Quantum mechanics fixed my car

   One of the most facinating 'observations' to come from modern physics is that one cannot observe a quantum event without changing it. This is quite a tricky situation to get around. Maybe this problem is not a physical one, but an intellectual one. Think about this:

   I define a carrot as been small, orange, conical, a root vegitable, with a green stemmed top. Imagine that I suddenly find a carrot which is red. In every respect it is a carrot its just that it is red. All I have to do is to add the property "sometimes red in colour" to the definition of carrot. No problems.

   However imagine that I want to label the carrot "carrot", the only way I can do this is to attach the label in the same manner as I did the other properties. "carrot" becomes just another property of the item. I can query the item for it's shape, its colour, or now, I can query it according to its name. Now here's the problem:

   While 'redness' in the case above was actually a real property of the item, the label "carrot" was not. But we saw that anything we add to the item changes the definition of that item. Thus to label something is to change it.

   Maybe some of our observational problems in physics stem from us attempting to label things rather than simply describe their effects.

A page from James David Chapman's website. Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/ Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
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