# The Quantum Physics Two-Slit Experiment



## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

This experiment is supposed to illustrate the basic puzzle of quantum mechanics. I don't understand it. What is the big deal? Is there a contradiction somewhere? I can't seem to see it. There are lots of links found if "two-slit experiment is Googled. I will give some so you get the idea but maybe I just didn't google the right ones. Then I will explain how I see it. What have I missed?



* *




It's not necessary to read all these. Only one. I just put more there in case one explains better than another. They are all alike but maybe I missed some subtle or not so subtle difference.

1. Double Slit Experiment - Quantum Physics

2. Double-slit experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3. Two Slit



The way I see it an electron can't be an elementary entity, whatever that is. It is something originating from somewhere. It can move like a particle but radiates in waves because of its own nature. The waves go through the double slits creating the wave pattern described. This happens as long as the waves are not interfered with. I'm assuming anything as clumsy as a giant detector is such an interference. Anything as small as an electron is going to produce very sensitive activity. No wonder when the detector is present the wave pattern disappears and the electron acts like a particle. Why can't the electron be a particle emanating waves? What's the big deal?

Later: Maybe I'm not clear. I say the electron is a particle and wherever it goes it creates a wave field. The field is not the electron but its existence depends on the presence of the particle. Interfere with the wave and the wave disappears. There is no magic "probability" any more than not knowing where the crest or trough of a wave is. Where am I going wrong?

An analogy is like my having sex. Sex is supposed to be an enjoyable activity. But if you are going to put me on display and watch me, that is going to put a damper on my enjoyment.


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## Macrosapien (Apr 4, 2010)




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## Dabbling (Nov 2, 2013)

BigApplePi said:


> This experiment is supposed to illustrate the basic puzzle of quantum mechanics. I don't understand it. What is the big deal? Is there a contradiction somewhere? I can't seem to see it. There are lots of links found if "two-slit experiment is Googled. I will give some so you get the idea but maybe I just didn't google the right ones. Then I will explain how I see it. What have I missed?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I looked at the first link and watched the first 5 min video clip on that link. Seemed about right to me, a decent explanation with good graphics. 

You haven't mentioned the idea of a probability density function in your explanation. We don't know where the electron *is*, only what the probability of it being *there* is. But detecting it shows us where it *is* and that collapses the wave function of probabilities.

As for wave particle duality, a wave has infinite length so no location, but only one frequency. A wave packet has many frequencies combined together to make a pulse-like object which has location (particle-like) but now the frequency is undefined. Either the location or the frequency can be known, but knowing one limits the amount you can know the other. Uncertainty principle.

Are you taking classes in physics?


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

An electron is *both* a wave and a particle. It doesn't radiate in waves, it IS a wave.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

The big deal is that it demonstrated the wavelike nature of electrons, which were always thought to be strictly defined particles.

The quantum physics thing came a touch later, and its main importance is that it allowed a mathematical description of the double slit experiment.

Physics is, quite literally, the _study of being able to make a mathematical model of everything_.

At first, the double slit was a complete mystery and simply had curious and unexpected results which changed the world of science at large.

Then the mathsy bits came along and spelled things out a bit clearly.

The interesting thing is that the maths still only _describes_ it all. The actual underlying _fact_ of the electron having particle _and_ wave properties is still not understand.

Personally I think at its very core it'll be something wavelike though.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Dabbling said:


> I looked at the first link and watched the first 5 min video clip on that link. Seemed about right to me, a decent explanation with good graphics.
> 
> You haven't mentioned the idea of a probability density function in your explanation. We don't know where the electron *is*, only what the probability of it being *there* is. But detecting it shows us where it *is* and that collapses the wave function of probabilities.


At first I haven't wanted to accept a "probability wave" unless I know what it means. What does it mean here? If I flip a coin the outcome is a probability. But we don't bother to calculate the cause of this outcome because it's too complex. Yet no one puzzles about what happens to a flipped coin. Are they puzzling about the two-slit or what? It seems explainable. I just assume the electron sends out waves. Let the waves be part of the electron. That's fine. Let the origin of the waves be defined also. That's fine too. We may not know how the electron does this, but neither do we know how a coin comes up heads or tails.



> As for wave particle duality, a wave has infinite length so no location, but only one frequency. A wave packet has many frequencies combined together to make a pulse-like object which has location (particle-like) but now the frequency is undefined. Either the location or the frequency can be known, but knowing one limits the amount you can know the other. Uncertainty principle.


Is this "wave packet" directional? Can we do without it? I thought we were dealing with an electron as a wave like the wave generated by a pebble dropped in water moving out everywhere. Am I wrong? There should be no interest in the amplitude or frequency of this wave unless a reason can be given.




> Are you taking classes in physics?


I'm taking a DVD course but stopped to address the two-slit experiment because others have said this is foundational. I'm at war with myself as to whether to get this straight or continue on with the course. Eventually I will continue on but I may not be happy.
=========================



HAL said:


> The big deal is that it demonstrated the wavelike nature of electrons, which were always thought to be strictly defined particles.


I accept the wavelike nature but am only concerned about anything self-contradictory.




> The quantum physics thing came a touch later, and its main importance is that it allowed a mathematical description of the double slit experiment. Physics is, quite literally, the _study of being able to make a mathematical model of everything_.


Mathematics has it's own problems of origins. 




> At first, the double slit was a complete mystery and simply had curious and unexpected results which changed the world of science at large.
> 
> Then the mathsy bits came along and spelled things out a bit clearly.
> 
> ...


My issue we could call not a "thought experiment" but rather philosophical thought about what might be going on. Physicists may not know what an electron is (or a photon for that matter) that it should be wavelike, but we can speculate. My speculation is we have a source that puts out waves. What's wrong with this very simple summary? Does this so-called "detector" in the experiment reveal some problem? If it does, I don't see it. Am I not seeing the experiment properly? In any case the problem as I see it is we observe phenomena and the object is to come up with a model for the electron.


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## Nightmaker81 (Aug 17, 2013)

A probability density goes hand in hand with Schrodinger's eqn. The thing about quantum mechanics is that you don't actually know. Quantum Mechanics is much different than classical mechanics in the fact that we really don't know the exact location of the particle in question. 

To put it in perspective we can apply it to your coin example. You have a probability function for the coin. To get a 1(a 100% result). You'll take the integral of the probability function. The bounds for the integral function would be a 1 and 0 because you can only get heads or tails and that's the only result. 

But this is the thing with the electron. To get bounds for the integral to get a "100%" probability, you'll have to have a bound from infinity to negative infinity. This means it can be literally anywhere in the universe and since the universe is infinite you get an improper integral. You can probably calculate it but all you really get is that it has to be somewhere in the universe which we already knew. But we don't really care about the electron being at canis majoris so we limit it to a finite bound. So we reduce the integral to say somewhere on earth. That electron can still be in canis majoris and what we're doing by applying finite bound is finding the probability that it's on the earth.

