I read a sci-fi novel once (or maybe a short story? Shit, I can’t remember.) about the earth being completely blockaded (entombed is more like it. I think the entire solar system was enclosed in an opaque bubble) overnight by alien species. It turned out that most of the organisms in the universe existed more on a quantum level than we do, and as a result of our growing technological prowess, our acts of observation were collapsing the wave functions of and destroying entire civilizations and species. We were causing horrific cosmic calamity, and so we were put in solitary confinement.
Yeah, it was a little silly, but I remember it being a fun read.
I’m sure there have been several similar stories. The closest thing I know of it the X Minus One story (based on something from Galaxy?) called No Contact.
If I recall correctly, though, the rationale for the barrier wasn’t quantum concerns, so much that we’re a bunch of jerks. So maybe that’s not the one.
Huh. That may have been it…but I can’t find any reference in the reviews to the quantum physics aspect of it, which was definitely present in the one I’m thinking of…
Looks like it – using the “search inside” feature, it’s clear that one of the ideas is it’s something specific about the human observer that collapses the state vector when a measurement is made, and that other species don’t necessarily have this quality.
There was a concept like this in the S.P. Somtow novel ‘MallWorld’. Amazon lists ‘The Ultimate Mallworld’ as still available. Some of the content was also published in the early 80’s in Asimov’s SF Magazine, IIRC, when the author used the name Somtow Sucharitkul.
Not only did the aliens in this one ‘lock us up’, but there is also ample use of other universes and probabilities. It’s a good read even if it’s not the one you’re looking for.
Now that the original question has been answered, James Blish wrote a short story in which the occupants of a city wake up one day to find themselves imprisoned under a huge gray dome. I can’t remember the title, but I thought it was pretty good when I first read it eighty-twelve trillion years ago.