribe](https:\/\/bigthinkmedia.substack.com\/)\n\nThis is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics.\n\n*The world of the* very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves.\n\n## String energy\nIn 1913, Bohr [devised a model](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/) for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit.\n\nClarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen [both as particles and waves](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/wave-particle-duality-matter\/). This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and [Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-uncertainty-language\/) gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with.\n\nA little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics.\n\nIn the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a [standing wave](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Overtone#\/media\/File:Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg) appears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes.\n\n## The Born legacy\nDe Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions.\n\nIn a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s.\n\nThe solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the *wave function*. Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits.\n\nHowever, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean?\n\nPhysicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John.\n\nBorn proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the *probability* of finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolvesin time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only giveprobabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probabilityevolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.\n\n## Quantum superposition\nThis is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to *this* physicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probabilityof finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens beforethe measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a *superposition* of many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made.\n\nA possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered.\n\nAre all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as *quantum superposition*, is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article.\n\n[Marcelo Gleiser](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\nTheoretical Physicist\n\n[Full Profile](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\n[![Marcelo Gleiser](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/marcelo-gleiser.jpeg?w=160&h=160&crop=1)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\nMonthly Issue    March 2026\n\n##### [The Roots of Resilience](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/collections\/the-roots-of-resilience\/)\nIn this monthly issue, we look at resilience not as a buzzword or a self-help prescription, but as a property — one that shows up, or doesn’t, at every scale.\n\n2 videos    14 articles\n\n[![Illustration of five humanoid figures with green bodies, root-like veins, and tree branches growing from their heads, holding hands against a yellow and red background.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/resilience-cover-sq.jpg?w=512&h=512&crop=1)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/collections\/the-roots-of-resilience\/)\n\n## Related Content\n[Hard Science](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/)\n\n### [New physics? Ultra-precise measurement in particle physics confounds scientists](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/muons-magnetic-moment-new-physics\/)\nThe difference between predictions and observations of the magnetic properties of muons suggests a mystery for the Standard Model.\n\nby [Don Lincoln](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/don-lincoln\/)\n\n[![particle collisions](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/AdobeStock_155047895.jpeg?w=3200)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/muons-magnetic-moment-new-physics\/)\n\n[13\\.8](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/)\n\n### [Max Planck and how the dramatic birth of quantum physics changed the world](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics\/)\nThe quantum world is one in which rules that are completely foreign to our everyday experience dictate bizarre behavior.\n\nby [Marcelo Gleiser](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\n[![a black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk.](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/max-planck.jpg?w=2500)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics\/)\n\n[Hard Science](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/)\n\n### [Does consciousness change the rules of quantum mechanics?](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/quantum-entanglement-consciousness\/)\nMaybe our understanding of quantum entanglement is incomplete, or maybe there is something fundamentally unique about consciousness.\n\nby [Elizabeth Fernandez](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/elizabeth-fernandez\/)\n\n[![quantum entanglement](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/AdobeStock_437758813.jpeg?w=3200)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/hard-science\/quantum-entanglement-consciousness\/)\n\n[13\\.8](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/)\n\n### [Quantum jumps: How Niels Bohr’s idea changed the world](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/)\nLike Dua Lipa, he had to create new rules.\n\nby [Marcelo Gleiser](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/people\/marcelo-gleiser\/)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Untitled_Artwork.gif?w=1600)](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/)\n\nLearn from the world's biggest thinkers.