Double-slit experiment with one-atom slits

Researchers have fine-tuned one of the most iconic experiments in physics — the double-slit experiment — using two single atoms as the slits. A photon fired at the atoms is scattered in a version of the familiar pattern that has graced a thousand physics textbooks: ripples of interference in some conditions (in this case, when the atoms were trapped in well-defined positions) or no interference (when they were not). The experiment once again shows how light behaves as both a particle and a wave, while negating some of the concerns about experimental ‘noise’ that worried Albert Einstein. “I think this is a beautiful experiment and a testament to how far our experimental control has come,” says physicist Thomas Hird. “This probably far surpasses what Einstein could have imagined possible.”

Blogger Comments:

This experiment takes the double-slit experiment to a whole new level. Instead of using ordinary slits, researchers used two individual atoms as the “slits” for photons of light. The results are as beautiful as they are revealing.

Quantum Possibilities, Not Fixed Properties

Photons are usually described as either particles or waves. But this experiment shows that a photon doesn’t carry a fixed identity. Its behaviour depends on the quantum system it interacts with—here, the positions of the two atoms.

• When the atoms are well-positioned, the photon creates the familiar interference pattern, like ripples from overlapping waves.

• When the atoms are uncertain or wobbly, the pattern disappears, and photons behave more like individual particles.

This tells us that quantum phenomena are context-dependent: what you see depends on how the system is arranged.

Every Detection is an Event

Each photon’s arrival on the detector is a moment of actualisation. The interference pattern doesn’t exist in any single photon—it emerges from the collective behaviour of many photons interacting with the atomic system.

Think of it like a flock of birds: a single bird doesn’t create the wave patterns you see in flight, but the flock as a whole does. Similarly, the interference pattern is a manifestation of the system’s underlying potential.

Why This Matters

• The experiment shows that quantum properties are not intrinsic; they emerge from relationships between objects.

• It demonstrates how modern technology can probe quantum potential directly, giving us a cleaner, more precise view than ever before.

• Most importantly, it reminds us that the world at the quantum level is emergent, relational, and profoundly context-sensitive—things only “appear” in the way they do because of the configuration of the system.

In short: the photon is neither strictly a particle nor a wave—it is potential made actual by the system it meets, and the pattern of outcomes is a collective story told by many such interactions.

Six physicists debunk six quantum myths

• Quantum physicist Maria Violaris explains that scientists haven’t managed to send particles back in time — yet.
• Quantum-computing researcher Estelle Inack says that it’s one thing to have a quantum computer, but another to extract the right answer for a complex calculation out of it.
• Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder recounts that Albert Einstein didn’t reject the concept of entanglement as ‘spooky action at a distance’.
• Physicist Norma Sanchez believes that the two grand theories of general relativity and quantum physics can be reconciled — and is working on a type of quantum space-time that might do the job.
• Quantum computing won’t break all encryption — probably — says theoretical computer scientist Shweta Agrawal.
• There’s not yet one, perfect interpretation of what quantum mechanics says about the nature of reality, says physicist and philosopher Emily Adlam. We’re still “waiting for the stroke of inspiration that might open our eyes to the truth”.

Blogger Comments:

1. “Scientists haven’t managed to send particles back in time — yet.”

Here, the joke is in the “yet.” What’s at play ontologically is the assumption that “particles” exist as things-in-themselves that could be displaced backwards along a timeline. But in relational ontology, “time” is not an absolute container. It’s a construal — a dimension of alignment across events. So asking whether particles can “go back in time” misconstrues both “particles” and “time” as entities rather than perspectives cut from experience.

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2. “It’s one thing to have a quantum computer, but another to extract the right answer…”

Here we see the practical recognition that “quantum potential” is not neatly convertible into determinate results. This is exactly what we’d say: the system of potential is not the same as its actualisation. The “answer” doesn’t pre-exist in the quantum system — it emerges in the cut from potential to actual. The difficulty is not “extracting” but construing in a way that stabilises meaning across that cut.

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3. “Einstein didn’t reject entanglement as spooky action at a distance.”