It's different from the coin because it can only be heads or tails so you know there is a finite number of combinations with the coin. It's not like you flip a coin and you get jack of spades as a result or something that can't be predicted. Likewise we really don't know if the electron will be on earth but we can get a really good probability of whether it is, but at the same time we can never be sure.

That's how the probability density relates to quantum mechanics. And it goes hand to hand with schrodinger's and wave/particle duality.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Nightmaker81 said:


> A probability density goes hand in hand with Schrodinger's eqn. The thing about quantum mechanics is that you don't actually know. Quantum Mechanics is much different than classical mechanics in the fact that we really don't know the exact location of the particle in question.
> 
> To put it in perspective we can apply it to your coin example. You have a probability function for the coin. To get a 1(a 100% result). You'll take the integral of the probability function. The bounds for the integral function would be a 1 and 0 because you can only get heads or tails and that's the only result.
> 
> ...


Suppose I buy the math. My question is, where in the two-slit experiment don't we know where the electron "is"? Where does the experiment say it can be anywhere?


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## Nightmaker81 (Aug 17, 2013)

BigApplePi said:


> Suppose I buy the math. My question is, where in the two-slit experiment don't we know where the electron "is"? Where does the experiment say it can be anywhere?


I don't really understand where buying the math is. I'm going to be honest and you're being really facetious at this point which is why it's hard to explain to you. It's math, there isn't anything wrong with it and it's just having an understanding of integrals. I know you should question what you're learning but you're looking for holes that aren't there. It's just the theory of integrals. If your probability density has a function of x and you take the bounds of the limit of that function you'll get 1 because the probably can't proceed 1(100%), which makes sense because an integral calculates the area of it and a probablity function's entire curve will just be 1

The double slit experiment talks about what I was talking about in terms of classical mechanics vs quantum mechanics. Classically light acts a way and in classical mechanics we'll get a photon with a single slit. With a double slit we see it acts like a wave and a particle.

And that's where the probability density comes in. It's both a wave and a particle and it can change to either or, but we don't know when it will change. So we use the probability density and some kind of bound to calculate a probability and say "Yeah it's acting like a particle" or it's acting like a wave. We don't know if it is acting one way and we will never know, but we can calculate a probability and if it's like 95% we can probably assume it's acting like that. 

Griffiths book on QM explains it pretty well. My class used that and the first chapter is all Schrodinger's and how the probability density works.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Nightmaker81 said:


> With a double slit we see it acts like a wave and a particle.


Sorry I'm not being facetious but I am being frustrated. Let me take a different tack. I'm an INTP with a degree in math, pure math. I think logic linearly. I fail to follow the two-slit experiment possibly because of defective Te or plain ol' stupidity. 

Anyway there is an interesting communication challenge. The way I read you is I want to keep out all math. I see that as begging the question. 

I will address, *"With a double slit we see it acts like a wave and a particle."* I don't see what the problem is with that. What's wrong with both happening? I cannot propose theories (something I'm imagine rightly or wrongly I'm good at) unless I see the problem. Assume if necessary that I'm a five ten year old child who needs an explanation.


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## Nightmaker81 (Aug 17, 2013)

BigApplePi said:


> Sorry I'm not being facetious but I am being frustrated. Let me take a different tack. I'm an INTP with a degree in math, pure math. I think logic linearly. I fail to follow the two-slit experiment possibly because of defective Te or plain ol' stupidity.
> 
> Anyway there is an interesting communication challenge. The way I read you is I want to keep out all math. I see that as begging the question.
> 
> I will address, *"With a double slit we see it acts like a wave and a particle."* I don't see what the problem is with that. What's wrong with both happening? I cannot propose theories (something I'm imagine rightly or wrongly I'm good at) unless I see the problem. Assume if necessary that I'm a five ten year old child who needs an explanation.


There is nothing wrong with it in quantum mechanics. It's wrong in classical mechanics but the thing is classical mechanics is also wrong, it's just during the time we were figuring out, everyone's mind was blown.

It was the same as relativity. Newtonian mechanics is wrong, it's just an approximation, but a car going 100 miles per hour has essentially no relativistic effect so the Newtonian approximation worked fine. When we did things like kinetic energy we use the equation 1/2mv^2, but that's actually just the first term in a taylor series, but the rest of the higher order terms depend on relativity and doesn't really matter until you start going around 1% the speed of light and a model T isn't going to go 3*10^7 m/s so it really didn't matter. 

In classical mechanics light acts like a particle and we always knew that. It acts like a particle in a single slit experiment and nearly everything else. When we used double slit everyone's mind was blown because it pretty much said everything we knew in classical mechanics was not accurate. 

In terms of being a problem, there isn't a problem. It's just the huge mind blowing fact that classical mechanics which we relied on for centuries was wrong and just an approximation in the end, and that created the whole paradox thing.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Nightmaker81 said:


> In terms of being a problem, there isn't a problem. It's just the huge mind blowing fact that classical mechanics which we relied on for centuries was wrong and just an approximation in the end, and that created the whole paradox thing.


So you are saying the two-slit is only a problem for classical physics. We have to accept that electrons, photons, and I've heard large molecules give the wave effect. 

Apparently I have to proceed learning about more grievous odd happenings in quantum mechanics. Before I go there I'm still with the two-slit. I'd like to know if it says anything about the location of the electron being unknown (as opposed to it simply being unknown). After all you brought in a math integral model which I wasn't looking for.


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## Nightmaker81 (Aug 17, 2013)

BigApplePi said:


> So you are saying the two-slit is only a problem for classical physics. We have to accept that electrons, photons, and I've heard large molecules give the wave effect.
> 
> Apparently I have to proceed learning about more grievous odd happenings in quantum mechanics. Before I go there I'm still with the two-slit. I'd like to know if it says anything about the location of the electron being unknown (as opposed to it simply being unknown). After all you brought in a math integral model which I wasn't looking for.


Yeah classical mechanics isn't correct. Relativity and Quantum are both the corrections to it. 

It says we can never know 100% where the particle is. It's not intuitive but it doesn't give problems if you get what I'm saying. It'll always be unknown but we can find a good enough probability and go from there. That's what we do with semi conductors and tunneling. There isn't a 100% chance that it'll work but if put at a high enough chance and do it enough times that it works.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Nightmaker81 said:


> It says we can never know 100% where the particle is.


I just had a wild thought. Suppose I take a fist full of white sand where one grain is black. Then I hurl it at two slits. If I repeat this sooner or later that black grain will go though a slit. But we won't know which slit because my fist held well mixed sand. Question: does this duplicate the electron experiment and does it explain the randomness? Note: no waves are necessary. Forget waves.


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## Nightmaker81 (Aug 17, 2013)

BigApplePi said:


> I just had a wild thought. Suppose I take a fist full of white sand where one grain is black. Then I hurl it at two slits. If I repeat this sooner or later that black grain will go though a slit. But we won't know which slit because my fist held well mixed sand. Question: does this duplicate the electron experiment and does it explain the randomness? Note: no waves are necessary. Forget waves.