\n\n- Videos\n  - [Latest](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/videos\/)\n  - [The Big Think Interview](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/series\/the-big-think-interview\/)\n- Columns\n  - [Mini Philosophy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/mini-philosophy\/)\n  - [Starts with a Bang](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/starts-with-a-bang\/)\n  - [Big Think Books](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/books\/)\n  - [The Long Game](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/the-long-game\/)\n  - [Strange Maps](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/strange-maps\/)\n  - [13\\.8](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/)\n  - [The Well](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/the-well\/)\n  - [Rethinking Possible](https:\/\/rethinkingpossible.com\/)\n- Sections\n  - [Philosophy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/philosophy\/)\n  - [Mind & Behavior](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/mind-behavior\/)\n  - [Science & Tech](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/science-tech\/)\n  - [Business](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/business\/)\n  - [History & Society](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/history-society\/)\n- Classes\n  - [Class Library](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/my-classes\/)\n- Subscribe\n  - [Membership](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/membership\/)\n  - [Free Newsletters](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/subscribe\/)\n- Partner\n  - [Big Think+ Learning](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/plus\/)\n  - [Creative Studio](https:\/\/freethinkmedia.com\/creative-studio)\n  - [Advertise with Us](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/advertise-with-big-think\/)\n  - [Events](https:\/\/events.bigthink.com\/)\n- More\n  - [About](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/our-mission\/)\n  - [Careers](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/careers\/)\n  - [Contact](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/contact\/)\n  - [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/privacy-policy\/)\n  - [Terms of Sale](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/terms-of-use\/)\n  - [Accessibility](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/accessibility\/)\n\n[View our Twitter (X) feed](https:\/\/twitter.com\/bigthink)\n\n[View our Youtube channel](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/bigthink)\n\n[View our Instagram feed](https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bigthinkers\/)\n\n[View our Substack feed](https:\/\/bigthinkmedia.substack.com\/)\n\n[View our Spotify feed](https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb?si=74108a1c8cd64970)\n\n© Copyright 2007-2026 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, Inc. All rights reserved.","attrs_readable_markdown":"Series\n\n[13\\.8](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/) —\n\nJanuary 11, 2023\n## Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?”\nQuantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real.\n\nTraditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this.\n\nCredit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright\n\nKey Takeaways\n\n- In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured.\n- This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.\n- Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?”\n\nSign up for Big Think on Substack\n\nThe most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.\n\nThis is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics.\n\n*The world of the* very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves.\n\n## String energy\nIn 1913, Bohr [devised a model](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom\/) for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit.\n\nClarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen [both as particles and waves](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/wave-particle-duality-matter\/). This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and [Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle](https:\/\/bigthink.com\/13-8\/quantum-uncertainty-language\/) gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with.\n\nA little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics.\n\nIn the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a [standing wave](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Overtone#\/media\/File:Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg) appears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes.\n\n## The Born legacy\nDe Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions.\n\nIn a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s.\n\nThe solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the *wave function*. Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits.\n\nHowever, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean?\n\nPhysicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John.\n\nBorn proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the *probability* of finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolvesin time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only giveprobabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probabilityevolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results.\n\n## Quantum superposition\nThis is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to *this* physicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probabilityof finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens beforethe measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a *superposition* of many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made.\n\nA possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered.\n\nAre all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as *quantum superposition*, is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article.","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Series 13.8 — January 11, 2023 Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” Quantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real. Traditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this. Credit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright Key Takeaways In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured. This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?” Sign up for Big Think on Substack The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free. This is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics. The world of the very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves. String energy In 1913, Bohr devised a model for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit. Clarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen both as particles and waves . This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with. A little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics. In the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a standing wave appears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes. The Born legacy De Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions. In a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s. The solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the wave function . Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits. However, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean? Physicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John. Born proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the probability of finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolves in time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only give probabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probability evolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. Quantum superposition This is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to this physicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probability of finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens before the measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a superposition of many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made. A possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered. Are all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as quantum superposition , is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article.
