A new experiment hints at surprising hidden mechanics of quantum superpositions

Question about the basics. They say:<p>&gt; And it gets weirder: Measuring which slit such a particle goes through will invariably indicate it only goes through one—but then the wavelike interference (the “quantumness,” if you will) vanishes. The very act of measurement seems to “collapse” the superposition. “We know something fishy is going on in a superposition,” says physicist Avshalom Elitzur of the Israeli Institute for Advanced Research. “But you’re not allowed to measure it. This is what makes quantum mechanics so diabolical.”<p>But (afaik) measuring means disturbing, because you have to exchange some energy with the system in order to perform the measurement.<p>So in the above quote, if you replace &quot;measuring&quot; by &quot;disturbing&quot;, then all of a sudden, the whole paragraph doesn&#x27;t make any sense ... Can anyone clarify this?

Does it mean we can create some machine (let&#x27;s call it timegraph):<p>- before some sport event (NBA finals 7th match) we write a question &#x27;who will win, A (1st team name) or B (2nd team name)?&#x27;<p>- do 2 experiments with photon and slits:<p>* (A)<p>* (B)<p>- do not measure their results until tomorrow<p>- tomorrow (after the match is over) you measure result of the experiment of the team that won and destroy results of the another experiment<p>- (returning to the previous day): look which experiment shows inteference and which doesn&#x27;t

&gt; The apparent vanishing of particles in one place at one time—and their reappearance in other times and places—suggests [...] a particle’s presence in one place is somehow “canceled” by its own “counterparticle” in the same location. [...] These putative counterparticles should possess negative energy and negative mass, allowing them to cancel their counterparts.<p>I thought negative energies in Quantum Mechanics give rise to senseless infinities that can&#x27;t be eliminated. What gives?

The website is down.

This is a horrendous article, clearly written by someone who doesn’t grasp the basics. I gave up when they conflated how the double-slit experiment demonstrates wave-particle duality with a demonstration of superposition. I can’t believe how much of a joke SciAm has become, it makes me sad.

What intrigues me about the entire situation is that the scientists are not standing back and looking at all the assumptions they use.<p>Simple things like that the belief that there are &quot;virtual&quot; particles &quot;popping&quot; in and out of existence and they don&#x27;t affect the path of &quot;real&quot; particles like photons or electrons.<p>Simple things like what processes is the matter that exists each side of the slits undergoing in relation to the particles that pass through the slits and how each affects the other.<p>Simple things like what is a photon or other such particle.<p>Is the particle&#x2F;wave duality idea hindering or helping the further understanding of these processes? Is quantum mechanics the best approximation that we have or are there other ideas that would simply the models in use?<p>I liken it to a programming project that has gone down one path based on a series of assumptions and when these assumptions are found to be incorrect or different from what is actually there, it becomes very difficult to change direction without doing a complete rebuild.<p>If one looks at the history of investigations over the last 100 years or so, one finds that there are a variety of ideas that never gained any traction at the time of proposal. Yet, today appear to give a handle on some of the puzzles that are being found. These ideas are ignored because they didn&#x27;t gain traction at the time of first proposal.<p>Mayhaps, it would be worth spending some time to investigate to see if they have any merit. They may not, but it can&#x27;t hurt to see if they have.