Not unless you had an infinite number of white sand. If you do have an infinite number of white sand you can replicate it, but if it's a finite number it wouldn't work the same way.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Nightmaker81 said:


> Not unless you had an infinite number of white sand. If you do have an infinite number of white sand you can replicate it, but if it's a finite number it wouldn't work the same way.


I lost ya there. See next post.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

When I started this thread I puzzled about the two-slit experiment. Since then I've learned something but the adventure is not over. I believe there are two approaches to the situation. One is from the applied or experimental particle physicist; the other is from the theoretical physicist. I see no reason why we can't use both, but they are very different.

Experimentally my understanding is we can explain lots of things by observation. This is the way it is. This is the way it works. It works everytime. Therefore it must be true. For example in particle physics we can use the Schrodinger equation to track how a quantum system will behave. We can call this the top-down approach.

I wish to take the other approach. I agree things work. I want to know why and how they work ... and if we can't get the answers, we can propose models or possibilities for how they might work. One of the things we are dealing with in the two-slit experiment is the electron. We conclude it has a so-called "wave-particle" duality. Knowing how this works means understanding the electron and I am fairly confident we don't. We can call this the bottom-up approach.

We can learn from each other because *both* approaches are valid. 

Now back to my previous thought. I changed my mind about the handful of sand. Instead, assume I hold a baseball. I am blindfolded, spun around and told to pitch the ball straight ahead. Since I am blindfolded I don't know if the ball will go more north or south. The ball will be pitched randomly. Is this or is this not like the electron being pitched at the double slit? Is this what is meant by probability waves? Or have I misconstrued the details of the experiment? I trust I have phrased my question clearly.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

BigApplePi said:


> Is this what is meant by probability waves?


'Probability' is the preferred method for describing quantum physical effects because it is _impossible_ to conclusively know certain bits of information.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle explains it pretty well.

You will _always_ be uncertain of certain bits of information, so all you can do is rig the conditions as best you can, and make a guess at what the outcome will be. Since it's a guess, all you can say is that something will _probably_ be that way.

A probability wave is just a model to represent the possibility of the electron landing at a certain point in space.

In the same way a graph of displacement against time shows the position of something at any specified time, a probability wave is just a graph of position against 'the probability of something being at this position'.










This image explains wave functions pretty well.

The peaks and troughs are points of highest probability. Hence there is a strength of colour on those parts. The bits on the axis show zero probability, hence there being nothing there

A probability wave is literally just a mathematical description of the way particles have been seen to act as waves. Thanks to the uncertainty principle, everything can only ever be based on probability.

Arguably electrons _are_ waves. As Nightmaker81 strongly hinted at, they only act as particles when considered on a large scale. Just like everyday mechanical systems act in a 'Newtonian' way so relativity can be ignored. The truth is, everything exhibits quantum physical wavelike properties. But quantum physics isn't used on large scale systems because it just isn't necessary.

Positional uncertainty is utterly negligible in all but the microscopic scale of quantum physics.

My conclusion. Electrons are waves. Uncertainty Principle means we can only ever hazard a guess at their properties. But it's only important if we want to focus on the finer details anyway.


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## Grunfur (Oct 23, 2011)

I think it's the nature of the electron. When an electron travels through a slit is supposed to have a uniform pattern when it hits the screen. But when we see it through the screen it has a _random _pattern. Imagine shooting a paintball through a tube that hits a wall. You would expect the paintball to hit the wall exactly where you aimed. But this isn't the case because electrons can be in more than one place at once.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Grunfur said:


> But this isn't the case because electrons can be in more than one place at once.


Well, this isn't quite true.

The electron is only in one place at one time, but you can't know for certain until it collides with the screen.

Ok I suppose you can say the electron is in more than one place, but only because that's how the wave function describes it. It still actually only exists as a single entity, hence can't be 'everywhere all at once'.

As soon as the electron is recorded, the wave function collapses to give a final, definite value of position.


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## Stelmaria (Sep 30, 2011)

Red Panda said:


> An electron is *both* a wave and a particle. It doesn't radiate in waves, it IS a wave.


The 'wave function' does not represent a classical wave. In that sense, an electron is neither a wave of a particle and those are just classical concepts that can be semantically useful but do not represent reality.

It's statistics all the way down.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Thank you all. I'm a little bit more enlightened than I was before but not totally clear. I'm not ready to consider more advanced experiments but still am at the bottom-up phase of thinking. If we now turn to the electron itself, what is it? How and why would it do what it does? (The electron is not the only entity that behaves as a wave.) If I recall correctly, it's involved in electricity, travels fast (short of speed of light), is used in the two-slit to look at its behavior, and occupies special fixed levels of atoms. 

Concerning the last, why would it stay at those levels? Is it because of the math of spherical geometry that only two electrons can move about a nucleus innermost? The six will fit in the next level and no more? Sounds right to me. Would an analogy be our arms and legs are the length they are because any shorter or longer wouldn't be optimum for our being? By that I mean our arms and legs stay within certain lengths and likewise electrons stay at quantum levels because of spherical geometry forces.

More puzzling is waves themselves. Why would entities pulse out waves as opposed to just moving around smoothly?


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

HAL said:


> Well, this isn't quite true.
> 
> The electron is only in one place at one time, but you can't know for certain until it collides with the screen.
> 
> ...


The wave is "everywhere" but is so sensitive one can't interact with it without destroying that characteristic?


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

BigApplePi said:


> More puzzling is waves themselves. Why would entities pulse out waves as opposed to just moving around smoothly?


You mean, why do things go in a 'wavy wavy' motion instead of a straight line?

Because a wave is the natural form of some kind of disturbance being equalised in one place. The problem is that the equalisation just causes a disturbances elsewhere.

Consider the classic demonstrable example of whipping a lightly taut string so that a wave travels down it. This is simply caused by the fact that your whipping of one end causes a disturbance, so all points next to the disturbance have to shift a little to allow for equalisation. If the system were set up without anything at all to damp the effect of the wave, it would travel forever along the string.

But I reckon you already know that generally.

Your big question is, why do electrons, photons, EM waves, etc (the more abstract 'hard to see' bits), travel as waves and not as 'things in a straight line'?

Well, this is because of the nature of what light actually is. It'll take a lot of writing to explain it, and I admit I'm a bit rusty on it myself now since it was last year when I learned it, and I've been away from university for a while. 

Basically, go back to the analogy of a string being whipped. We're going to make this more abstract. Imagine an electric field. These are made when electrons flow. When there is a current in a wire, the wire gains an electric field. This is exactly the same as a gravitational field, apart from it doesn't effect mass, it effects other electrically charged things. If you put a charged particle in an electric field, it'll be attracted or repelled, just like gravity.

Anyway, the field is formed when a current of electrons flow in a wire.

Now, here's the fucking amazing thing.

When you increase or decrease the rate of flow of the current, the electric field strength changes. And when the field strength changes, there is this same rippling effect, just like when you whip a string.

Now, something needs to counteract the rippling effect of the electric field. It's a simple law of nature. When a force is applied to some 'thing', there is another forced to counteract it.

