The Yin Yang symbol is an ancient representation of Quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics, the revolutionary new physics is based on the fact that light sometimes behaves as a wave and sometimes it behaves as a particle. The Yin Yang symbol illustrates this beautifully – the wave down the middle and the two particles. Why two particles though, and not just one to represent particles as a whole? I believe the two particles represents one of the outcomes that the famous Double Slit experiment proved – particles can be in more than one place at a time. This experiment illustrates what has been described as the ‘central mystery of quantum mechanics’ by theoretical physicist and nobel prize winner Richard Feynman.
The Double Slit Experiment: This experiment shines a beam of light through a wall with two slits in the wall. The beam of light shines onto a screen. As the beam of light passes through the two slits, it spreads out as we would expect and behaves like waves interfering with each other producing a wave pattern on the screen. (Similar to ripples of waves on a pond that overlap each other). Then, one slit is closed and the pattern visible on the screen is that of particles – because there was no interference. This is as we expect. These are the two ways light can be present – as a wave or as a particle.
Now the experiment gets interesting: Both slits are open. The light source is dimmed so that one photon is emitted at a time (photon = the smallest particle of light). Once the photon shows up on the screen, the next photon is shined and the next and so on. The expectation is that the photons would go through one or other of the two slits and produce two lines on the screen, each line across from each slit. But that’s not what happens. The pattern on the screen shows an interference pattern. This means that the photons went through the two slits at the same time. They were ‘interfering’ with themselves. Remember that photons cannot be subdivided. The photons were in two places at the same time. They were able to experience the different paths available to them …at the same time.
The experiment gets even more bizarre which is not necessary for this particular Yin Yang connection but it is a fascinating part of Quantum discovery. Once an observer is introduced, the photons behave differently. They behave as we would expect – as a particle that goes through one or other slit and there is no interference pattern to be seen! It’s as if they know we are watching so they behave in a certain way.
How to apply this to the Yin Yang symbol? The Yin Yang symbol shows the wave, and the two particles – but now we can look at it differently and see it as one particle in two locations at the same time, the same behavior as happens on the quantum level. From the Tao Te Ching, the ancient philosophical text that is the origin of the Yin Yang symbol, it says: one becomes two, two becomes three and three becomes an infinite number of things. It’s the same message from the philosophers of thousands of years ago and the physicists of quantum mechanics for the past two hundred years.
In terms of explaining the behavior when there is an observer, I don’t know? We are observing now so this is the symbol we see. Who knows what the symbol might be when we are not looking.
In terms of health, what exciting possibilities exist. There are many possible outcomes. Miracles happen. Magic is all around us.