This is a correction of a popular myth, but even the correction is framed within a realist metaphysics. Entanglement, for us, is nothing “spooky” because it’s simply the reflexivity of construal across separated instances: the system defines what counts as separation. Einstein resisted because he wanted a determinate system behind construal; but if construal is constitutive, there is no “behind.”

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4. “GR and QM can be reconciled by quantum space-time.”

This is the old quest for unification at the theory level. From our standpoint, the reconciliation is already obvious: both are different ways of construing reflexive alignment — one across motion, one across possibility. A “quantum spacetime” model is another construal, but it doesn’t solve the “ontological” problem unless one accepts that construal is the ontological ground. Otherwise it’s just another patch.

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5. “Quantum computing won’t break all encryption — probably.”

This shows the danger of reifying potential as omnipotent. The assumption is that quantum = limitless power. But as we’ve said, potential is not actuality. The actual is always cut through construal, which places constraints and boundaries. So encryption may well survive because reflexive constraints cannot be bypassed by sheer possibility.

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6. “There’s not yet a perfect interpretation of quantum mechanics.”

Here the game is revealed. The search for a “perfect interpretation” is a metaphysical quest for the reality behind construal. But if construal is reality, then there can never be such a final interpretation. Instead, interpretations are alternate construals of the same reflexive ground. The “stroke of inspiration” will not reveal “the truth” but a shift in how truth itself is construed.

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Overall:
This list is an excellent little cultural text. Each item both reproduces and strains against the metaphysical assumptions of mainstream physics. And our relational ontology lets us see that the “myths” themselves are just failed construals — attempts to stabilise meaning in ways that exceed the limits of the cut.

Primates might have evolved in the cold

The common ancestors of all modern primates — including us — might have flourished in the cold winters of North America, rather than the warmth of the jungle. Researchers combined fossil data with climate reconstructions and statistical modelling to map where our primate ancestors lived and what the climate was like at that time. “For decades, the idea that primates evolved in warm, tropical forests has gone unquestioned,” said evolutionary biologist and study co-author Jorge Avaria-Llautureo. “Our findings flip that narrative entirely.”

Uranus has a new moon

Astronomers have used the power of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to discover a tiny new moon orbiting Uranus. S/2025 U1 is just 10 kilometres or so across. The distant ice giant now has 29 known moons. “No other planet has as many small inner moons as Uranus,” says astronomer Matthew Tiscareno, who co-discovered the new body. “Their complex inter-relationships with the rings hint at a chaotic history that blurs the boundary between a ring system and a system of moons.”

AI helps assemble ‘brain’ of future quantum computer

A team has used an artificial intelligence (AI) model to calculate the best way to rapidly assemble ‘neutral atom arrays’ — a grid of atoms that might one day serve as the ‘brain’ of a quantum computer. One of the big challenges in using arrays of atoms for quantum computing is working out how to rearrange them in an “efficient, fast and scalable manner”, says physicist and study co-author Jian-Wei Pan. AI solved that problem for the team — and did it quickly.

Tiny device only needs the Sun to lift off

A device takes advantage of the properties of two layers of material to levitate using only the power of sunlight. The top layer is transparent, allowing sunlight to shine through it, and the bottom layer absorbs that sunlight. Gas molecules moving from the cold transparent layer to the hot bottom layer creates a lift that is similar to that created by a helicopter’s whirring rotor, says engineer Igor Bargatin, who has pioneered work on similar devices.

A new dawn for quantum-gravity research

Despite years of trying to create a quantum theory of gravity, researchers haven’t generated any concrete evidence to support any one contender. Now experiments are in the works that could finally test the true nature of gravity in the laboratory. Some tests plan to use advanced lasers still being invented. Others require ambitious techniques to manipulate matter that might never be achievable. Still, after years of stagnation, some physicists are welcoming “a new era in quantum-gravity research”, says theorist Jonathan Oppenheim.

Blogger Comments:

1. Category Error: Treating Systems as Objects

The article consistently speaks as if “gravity” and “quantum mechanics” are things in the world with inherent natures, awaiting discovery.
From our standpoint, both are systemic theories — structured potentials for phenomena.
The question “Is gravity quantum?” assumes there is an ontological essence to be located, rather than acknowledging that the two are incommensurable construals until a new symbolic cut integrates them.