When you 'whip' at an electric field, it is almost magically me by a new magnetic field trying to pull it back into place.

Now, if a magnetic field is whipped into existence, it means there now also a magnetic field which needs to equalise itself somehow. And so it does the same thing! It pulls a against a new electric field.

And so a constantm unbreakable process is formed. 

BOOM! LIGHT! And, since the electric and magnetic fields, once 'whipped', will mutually self-sustain themselves indefinitely, this explains perfectly why light can travel in a vacuum. 










I hope my explanation wasn't too hard to follow.

The only big question is, '_what the fuck actually is a field_'? Science is still working on that one, haha.



BigApplePi said:


> The wave is "everywhere" but is so sensitive one can't interact with it without destroying that characteristic?


Ah-hah! I thought this might be the issue.

People hear of wave functions 'collapsing' and they think something literally crumbles down from one thing into another, like there's some kind of actual collapse happening.

I'll try to explain.

A wave function is a thing which simply describes all possible probabilities. It essentially says, "_At position X, there is Y probability of an electron landing there_"

Keep in mind that on any function, you can randomly pick a value for X, and see what your answer for Y is. So, in the case of a probability function, you might say, "Hmm, let's see, at the point where x=1mm, there is a 1/10 chance of the particle landing there." Make sense?

The interesting thing is that a wave function is simply a superposition of every single possible outcome of the experiment.

So, you could say:

Probability function of position Y = 1/5a + 1/5b + 1/5c + 1/5d + 1/5e

So this function simply says, there is a 1/5 chance of the particle landing on any of the positions, a, b, c, d, e.

Because on the uncertainty principle I explained before, it is _impossible_ to know for certain what the final outcome of the electron's path will be. The best you can say is, "It _might_ land at a, b, c, d, or e."

After the experiment is complete and you have recorded your result, you then know the answer for sure.

At this point, the wave function collapses to give just one final result.

Let's say the electron landed at point b. So the other values become unnecessary, the wave fuction collapses into a final result: Position Y = b

'Wave function collapse' is just a way of describing the fact that your probability function has changed to a final concrete answer.

Imagine picking marbles from a bag with 50% blue and 50% red. The possible outcomes are:

Outcome = 1/2 blue + 1/2 red.

If you then choose a red one, the function collapses to, Outcome = red.

:happy:


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## VinnieB (Mar 3, 2015)

Really interesting to read some of the posts here, I don't know much about it, but you guys are smart, that's for sure!


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

Excellent rendition of observations/experiments and concepts. I'll try to comment on the concepts.


HAL said:


> You mean, why do things go in a 'wavy wavy' motion instead of a straight line?
> 
> Because a wave is the natural form of some kind of disturbance being equalised in one place. The problem is that the equalisation just causes a disturbances elsewhere.
> 
> ...


 (Speaking of whipping, a whip is not held at the other end. I've heard the "crack" of the crack the whip means the end has reached the speed of sound. Not sure.) Perhaps the electron has some fancied internal medium which creates the "tautness" you are talking about. We know photons are self-restricting because light has a speed limit but I don't know if that idea applies here.



> Your big question is, why do electrons, photons, EM waves, etc (the more abstract 'hard to see' bits), travel as waves and not as 'things in a straight line'?
> 
> Well, this is because of the nature of what light actually is. It'll take a lot of writing to explain it, and I admit I'm a bit rusty on it myself now since it was last year when I learned it, and I've been away from university for a while.


I have a theory. Water and sound waves have a medium prompted by initial conditions. The electron has a medium but the medium is not the space through which it travels. It must have either a medium surrounding it locally or it itself is "springy." Whatever kicks off its movement gives rise to a wave by either the electrons very own nature or its immediate environs. 




> Basically, go back to the analogy of a string being whipped. We're going to make this more abstract. Imagine an electric field. These are made when electrons flow. When there is a current in a wire, the wire gains an electric field. This is exactly the same as a gravitational field, apart from it doesn't effect mass, it effects other electrically charged things. If you put a charged particle in an electric field, it'll be attracted or repelled, just like gravity.
> 
> Anyway, the field is formed when a current of electrons flow in a wire.


It irks me a little when an electron is called an "elementary particle." Anything with all these properties and not other properties cannot be so elementary.




> Now, here's the fucking amazing thing.
> 
> When you increase or decrease the rate of flow of the current, the electric field strength changes. And when the field strength changes, there is this same rippling effect, just like when you whip a string.
> 
> ...


A classical law of motion is inertia. If something moving pushes on something else there will be resistance. But is there something else there? The "ether" idea has been discarded, but I've heard things appear and disappear in a vacuum. 




> BOOM! LIGHT! And, since the electric and magnetic fields, once 'whipped', will mutually self-sustain themselves indefinitely, this explains perfectly why light can travel in a vacuum.


If a stone is thrown into outer space, no vacuum is needed. Why would a wave be any different? The wave must be caused by a different scale we don't know about. Possibly the wave has a medium and once going behaves like the stone: a particle.












> I hope my explanation wasn't too hard to follow.
> 
> The only big question is, '_what the fuck actually is a field_'? Science is still working on that one, haha.


I can follow a human being. Small things are harder to follow. The "field" of travel would be on a macro scale compare to the local "field" of a subatomic particle.




> Ah-hah! I thought this might be the issue.
> 
> People hear of wave functions 'collapsing' and they think something literally crumbles down from one thing into another, like there's some kind of actual collapse happening.
> 
> ...


Are you saying this because a wave function is a *continuous* function rather than *discrete*? Or do I have that wrong?




> So, you could say:
> 
> Probability function of position Y = 1/5a + 1/5b + 1/5c + 1/5d + 1/5e
> 
> ...


I wonder if we can say this? If I were riding the wave, I know where I would be. But I'm not. Instead I'm observing the wave from my big clumsy distance at a different scale. Therefore what I see is random. How about this: the wave is delicate and happens locally even if its moving over a large distance. Engage it in ANY way and that engagement is on a macro scale comparatively speaking. So wouldn't that explain stopping the wave?


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

BigApplePi said:


> Excellent rendition of observations/experiments and concepts. I'll try to comment on the concepts. (Speaking of whipping, a whip is not held at the other end. I've heard the "crack" of the crack the whip means the end has reached the speed of sound. Not sure.) Perhaps the electron has some fancied internal medium which creates the "tautness" you are talking about. We know photons are self-restricting because light has a speed limit but I don't know if that idea applies here.


My bad. I explained it badly. I don't mean a whip. That's so far removed from the basic concept I was trying to outline. 

I mean this:










Causing a disturbance on a string means the wave travels forever. You cause it with a kind of whipping motion on one end, if you know what I mean? It's the same for a disturbance in an electric field. You 'whip' it like that and a wave is produced - a light wave.



> I have a theory. Water and sound waves have a medium prompted by initial conditions. The electron has a medium but the medium is not the space through which it travels. It must have either a medium surrounding it locally or it itself is "springy." Whatever kicks off its movement gives rise to a wave by either the electrons very own nature or its immediate environs.


