How can one thing/quantum be in two places at onetime?

Answer 1

Deedove and mytraver both gave you an approach to understanding quantumn physics. Now I'm going to give you a personal synthesis. It has to do with a cat.

All particles are explained by both quantum mechanics and relativity theory. The first says they are an entity which is described mathematically by a wave equation. Mytraver explained how they were just a probability until someone observed the particle. The second says that all material particles are just energy which has become matter in some way by condensing and this energy is related to their mass by E = MC^2. (Where E = energy, M = mass, C = velocity of light)

Now we and a cat are made up of many of these particles and we are real. Since someone must look at an individual particle for its' wave function to collapse and it become real then someone must be looking at us (and Schroedingers cat, who you will meet if you continue to study quantum mechanics) in order for them to be real. Might I sugggest that this someone is God as deedove suggested and that he knows where every particle in the universe is at all times. Thus matter (us and the cat) are real because God observes us at all times.

A real cat can not be dead or alive at the same time nor can two real things be in two places at the same time but the particles they are made of can be because they are near their state of being energy-fields before condensing into matter. They are quasi-energy-field and have a wave function which can describe their isolated existence. Particles together to form a massive body have a wave function too but it is so complicated it cant be written or understood by human minds.

This explanation will result in many hoots of derision because it invokes a supernatural entity which is anathema to scientists.

Answer 2

By being in neither place absolutely.

This is a pretty difficult thing for most folks to grasp, but when it comes to quantum processes, we are really speaking of PROBABILITIES.

By that I mean that when we say that an electron IS in a certain place, by doing that, by observing it in that place, it's wave function collapses and it is exactly where we predicted it would be. However when we are NOT looking for it, we cannot say where it is, because it has equal probabilities of being in many places. Even in the really bent thought experiments where a quanta is PERCIEVED to be in many places at the same time, what you are actually percieveing is the probabilities of its being in either place (lets say for arguments sake that there are two possible locations and they each have a 50% probability) - thus we would "see" a fuzzy distorted see-through image since only half of the probability is there (Obviously we are not actually observing, because if we WERE then the probabilites would collapse and we wouldn't have anything in more than one place) and half the probability is in the other location.

But you can't have half a block of wood in one place and the other half in a different place if they are both really one piece of wood, right?

Well, that's the problem. These things don't work real well on macroscopic scale objects - because the probabilities even out due to the GIANT number of particles making up that block of wood.

So, while it is possible and even calculable to have an electron quantum entangled enough to be in two places simultaneously, one would not see the same results from that block of wood.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

it really isnt in two places at one time, when it makes the quantum leap- it exists in one place and the it simply exists in the next----.....that is confusing though, even as i say it :)

Answer 4

They explained it in that movie "What the bleep do we know", but I still don't quite understand it.
I believe it has something to do with perception.

Answer 5

by praying in the spirit of the Lord Jesus he will show you all things..He will tell you where when and how life and people are.He will also show you things to come in the Holy Ghost. Miss dee. you must rely on God to show you all things.