Effect: The discourse conceals the constructive nature of scientific integration, presenting it as passive observation.

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2. Obfuscation of the Cut

Every experimental proposal described is, in fact, a cut — a perspectival act that co-instantiates selected aspects of the two systems.
Yet the article frames these as tests of reality, implying that the phenomena are there regardless of the observer’s symbolic choices.

Effect: This hides the reflexive role of experiment in making the phenomenon it claims to measure.

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3. Reflexive Blindness

The narrative positions experiments as neutral, theory-independent arbiters. In practice:

• The choice of measurable quantity,

• The instrumentation design,

• The interpretive framework,
  …are all symbolic alignments that already presuppose a particular outcome space.

Effect: The article does not interrogate how these alignments predetermine what counts as “evidence” for quantum gravity.

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4. Slippage Between Phenomena and Metaphenomena

The piece oscillates between describing experimental setups (first-order phenomena) and making claims about the nature of reality (second-order metaphenomena) without marking the shift.
For example:

• “If we see X, gravity must be quantum” is a metaphenomenal statement.

• “We will measure Y in the lab” is a phenomenal statement.
  The lack of distinction lets the metaphenomenal claim pass as though it were an empirical description.

Effect: The reader is led to conflate empirical events with theoretical commitments.

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5. Erasure of Institutional Context

The drive toward tabletop “quantum gravity” experiments is not purely intellectual — it is shaped by:

• Funding landscapes favouring small-scale, rapid-turnaround science

• Prestige incentives for cross-domain breakthroughs

• The narrative appeal of “solving” physics’ biggest question in a lab setting
  Yet the article treats this as if it were an unmediated trajectory of scientific progress.

Effect: This depoliticises the phenomenon and erases the collective construal processes shaping the research.

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6. Illusion of Ontological Finality

The conclusion implies that once an experiment “confirms” gravity’s quantum nature, the ontological question will be settled.
From our view, such a result would simply instantiate a new symbolic architecture for physics — one whose stability would depend on continued alignment across theory, experiment, and institutional acceptance.

Effect: It presents scientific closure where there is, in fact, only a momentary stabilisation of meaning.

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Overall Assessment

The Nature article participates in the mainstream physics discourse that:

• Treats symbolic systems as if they were the world itself,

• Treats perspectival cuts as neutral acts of measurement,

• And elides the reflexive, constructive nature of theory–experiment integration.

A relational ontology reading recasts the story not as “closing in on nature’s answer,” but as actively building a shared symbolic frame in which “gravity” and “quantum” can coexist without contradiction — a frame that does not yet exist, and whose creation will be as much a social and semiotic process as a technical one.

New method reveals perhaps the most massive black hole yet spotted

Astronomers have detected what could be the most massive black hole found yet. It has a mass 36 billion times greater than that of the Sun and lies at the centre of a galaxy around 5 billion light years from Earth. To gauge the mass of a black hole so far away, researchers had to devise a new technique, which relies on light emitted by the matter being sucked inside. It works, but “relies on a lot of assumptions”, says astrophysicist Carlos Melo-Carneiro. As such, astronomers can’t determine the object’s exact mass with much certainty.

1.5 million-year-old stone tools from mystery human relative discovered in Indonesia

Stone tools found on Sulawesi in Indonesia suggest that ancient hominins occupied the island around 1 million years ago — much earlier than we thought. The small tools were probably created using a percussion-flaking technique, in which a rock is struck with another stone to create sharp edges. Without fossils, researchers can’t tell exactly which early human species made them, but Homo erectus is a potential candidate.

Planet spotted in its star’s Goldilocks zone

Astronomers have caught a glimpse of what could be a nearby planet in its star’s habitable zone — the ‘just right’ region where life could flourish. The planet, which appears as no more than a bright smudge on images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, is circling Alpha Centauri A, just 4 light years from Earth. Because it’s a gas giant, researchers aren’t holding their breath for life on this planet, but its moons could be habitable, they say.