Well, I did just explain that if something is wavelike by nature, it must have something which counteracts it's waving motion. So if an electron has some wavelike property, it's gonna have its own contained little system where its medium of existence is constantly fluctuating between two positions. Just like a pendulum can swing forever in perfect conditions, so can an electron exist in such a wavelike state forever. I think electrons as contained systems is something string theory would go into.



> It irks me a little when an electron is called an "elementary particle." Anything with all these properties and not other properties cannot be so elementary.


It's literally just a name for something to describe how it has rather less components than most.



> A classical law of motion is inertia. If something moving pushes on something else there will be resistance. But is there something else there? The "ether" idea has been discarded, but I've heard things appear and disappear in a vacuum.
> 
> If a stone is thrown into outer space, no vacuum is needed. Why would a wave be any different? The wave must be caused by a different scale we don't know about. Possibly the wave has a medium and once going behaves like the stone: a particle.


It's known that EM waves are affected by gravity. 'Throw' a wave near a black hole and its path will be curved thanks to the massive gravitational field. Google 'gravitational lensing'.

But I think you're missing the point.

EM waves are waves, not particles - the 'particles' are just _wave packets_. Do you know how radio signals are broadcast? An electric current is rapidly alternated backwards and forwards. This causes the change in electric field, resulting in a magnetic field to counteract it, hence the animation below. And hence EM (radio) waves being formed












> Are you saying this because a wave function is a *continuous* function rather than *discrete*? Or do I have that wrong?


It's quite complex. Depending on what you want to know, some functions are continuous and some are discreet. A function of position can be continuous. A function describing the energy of an electron will usually be discrete.



> I wonder if we can say this? If I were riding the wave, I know where I would be. But I'm not. Instead I'm observing the wave from my big clumsy distance at a different scale. Therefore what I see is random. How about this: the wave is delicate and happens locally even if its moving over a large distance. Engage it in ANY way and that engagement is on a macro scale comparatively speaking. So wouldn't that explain stopping the wave?


Look I think you still don't understand the concept of a probability wave function and wave function collapse.

It is only ever intended to lay out all the possible outcomes of the observed system. It's just maths. It's the most general way of saying, "This quantum physical system can only exist in these states, but we don't know its exact state yet."

It's useful because it tells you what the outcome will be if you take the system and replicate it many millions of times. For example, in the case of firing electrons through a double slit set up. You absolutely cannot say where one electron is going to land, but you can say what the overall result will look like after you've let several million billion electrons pass through. That's what a wave function does - it spells out the overall results of observing the system, on a large time scale. "Oh look, a double slit diffraction pattern, just as predicted!"

My advice to you, bluntly, is that I think you might have to sit through everything, slowly, and go through it from the ground up. You can't just start shouting over the internet about how you think your 'ground up' way of thinking is better than this 'top down' method the whole world has done it for the past century.

It's not just abstract whimsical explanations, there is some serious, logical, mathematically sound reasoning to it all. It's fascinating. Do you know about the intricacies of simple harmonic motion and oscillatory systems? That's a must before getting onto quantum physics. Start on that, then get back to this kind of stuff.


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## Stelmaria (Sep 30, 2011)

HAL said:


> It is only ever intended to lay out all the possible outcomes of the observed system. It's just maths. It's the most general way of saying, "This quantum physical system can only exist in these states, but we don't know its exact state yet."


The idea that the system exists in precise states is itself a philosophical assertion/interpretation.

The truth is that we don't know whether the system exists in distinct but unpredictable states, or whether such a state doesn't exist, but rather just probabilities of interactions being observed. Physicists declared that these ideas are all equivalent and it doesn't really matter. This is the basis for the Copenhagen interpretation. Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, some of the previous comments in this thread suggest that some people are quite confused about wave mechanics and I thought I'd share this video explaining the difference between transverse and longitudinal waves:





If that video doesn't float your boat, then just search for 'transverse and longitudinal waves' on Youtube or wherever to get a better explanation!


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Snowy Leopard said:


> The idea that the system exists in precise states is itself a philosophical assertion/interpretation.
> 
> The truth is that we don't know whether the system exists in distinct but unpredictable states, or whether such a state doesn't exist, but rather just probabilities of interactions being observed. Physicists declared that these ideas are all equivalent and it doesn't really matter. This is the basis for the Copenhagen interpretation. Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Fair enough! 



> If that video doesn't float your boat, then just search for 'transverse and longitudinal waves' on Youtube or wherever to get a better explanation!


If someone is confused about wave mechanics, they need to take a large step away from quantum physics.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

I'm having real trouble making this post. Need more study. Playing the Richard Feynman utube (the 56 minute one) over again trying to catch the subtleties. I just can't buy this, "probability wave" theory. That includes Heisenberg. I'm with Einstein so far: "God doesn't play dice." 

I have to tell you I'm after the underlying theories behind this ... as opposed to mastering classical physics. Theories of foundations of wave-particle behavior is what I'm after ... short of String Theory. I'm ready to accept that particle physics doesn't behave like classical physics, but that should be no surprise. After all chemistry doesn't behave like biology.

BTW knowing that longitudinal waves are not the same as transverse waves ... that's classical physics. What does it have to do with the two-slit experiment?

Please note that math doesn't prove physics. It only pulls experiments together. Just because there is a math formula of Newton's for the gravitational attraction between heavenly bodies doesn't mean the math formula is sacred. That's true of Schrodinger's equations. I don't care if they work. That just says that's what happens. It doesn't explain the theory behind what happens.

Note that Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was just posted. I've had that displayed in a window for over a month now. I just couldn't mention it. Let me quote from it: 

* *




"There have been many objections to the Copenhagen Interpretation over the years. Some have objected to the discontinuous jumps when there is an observation, or the probabilistic element that is introduced upon observation. Others have objected to the subjectiveness of requiring an observer, the difficulty of defining a measuring device, or persistence of classical physics to describe the "laboratory" in which the results are measured. Others have observed that there is little consensus as to the physical meaning of wave–particle duality. Some researchers aspire (controversially) to call into question whether incompatible conjugate properties (e.g., momentum and position) can indeed never be defined for the same time. [SUP][2][/SUP]
Alternatives to the Copenhagen Interpretation include the many-worlds interpretation, the De Broglie-Bohm (pilot-wave) interpretation, and quantum decoherence theories."


When I read that I had to stop reading. As long as other theories contradict or oppose Copenhagen I'm not going to buy Copenhagen. A formal theory of what's going on is still missing. I believe it's possible to get there.

... but I'll need your help with the interpretation of these experiments when the time comes. I have no faith in experiments I can't ask questions about. Perhaps we can get together on this later.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

To be honest I don't think you're gonna be able to find what you're looking for.

You complain that the maths isn't good enough, and that you want to know the real intricacies in a concrete, definable way, but that could be the same of anything in the world of science.

Relativity is based on the postulate that nothing can exceed the speed of light.

