Unfortunately the claims of quantum mechanics get overblown by new age philosophers in the vein of “What the Bleep do we Know” and other such meaningless extrapolations of quantum physics, e.g. just because an electron takes every possible path to travel from point A to point B that doesn’t me we can.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that our world is built on some truly bizarre principles! One example is an experiment published in 2007 which demonstrated that a switch flipped in the future can predetermine the actions of a prior event.

A single dollop of light, or photon, must be described by a flowing quantum wave that gives the probability of finding it at any particular place and time. At the same time, the photon acts a bit like an indivisible bullet: When observed with a particle detector, it produces a distinct signal, like a pebble pinging off a car door. And things get weirder. The quantum wave can split in two and recombine, like ripples flowing around a stump in a pond, to create striking “interference” effects that determine which way the recombined wave flows. On the other hand, it’s simply impossible to split a photon at a fork in the road. If there is no way to eventually put the pieces back together, the photon acts like a particle and goes one way or the other.

If the second splitter was on, interference between the two pieces directed the recombined wave of probability toward one or the other of two detectors, depending on the difference in the path lengths. If the second beam splitter was turned off so the waves couldn’t recombine, then the photon took one path or the other with 50-50 probability, and equal numbers of photons reached detectors. The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality.

The more that people can understand our world is built on probabilities and not discrete billiard balls mechanically colliding the more we’ll change our social structures (and primarily economics) to match.