Single Photons: An Experiment Created By Alipasha Vaziri

A study that was “published in Nature Communications” showed that humans can sense single photons. The experiment results stated that instead of seeing the actual single photon, it was more a part of the human imagination, nearly a feeling. From experiments done to frogs, it was proved that rod cells fire as a response to single photons, though, scientists weren’t certain whether or not if just firing a single rod cell would be enough to send a signal to the brain. To add to this, it wasn’t clear whether or not “people would be able to consciously sense such a signal if it did reach the brain.” The experiment created by Alipasha Vaziri had three volunteers sit in total darkness for about 40 minutes, and then had them stare into an optical system. The volunteers would then push a button, and hear two sounds, which were split by one second. Accompanying one of the two sounds would be a single photon, to which the volunteers would have to say which one they think they saw a photon and how confident they were with their answer. From their research, it was concluded

If someone who didn’t know about photons read this, they would be confused and lost, which was how I felt before I looked up what photons were. This article also made me confused because half of it was on the experiment and everything surrounding it, so I had to read it multiple times to reach an understanding with it. It also made me a bit happy because they are so certain the results are strong statistically. Though it did make me frustrated to learn later on that the volunteers were only males. While reading this, I couldn’t help but feel that the writers of the article were biased in that they wanted to make the readers have more belief in the statement that humans can sense single photons. This article did, however, give great reasoning, and was an enjoyable article