Einstein sat down and thought, "Right, let's assume nothing can ever exceed the speed of light, because this so far seems to be the case in reality." He then rewrote the equations of motion based on this principle, and it turned out he was correct.

But still nobody can say why we can't exceed the speed of light. Maybe we actually can exceed it!

Similarly, other dudes sat down and thought, "Right, let's assume it's _impossible_ to verify the precise position and momentum of an object on the quantum scale, hence the best we can do is give answers based on likelihood and probability." They then wrote equations based on this principle, and so far everything has worked out correct, with useful applications to the real world.

Similarly, nobody can say why we aren't able to get any more precise than this.


Theories are, as you say, just theories. They correctly spell out the way things are. They can only ever be called theories, because it would be rather arrogant to consider them as complete. e.g. Galileo was pushed aside by Newton, then Newton was pushed aside by Einstein. Maybe someday Einstein will be pushed aside.

Similarly, maybe someday Heisenberg, Schrödinger et al will be trumped by someone new. But, for now, that is not the case. 

You're just gonna have to settle with what there is.

I know what your issue is. You want to get your head around the abstract mindfuck of what is actually going on at the quantum scale, and you want to know why the fuck our best efforts all rely on comparably hazy 'probability' predictions.

Sadly there's just not an answer yet! So you're in the dark. The only thing you can do is learn all the shit that's been explained in this thread so far, then learn a ton more, so you're up to speed with how everything currently is, and then you'll have a basis from which you could maybe be the one to finally smash the enigma to bits.

Good luck sir!


This bit shows you have a long way yo go though:



> I'm having real trouble making this post. Need more study. Playing the Richard Feynman utube (the 56 minute one) over again trying to catch the subtleties. I just can't buy this, "probability wave" theory. That includes Heisenberg. I'm with Einstein so far: "God doesn't play dice."


It's not a fucking 'probability wave theory', for fuck's sake. The probability wave is just the thing that they use to map things out as best they can. 

Just like a basic speed/distance/time graph maps out the position of an object as it moves, it isn't actually perfect because it doesn't include relativistic adjustment, and hey a speed/distance/time/relativity graph might not be accurate either because we might someday discover that is is possible to exceed the speed of light, so more adjustment may be required.

In the same way, a probability graph simply maps out the likelihood of position of an object at a given point. It's just a best-guess, given the current understanding. And actually it's damn useful and highly accurate. It paved the way for, oh I don't know, electron microscopes? So I think you should rethink your 'I can't buy this' attitude. 

Please keep in mind that quantum theory is the same as every other theory. There is a successful and working mathematical model which works damn well, but there's always room for improvement. The same goes for every theory ever.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

HAL said:


> To be honest I don't think you're gonna be able to find what you're looking for.


That could come true but I keep returning to the topic and keep on trying. It's the drawback of being an INTP. I am free to think anything I want (Ti) but when it comes to thinking on the real world (Te) I can't get to it.




> You complain that the maths isn't good enough, and that you want to know the real intricacies in a concrete, definable way, but that could be the same of anything in the world of science.


I wouldn't put it that way. Mathematics is a template for reality. We try to get a good fit. If it fits a lot, we can use it to predict a la the scientific method.




> Relativity is based on the postulate that nothing can exceed the speed of light. Einstein sat down and thought, "Right, let's assume nothing can ever exceed the speed of light, because this so far seems to be the case in reality." He then rewrote the equations of motion based on this principle, and it turned out he was correct.
> 
> But still nobody can say why we can't exceed the speed of light. Maybe we actually can exceed it!


There is always the Wormhole theory.




> Similarly, other dudes sat down and thought, "Right, let's assume it's impossible to verify the precise position and momentum of an object on the quantum scale, hence the best we can do is give answers based on likelihood and probability." They then wrote equations based on this principle, and so far everything has worked out correct, with useful applications to the real world.
> 
> Similarly, nobody can say why we aren't able to get any more precise than this.***


I can try. Try this intuitive piece: The verification process requires the momentum of movement. It requires moving weighty objects. You want position? How can we get position when everything is moving including the jiggle in ourselves? Picture a flock of birds flying. If the lead bird wants to position another bird, it has to step out of position. Having said that, I've heard not all physicists buy Heisenberg.




> Theories are, as you say, just theories. They correctly spell out the way things are. They can only ever be called theories, because it would be rather arrogant to consider them as complete. e.g. Galileo was pushed aside by Newton, then Newton was pushed aside by Einstein. Maybe someday Einstein will be pushed aside.
> 
> Similarly, maybe someday Heisenberg, Schrödinger et al will be trumped by someone new. But, for now, that is not the case.
> 
> You're just gonna have to settle with what there is.


I don't look at theory that way. If the thing is not a law, I say, "Here is a theory. There is a countering theory. Let's list them all. Let's look at all these theories and see if we can think of something integrating."

Last year I went to a two-slit seminar. They listed: many worlds, hidden variables, and two others as theories of explanation. I couldn't follow the lecture and was so much like here I risked not taking notes. Before the lecture I arrived early. I had a good jump in a discussion probing the upcoming speaker. But then he jumped to giving the numerical wave lengths of electrons as if that mattered. My intuition said that I didn't need specific wave lengths. Before I could stop him, others began to arrive and I felt like an idiot. I couldn't follow the lecture or the discussion afterward because it would have been rude of me to interrupt the experiments they were describing. There have been more seminars but I can't go because I'm not ready to ask the right questions.




> I know what your issue is. You want to get your head around the abstract mindfuck of what is actually going on at the quantum scale, and you want to know why the fuck our best efforts all rely on comparably hazy 'probability' predictions.


I say "probablity" is like magic and is a cop out. I'm with Einstein still. I have a theory though. Quantum theory as we know it is not the only level of organization of reality. There are others between the experimental quantum theory we see and the supposed lowest level called, "String Theory." That is the reason why we allow ourselves to be "mindfucked."




> Sadly there's just not an answer yet! So you're in the dark. The only thing you can do is learn all the shit that's been explained in this thread so far, then learn a ton more, so you're up to speed with how everything currently is, and then you'll have a basis from which you could maybe be the one to finally smash the enigma to bits.
> 
> Good luck sir!


Thank you, but this is not just for me. It's all of us who are interested.




> This bit shows you have a long way yo go though:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh I buy experimental observations alright. I don't argue with observations. What I don't buy is that there is a vacuum in theory.





> Please keep in mind that quantum theory is the same as every other theory. There is a successful and working mathematical model which works damn well, but there's always room for improvement. The same goes for every theory ever.


Good point. I have personality theory coming out of my ears. There is so much data and everyone has an opinion, how can the theory be captured everyone will approve of? Put another way, I do not question that people have a personality/ temperament. What I question is how is it put together.
====================================

*** Who says Heisenberg has anything to do with precision? Try Heisenberg in the macro world: Hal speaks to BigApplePi with a force of intention. BigApplePi receives the message but evades Hals intention and replies with something else. Then this theme repeats. Hal sees this "something else", and instead of reacting directly reacts to the prior evasion. Back and forth this goes. <-- don't take this seriously. I think we communicate fairly well, but who is immune to communication failure?