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This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this. Credit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright Key Takeaways - In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured. - This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. - Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?” [Get the Big Think newsletter on Substack](https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/) Series [A brief history of quantum mechanics](https://bigthink.com/collections/brief-history-quantum-mechanics/) [![a computer generated image of a quantum mechanics phenomenon.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/quantum.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/collections/brief-history-quantum-mechanics/) [![a black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/max-planck.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics/) [Max Planck and how the dramatic birth of quantum physics changed the world](https://bigthink.com/13-8/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics/) [![](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Untitled_Artwork.gif?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) [Quantum jumps: How Niels Bohr’s idea changed the world](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) [![](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Untitled_Artwork-2.gif?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-nature-of-light/) [The paradox of light goes beyond wave-particle duality](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-nature-of-light/) [![a yellow drawing of a man's face with a wave pattern.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/nose-with-butchers-paper-effect.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/wave-particle-duality-matter/) [Not just light: Everything is a wave, including you](https://bigthink.com/13-8/wave-particle-duality-matter/) [![image of subatomic particles](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/max_planck.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-uncertainty-language/) [Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-uncertainty-language/) [![](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BT_thumb_template_mother-54.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-mystery-interaction/) [Quantum mystery: Do things only exist once we interact with them?](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-mystery-interaction/) [![a man playing a violin in front of a piano.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/einstein.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/einstein-quantum-ghost/) [Einstein’s quantum ghost is here to stay](https://bigthink.com/13-8/einstein-quantum-ghost/) [![quantum entanglement qubit ER = EPR](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/quantum-entanglement_Web.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-entanglement-hidden-variable/) [Could a hidden variable explain the weirdness of quantum physics?](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-entanglement-hidden-variable/) [![a quantum cat on a blue background.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/schrodingerscat2.jpg?w=640)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-mechanics-philosophy/) [The weirdness of quantum mechanics forces scientists to confront philosophy](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-mechanics-philosophy/) [13\.8](https://bigthink.com/13-8/) — January 11, 2023 # Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” Quantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real. ![atoms](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/atoms-1.jpg) Traditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this. Credit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright Key Takeaways - In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured. - This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. - Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?” [Marcelo Gleiser](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) Copy a link to the article entitled http://Quantum%20superposition%20begs%20us%20to%20ask,%20“What%20is%20real?” [Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-superposition/) [Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on Twitter (X)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-superposition/&text=Quantum%20superposition%20begs%20us%20to%20ask%2C%20%26%238220%3BWhat%20is%20real%3F%26%238221%3B) [Share Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-superposition/) Sign up for Big Think on Substack The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free. [Subscribe](https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/) This is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics. The world of the very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves. ## String energy In 1913, Bohr [devised a model](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit. Clarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen [both as particles and waves](https://bigthink.com/13-8/wave-particle-duality-matter/). This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and [Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-uncertainty-language/) gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with. A little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics. In the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a [standing wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone#/media/File:Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg) appears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes. ## The Born legacy De Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions. In a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s. The solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the wave function. Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits. However, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean? Physicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John. Born proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the probability of finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolvesin time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only giveprobabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probabilityevolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. ## Quantum superposition This is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to this physicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probabilityof finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens beforethe measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a superposition of many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made. A possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered. Are all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as quantum superposition, is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article. [Marcelo Gleiser](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) Theoretical Physicist [Full Profile](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) [![Marcelo Gleiser](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/marcelo-gleiser.jpeg?w=160&h=160&crop=1)](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) Monthly Issue March 2026 ##### [The Roots of Resilience](https://bigthink.com/collections/the-roots-of-resilience/) In this monthly issue, we look at resilience not as a buzzword or a self-help prescription, but as a property — one that shows up, or doesn’t, at every scale. 2 videos 14 articles [![Illustration of five humanoid figures with green bodies, root-like veins, and tree branches growing from their heads, holding hands against a yellow and red background.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/resilience-cover-sq.jpg?w=512&h=512&crop=1)](https://bigthink.com/collections/the-roots-of-resilience/) ## Related Content [Hard Science](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/) ### [New physics? Ultra-precise measurement in particle physics confounds scientists](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/muons-magnetic-moment-new-physics/) The difference between predictions and observations of the magnetic properties of muons suggests a mystery for the Standard Model. by [Don Lincoln](https://bigthink.com/people/don-lincoln/) [![particle collisions](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AdobeStock_155047895.jpeg?w=3200)](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/muons-magnetic-moment-new-physics/) [13\.8](https://bigthink.com/13-8/) ### [Max Planck and how the dramatic birth of quantum physics changed the world](https://bigthink.com/13-8/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics/) The quantum world is one in which rules that are completely foreign to our everyday experience dictate bizarre behavior. by [Marcelo Gleiser](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) [![a black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/max-planck.jpg?w=2500)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/max-planck-birth-quantum-physics/) [Hard Science](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/) ### [Does consciousness change the rules of quantum mechanics?](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/quantum-entanglement-consciousness/) Maybe our understanding of quantum entanglement is incomplete, or maybe there is something fundamentally unique about consciousness. by [Elizabeth Fernandez](https://bigthink.com/people/elizabeth-fernandez/) [![quantum entanglement](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AdobeStock_437758813.jpeg?w=3200)](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/quantum-entanglement-consciousness/) [13\.8](https://bigthink.com/13-8/) ### [Quantum jumps: How Niels Bohr’s idea changed the world](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) Like Dua Lipa, he had to create new rules. by [Marcelo Gleiser](https://bigthink.com/people/marcelo-gleiser/) [![](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Untitled_Artwork.gif?w=1600)](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) Learn from the world's biggest thinkers. - Videos - [Latest](https://bigthink.com/videos/) - [The Big Think Interview](https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/) - Columns - [Mini Philosophy](https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/) - [Starts with a Bang](https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/) - [Big Think Books](https://bigthink.com/books/) - [The Long Game](https://bigthink.com/the-long-game/) - [Strange Maps](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/) - [13\.8](https://bigthink.com/13-8/) - [The Well](https://bigthink.com/the-well/) - [Rethinking Possible](https://rethinkingpossible.com/) - Sections - [Philosophy](https://bigthink.com/philosophy/) - [Mind & Behavior](https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/) - [Science & Tech](https://bigthink.com/science-tech/) - [Business](https://bigthink.com/business/) - [History & Society](https://bigthink.com/history-society/) - Classes - [Class Library](https://bigthink.com/my-classes/) - Subscribe - [Membership](https://bigthink.com/membership/) - [Free Newsletters](https://bigthink.com/subscribe/) - Partner - [Big Think+ Learning](https://bigthink.com/plus/) - [Creative Studio](https://freethinkmedia.com/creative-studio) - [Advertise with Us](https://bigthink.com/advertise-with-big-think/) - [Events](https://events.bigthink.com/) - More - [About](https://bigthink.com/our-mission/) - [Careers](https://bigthink.com/careers/) - [Contact](https://bigthink.com/contact/) - [Privacy Policy](https://bigthink.com/privacy-policy/) - [Terms of Sale](https://bigthink.com/terms-of-use/) - [Accessibility](https://bigthink.com/accessibility/) [View our Twitter (X) feed](https://twitter.com/bigthink) [View our Youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/bigthink) [View our Instagram feed](https://www.instagram.com/bigthinkers/) [View our Substack feed](https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/) [View our Spotify feed](https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb?si=74108a1c8cd64970) © Copyright 2007-2026 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, Inc. 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Readable Markdown	Series [13\.8](https://bigthink.com/13-8/) — January 11, 2023 ## Quantum superposition begs us to ask, “What is real?” Quantum superposition challenges our notions of what is real. Traditionally, atoms are viewed as dense nuclei, a mix of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons that move in specific orbital paths. This picture is useful in some circumstances, but the full suite of quantum information encoded in an atom is much richer than this. Credit: Annelisa Leinbach, Thomas Wright Key Takeaways - In the quantum world, objects can be in multiple places at once, at least until they are measured. - This is due to the weirdness of quantum superposition. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. - Analogies to understand this phenomenon all fall short. But they do beg us to ponder, “What is real?” Sign up for Big Think on Substack The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free. This is the sixth in a series of articles exploring the birth of quantum physics. The world of the very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves. ## String energy In 1913, Bohr [devised a model](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-jumps-niels-bohr-atom/) for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit. Clarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen [both as particles and waves](https://bigthink.com/13-8/wave-particle-duality-matter/). This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and [Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle](https://bigthink.com/13-8/quantum-uncertainty-language/) gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with. A little later, in 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had a huge idea. What if we could write an equation for what the electron is doing around the nucleus? Since de Broglie suggested that electrons behave like waves, this would be like a wave equation. It was a truly revolutionary idea, and it reframed our understanding of quantum mechanics. In the spirit of Maxwell’s electromagnetism, which describes light as waving electric and magnetic fields, Schrödinger pursued a wave mechanics that could describe de Broglie’s matter waves. One of the consequences of de Broglie’s idea was that if electrons were waves, then it was possible to explain why only certain orbits were allowed. To see why this is true, imagine a string being held by two people, Ana and Bob. Ana jerks it quickly, creating a wave moving toward Bob. If Bob does the same, a wave moves toward Ana. If Ana and Bob synchronize their actions, a [standing wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone#/media/File:Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg) appears, a pattern that doesn’t move left or right and that exhibits a fixed point between them called a node. If Ana and Bob move their hands faster, they will find new standing waves with two nodes, then three nodes, and so on. You can also generate standing waves by plucking a guitar string with varying strengths, until you find standing waves with different numbers of nodes. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the energy of the standing wave and the number of nodes. ## The Born legacy De Broglie pictured the electron as a standing wave around the nucleus. As such, only certain vibrating patterns would fit in a closed circle — the orbits, each characterized by a given number of nodes. The allowed orbits were identified by the number of nodes of the electron wave, each with its specific energy. Schrödinger’s wave mechanics explained why de Broglie’s picture of the electron as a standing wave was accurate. But it went much further, generalizing this simplistic picture into three spatial dimensions. In a sequence of six remarkable papers, Schrödinger formulated his new mechanics, applied it successfully to the hydrogen atom, explained how it could be applied to produce approximate answers to more complicated situations, and proved the compatibility of his mechanics with Heisenberg’s. The solution to Schrödinger’s equation was known as the wave function. Initially, he thought of it as describing the electron wave itself. This was in accord with classical notions of how waves evolve in time, obeying determinism. Given their initial position and velocity, we can use their equation of motion to predict what happens in the future. Schrödinger was particularly proud of this fact — that his equation restored some order to the conceptual mess caused by atomic physics. He never liked the idea of the electron “jumping” between discrete orbits. However, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ruined this deterministic interpretation for the wave function. In the quantum world everything was fuzzy, and it was impossible to predict exactly the time evolution of the electron, be it particle or wave. The question became: Then what does this wave function mean? Physicists were lost. How could the wave-particle duality of matter and light and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle be reconciled with Schrödinger’s beautiful (and continuous) wave mechanics? Again a radical new idea was needed, and again someone had it. This time it was the turn of Max Born, who apart from being one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics was also the grandfather of 1970s rock star Olivia Newton-John. Born proposed, correctly, that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics did not describe the evolution of the electron wave, but the probability of finding the electron in this or that position in space. Solving Schrödinger’s equation, physicists compute how this probability evolvesin time. We cannot predict with any certainty whether the electron will be found here or there. We can only giveprobabilities of it being found here or there once a measurement is made. In quantum mechanics, the probabilityevolves deterministically according to the wave equation, but the electron itself does not. The same experiment, repeated many times under the same conditions, can give different results. ## Quantum superposition This is quite strange. For the first time, physics has an equation that does not describe the behavior of something physical belonging to an object — like the position, momentum, or energy of a ball or planet. The wave function is not something real in the world. (At least, it is not so to this physicist. We will address this cumbersome issue soon.) Its square — actually, its absolute value, since it is a complex quantity — gives the probabilityof finding the particle at a certain point in space once a measurement is made. But what happens beforethe measurement? We can’t tell. What we say is that the wave function is a superposition of many possible states for the electron. Each state represents a position the electron might be found at once a measurement is made. A possibly useful image (they are all iffy) is to picture yourself in a room that is totally dark, walking toward a wall where many pictures are hanging. Lights turn on when you reach a specific location on the wall, in front of a painting. Of course, you know that you are a single person walking toward one of the paintings. But if you were a subatomic particle like an electron or a photon, there would be many copies of you walking toward the wall simultaneously. You would be in a superposition of many yous, and only one copy would reach the wall and cause the lights to turn on. Each copy of you would have a different probability of reaching the wall. Repeating the experiment many times, these different probabilities are uncovered. Are all copies moving in the dark room real, or only the one that hits the wall and turns on the lights? If only that one is real, how come others could also have hit the wall? This effect, known as quantum superposition, is perhaps the weirdest of them all. So weird and fascinating that it deserves a whole article.
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