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submitted 2 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 105 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

See also, the Pauli effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect

The Pauli effect or Pauli's device corollary is the supposed tendency of technical equipment to encounter critical failure in the presence of certain people. The term was coined after mysterious anecdotal stories involving Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, describing numerous instances in which demonstrations involving equipment suffered technical problems only when he was present.

An incident occurred in the physics laboratory at the University of Göttingen. An expensive measuring device, for no apparent reason, suddenly stopped working, although Pauli was in fact absent. James Franck, the director of the institute, reported the incident to his colleague Pauli in Zürich with the humorous remark that at least this time Pauli was innocent. However, it turned out that Pauli had been on a railway journey to Zürich and had switched trains in the Göttingen rail station at about the time of the failure.

R. Peierls describes a case when at one reception this effect was to be parodied by deliberately crashing a chandelier upon Pauli's entrance. The chandelier was suspended on a rope to be released, but it stuck instead, thus becoming a real example of the Pauli effect

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

I've wondered if mental state actually affects reality around us. Like some people who see paranormal shit are just more open to it or something while the presence of a skeptic prevents it from happening

And people who just don't have confidence that tech will work can cause random issues just by being present, but sometimes when a tech confident person comes to assist them, their confidence gets it to work properly.

Maybe it has to do with particle/wave duality and the observer effect, and the simulation approximates things more when people aren't paying as much attention or won't likely investigate an issue closely after the fact, so the simulation gets sloppy because it's approximating. But then when someone who will pay closer attention comes (or will come), the waves collapse into particles and it behaves as expected.

Maybe those cases where a user claims something usually works when they do it a way that is clearly wrong to the more experienced observer, the approximation works out in their favour, but the collapse to particles makes it break like it was supposed to the whole time.

Maybe Pauli understood some things about the technical equipment (and ropes?) that the others didn't or was better at calibration and collapsed the wave more than usual.

Though my guess for the chandelier is that someone first thought of the dropping it when he entered joke but then realized that saying they tried to do that and it failed would be even funnier plus save them a chandelier and be much easier and safer to pull off.

[-] Vilian@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

Particle don't have anything todo with a person observing it, it collapses if you try to observe it because the only way to observe a particle is launching another particle to it, and that changes the particle state

[-] SanndyTheManndy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

You might be on to something

[-] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

Having worked in tech support for a system that I knew very well, I often saw problems vanish when users attempted to demonstrate them with me present

People would say my tech aura made it work

Really though people just take more care when an expert is present, and so avoid whatever error their earlier carelessness caused

I wonder if people who experience the opposite encourage less care among those around them

[-] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 7 points 2 weeks ago

Interesting, I seem to have the opposite condition - something breaks, then they ask me to look at it and by the time I get there it's working perfectly again.

[-] propter_hog@hexbear.net 3 points 2 weeks ago

Is this a corollary to the Pauli Exclusion Principle?

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The article I linked says they're unrelated.

The Pauli effect is not related to the Pauli exclusion principle, which is a bona fide physical phenomenon named after Pauli. However the Pauli effect was humorously tagged as a second Pauli exclusion principle, according to which a functioning device and Wolfgang Pauli may not occupy the same room.