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

Have you read about the Ether?

'https://debunkingrelativity.com/2013/12/08/explaining-the-double-slit-experiment/'


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## MissAverage (Aug 7, 2014)

@TheBigApplePi The big deal is understanding the paradox of wave–particle duality. This is the concept that every elementary particle can be partly described in terms not only of particles, but *also* waves. Einstein said "It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do". Does that kind of make sense?


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## MissAverage (Aug 7, 2014)

@TheBigApplePi The big deal is understanding the paradox of wave–particle duality. This is the concept that every elementary particle can be partly described in terms not only of particles, but *also* waves. Einstein said "It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do". Does that kind of make sense?


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

@BigApplePi 

Sry I haven't talked to you in a while. I made this account awhile ago but I havn't been able to PM due to the 15 post limit and never got to finding anything I wanted to post about. Except this thread, which has been on the back of my mind for awhile now and discussions recently surfaced elsewhere that made me think about it again. So here I am.


On topic. I recognize that you are like me. You are a visually intuitive learner. You have to be able to visually picture it in your mind and make sense of it functionally in order to give it meaning and value. Is that right? Were you ever able to do that with this or any of the general relativity theories you have been learning about?

I find them all to be, and even the people who teach the stuff say so, un-intuitive. These theories don't fit very well in our reality and a whole new set of physics, quantum, physics, was created to describe it. 

LET - Lorentz Ether Theory, explains better what is happening with this experiment than any of Einstiens or his predecessors theories.

In LET the photon does not need to got through both slits at the same time in order to create the wave effect. The photon creates the wave in the medium(ether) like a bullet moving through water and the waves move through both slits and then the waves interfere.

aetherwavetheory.blogspot.com/2008/12/awt-and-double-slit-experiment.html



> Note, that such interpretation doesn't require mutual interaction of individual particles during experiment - path of particle spreading remains affected by interference even at the case, when only single particle gets involved into experiment.


NOTE: While the Luminiferous aether was disproven, LET was not disproven.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

@grayman. Do I know you from another forum? If so, PM me. If not, no worries. I can take this up at a later time. At the moment I'm not thinking about this. You don't appear to be active on this forum.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

BigApplePi said:


> Do I know you from another forum? If so, PM me. If not, no worries. I can take this up at a later time. At the moment I'm not thinking about this. You don't appear to be active on this forum.[/FONT][/COLOR]


Unfortunately, I cannot PM. I hate this restriction. I am grayman on INTPforum.com as well.

I am thinking I might post willy nilly a willy nilly number of times so that I can break the overbearing post barrier of the personality gods.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

grayman said:


> Unfortunately, I cannot PM. I hate this restriction. I am grayman on INTPforum.com as well.
> 
> I am thinking I might post willy nilly a willy nilly number of times so that I can break the overbearing post barrier of the personality gods.


Then we need to PM. I can talk this up with whatever until you reach fifteen ... or you can find a thread here that interests you. I'll try to stay on topic but without doing it justice. Interestingly enough where I am there are VERY sophisticated quantum people. Several months ago I attended a professor's lecture addressing roughly things on this thread. I muffed asking him a question and when he progressed it was too late. He has continued practically every week since but from the titles, it is way over my head. Too bad.

BTW I believe the 15 post requirement has a reason. It prevents people from PMing once or twice and disappearing forever. By encouraging a modest involvement, group participation will evolve.​


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

BigApplePi said:


> Then we need to PM. I can talk this up with whatever until you reach fifteen ... or you can find a thread here that interests you. I'll try to stay on topic but without doing it justice. Interestingly enough where I am there are VERY sophisticated quantum people. Several months ago I attended a professor's lecture addressing roughly things on this thread. I muffed asking him a question and when he progressed it was too late. He has continued practically every week since but from the titles, it is way over my head. Too bad.


Do you have a basic understanding of the various concepts like time dilation and space-time? What about it was over your head?



****about the 15 post limit

I can think of a few good reasons, bad ones etc... honestly I was just being weird mixed with using satire to absolve myself of my irritation.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

grayman said:


> Do you have a basic understanding of the various concepts like time dilation and space-time? What about it was over your head?


I'm okay with the space-time concept. Never heard of "time dilation." At the moment I've forgotten what was "over my head." That was months ago. My general feeling was he got technical assuming something I didn't want to assume. I preferred to propose some sort of theory as a speculation before moving on.

Do you like silly games that require a modest amount of thought? Try this: *The Wrong Answer Game. *If not, don't worry about it.


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## Acrylic (Dec 14, 2015)

BigApplePi said:


> I will address, *"With a double slit we see it acts like a wave and a particle."* I don't see what the problem is with that. What's wrong with both happening?


The problem with that is that's not how things usually happen in nature. When you have H20 in front of you... it's either water, or ice. It's never both water and ice. 

The wave and particle demonstrate how in the quantum world, things can exist in 'all possible states', only collapsing into 'one definite, concrete state' once an observer interacts with the object. 



BigApplePi said:


> Never heard of "time dilation."


Time dilation refers to the phenomenon of the passage of time registering differently for two different observers, due to their rate of speed, gravitational pull on them, or both.

This happens in all scenarios, even in extremely minute ones... which is why we have to factor it in when registering time sent to us by GPS satellites. Time dilation affects what they record, to what the time actually is when it gets to us.


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## Acrylic (Dec 14, 2015)

In addition to time dilation, I want to reference gravity well. That's the gravitational field exerted by a massive object.

Reason I want to reference that is because it made a big appearance in the movie Interstellar. There's the scene where they get to the planet overrun by water, while one of them waits in the ship above. They spend 3 hours there, and when they get back to the ship, the person waiting for them has aged 21 years. Because for every hour they spent on the planet, 7 years passed for the person on the ship. That's actually real lol, that can happen if the gravitational field is that strong.

The gravity well was so strong, they mistook the background for something else entirely. They were walking around, looking for the beacon, and marvelling at the gigantic mountains in the distance. After a few minutes, they find the dead person's wreckage, and when Matthew McConaughey looks in the distance again, he looks closer, and says "those aren't mountains... those are waves..."

The planet was completely covered in water, and the gravity made these waves bigger than Everest roll across the planet continually. When it got closer and closer, it was like... holy fucking shit lol. That looks scary.


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## Miss Bingley (Jun 28, 2013)

Note, my knowledge of quantum mechanics is quite rudimentary, but - 

So nobody really knew, back in the 1800s, what the deal with light was, right? But this guy, Young, comes along and shows that light has wave like properties, which is cool! So we treat photons like light. But then, if we treat photons as waves (in the manner of classical mechanics), the experiments don't work. Because photons aren't waves - or, not completely. They're also particles. They have properties of both, and their behavior can be explained by both wave and particle behavior. So we made a new kind of physics to deal with it - quantum mechanics. 

