So what's the answer?!
It's the question that has plagued us for millennia: 'What came first? The chicken? Or the egg?'
The paradox was first put forward by Ancient Greek philosophers trying to describe the problem of determining cause-and-effect... And ever since, we've been arguing over the answer.
Well, now a team of physicists from The University of Queensland in Australia and the NÉEL Institute say they've found the actual answer!
And they say that the chicken and the egg can BOTH come first.
Don’t get it? Neither do we...
Best let the experts explain.
Dr Jacqui Romero said that in quantum physics cause-and-effect was not always as straightforward as one event causing another.
Speaking to News.com.au, Dr Romero said: “The weirdness of quantum mechanics means that events can happen without a set order.”
“Take the example of your daily trip to work, where you travel partly by bus and partly by train.
“Normally, you would take the bus then the train, or the other way round. In our experiment, both of these events can happen first.
“This is called ‘indefinite causal order’ and it isn’t something that we can observe in our everyday life.”
Which one of you came first?! So how did the researchers try and observe this effect in the lab?
They used something called a photonic quantum switch - sounds like a great name for a sci-fi series.
Dr Fabio Costa, also a part of the study said that with this device the order of events — transformations on the shape of light — depends on polarisation.
“By measuring the polarisation of the photons at the output of the quantum switch, we were able to show the order of transformations on the shape of light was not set,” he said.
“This is just a first proof of principle, but on a larger scale indefinite causal order can have real practical applications, like making computers more efficient or improving communication.”
Still confused? Don't worry... so are we.
Basically this study is the first to use physics to answer the chicken or the egg dilemma. Unlike other studies that claimed to have scientifically proved the chicken came first using other methods.
Sorry if we didn’t really help solve the dinner table argument!
But hey, if the physicists are saying they both came at the same time, then who are we to dispute that?
