I am by NO means a qualified person, so feel free to ignore me … I believe (have not researched, experimented, etc) that an observer is anything that records the outcome, whether it is your own eyes or a camera taping the experiment or something similar. Maybe it only counts as an “observer” to physics if someone sees the outcome (through said camera or otherwise)… As I said before I am no qualified person.

All I have is my opinions on the subject, and they aren’t much at this stage, since I haven’t researched quantum physics all that much.

-Derg

On a further note, I believe that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics says it all. But I also agree with Einstein: “Ich glaub’ nicht das der Alte wurfelt” (I don’t believe that god plays dice).
One possible way to explain the notion of randomness is the theory that once an observer looks, the wavefunction of the electron collapses and it is “converted” to a state where it exists as a particle. Now, who caused that change/transformation? The observer! But what exactly classifies as an “observer” in physics? I need a clear answer to this question before I can actually start making theories about randomness, because otherwise I’m just shooting in the blue with my theories. My current belief is, that randomness only exists as long as you’re not looking. Once you’ve observed, gathered information, and processed it, the random system is destroyed, because you as “observer” have injected your thoughts, your energy, etc. (to sum it up: your consciousness) into that system. What we’re looking at here is a sort of chaos theory: even the smallest change in perception can cause huge differences, because you have inadvertently altered the system. It is even possible for radioactivity to appear spontaneously, because the interaction with the system might cause a change in particle stability. This might be explainable by the nucleus disintegrating because one set of virtual pairs have been destroyed, because the observer didn’t “imagine” or perceive the second set (should result in mostly gamma and beta radiation). Maybe it is even possible to create other effects, simply by having a sort of “information filter” that ignores all the unwanted perceptions and lets through the ones desired. =O
The EPR paradox presents even more puzzling questions and answers some thoughts on this information based theory.

I’m really no expert on physics, just my 2 cents (most of my info gathered from wikipedia :p).

anyway, good luck with that $45 mil. and if you do win i really hope you put it to good use.

on a totally unrelated note: i’m turning 18 tomorrow, a big year. it sure would be great if i knew a millionaire that could buy me some great birthday present(s). hell, it wouldn’t even bother me if it was 2.5 weeks late or so (j/k)