Basically, the Young experiment was the first example of photons and light behaving differently than expected, which is basically what quantum mechanics is. I mean, electrons behave differently just by being observed. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle deals with the idea that the more certain we are of an electron's position, the less certain we must be of its energy levels. Yeah, quantum mechanics is a freaking free for all, which is what Young scratched the surface of.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

They came up with the probability wave because we cannot observe particles directly and there remains a bit of a mystery about what they are doing precisely (uncertainty principle)

Individual particles can act like they are in many places at once. We can observe this by making them do things like pass through slits and collide with particle detectors and other particles. You have to think that these things are so tiny it is literally impossible to see them directly - or rather we have to understand that _sight depends on particle collisions._ 

There are two kind of paradoxical sticking points with the double slit experiment which are very mysterious. We know by many experiments that a particle can act like a particle or like a wave. 

A spooky thing about that is that _a single particle can act like a particle or a wave._ Which means that one particle not only seems to be able to be in many places at once, but a single particle can also somehow collide with itself as if it were two different particles. That's where the double slit starts to get crazy.

Another spooky thing we found later in the quantum eraser experiment where they can destroy the interference pattern of the double slit by measuring which slit entangled particles go through and then restore the interference pattern by "undoing" the measurement by changing the polarization of the particles so that it becomes impossible to identify them anymore. The craziest thing about that is it still works if you do it after detecting the particles, seemingly going back in time.

It's crazy stuff.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

sprinkles said:


> Individual particles can act like they are in many places at once. ... Which means that one particle not only seems to be able to be in many places at once, but ...


This is a naive question because I'm not thinking about waves yet: 

1. Is it *any* place or every place? 
2. Also if every, does that means continuous or discrete because continuous would mean infinite and I don't believe in infinity.

3. Separate question: what is a wave? Why would anything be wavey? I'm not talking about drawing a diagram of a wave. I'm talking about causes. Are we talking medium or force for a wave. A wave is complex. I would think anything complex can be broken down into something more basic. Is my thinking all wrong?


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

BigApplePi said:


> This is a naive question because I'm not thinking about waves yet:
> 
> 1. Is it *any* place or every place?


It can be both and neither. It's paradoxical to classical understanding.



> 2. Also if every, does that means continuous or discrete because continuous would mean infinite and I don't believe in infinity.


Particles have a relatively finite location which is discrete - i.e. the particle will at least stay within the lab experiment for example (if it isn't allowed to escape) so in that area the possible location is finite, but it can be anywhere within the possible defined area. 



> 3. Separate question: what is a wave? Why would anything be wavey? I'm not talking about drawing a diagram of a wave. I'm talking about causes. Are we talking medium or force for a wave. A wave is complex. I would think anything complex can be broken down into something more basic. Is my thinking all wrong?


In this context a wave is an oscillation of energy. Think of a point of energy which not only travels in a straight line, but also travels in an up and down motion. 

This is what we're talking about when we say things about the wavelengths of light for example. The wave of light has a kind of bandwidth and frequency which is what differentiates what kind of light it is, e.g. red, blue, etc. Light waves actually have a kind of "fatness" to them depending on the wave frequency or how much it moves side to side. We can prove this with special materials that only allow specific wavelengths to pass through, for example optical filters which will only let in a certain color of light.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

@BigApplePi

Also keep in mind that these are observations, not predictions. We don't know everything about why this stuff is. It has just been seen that it is. 

So it's not that we just say that particles behave like waves as an explanation for something. It's the fact that particles have been observed to act like waves and then we have tried to figure out why they do that.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

I want to point out mysteries and unknowns.


sprinkles said:


> It can be both and neither. It's paradoxical to classical understanding.


 To me, "classical" means history. If I want to understand something, anything goes. I decide when I understand or not.




> In this context a wave is an oscillation of energy. Think of a point of energy which not only travels in a straight line, but also travels in an up and down motion.
> 
> This is what we're talking about when we say things about the wavelengths of light for example. The wave of light has a kind of bandwidth and frequency which is what differentiates what kind of light it is, e.g. red, blue, etc. Light waves actually have a kind of "fatness" to them depending on the wave frequency or how much it moves side to side. We can prove this with special materials that only allow specific wavelengths to pass through, for example optical filters which will only let in a certain color of light.


I need to ask the right question.

If I want to understand what a dog is about, a dog can be described to me in great detail. That is different from asking, what *causes* a dog? Then an evolutionary explanation is required. That won't be easy. 

I'm okay with different kinds of light. That's okay. I'm interested in *causes*. Suppose we talk sound waves or water waves. Those have a medium to carry them. If I drop a stone in water, it pushes the water which pushes back. I assume we can explain what is happening with "classical" physics. What is the medium for light? If there is no medium, give me an alternative theory.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

BigApplePi said:


> I want to point out mysteries and unknowns. To me, "classical" means history. If I want to understand something, anything goes. I decide when I understand or not.
> 
> 
> I need to ask the right question.
> ...


Those are different kinds of waves, though they behave similar when they encounter barriers. 

In the case of water, the wave is also the medium. The wave is the water itself oscillating by a chain reaction passing through it. In the case of water waves, the particles bump each other which causes the next particle to move, but the particles themselves kind of settle close to the area they originally were, so what you're seeing is more similar to a line of dominoes falling. The dominoes stay close to their original positions and only the energy of them falling is seen to move forward.

In the case of subatomic particles such as electrons, there is no medium and this is possible because these are not mechanical waves. The actual particle itself is moving forward and we use the term "wave" to describe the way it moves. These waves do not propagate through a medium because the particle itself is also the medium. This is why light and such can travel through a vacuum.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

sprinkles said:


> Those are different kinds of waves, though they behave similar when they encounter barriers.
> 
> In the case of water, the wave is also the medium. The wave is the water itself oscillating by a chain reaction passing through it. In the case of water waves, the particles bump each other which causes the next particle to move, but the particles themselves kind of settle close to the area they originally were, so what you're seeing is more similar to a line of dominoes falling. The dominoes stay close to their original positions and only the energy of them falling is seen to move forward.


I like the domino analogy. The dominoes stay where they are (almost); the energy moves forward.




> In the case of subatomic particles such as electrons, there is no medium and this is possible because these are not mechanical waves. The actual particle itself is moving forward and we use the term "wave" to describe the way it moves. These waves do not propagate through a medium because the particle itself is also the medium. This is why light and such can travel through a vacuum.


So the electron itself is the medium? It seems to me, then it is "pulsing." Is this pulsing the wave? If it is, that is some electron that it would do that. Maybe in my ignorance of particle physics I have this all wrong. And this wave is not a random wave either. It is regular meaning the electron has well defined properties ... which we don't know about. 

To me this is like observing a dog or an automobile or a computer but we have little idea of what any of those are. We have little idea if we can't readily analyze them.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

BigApplePi said:


> I like the domino analogy. The dominoes stay where they are (almost); the energy moves forward.
> 
> 
> So the electron itself is the medium? It seems to me, then it is "pulsing." Is this pulsing the wave? If it is, that is some electron that it would do that. Maybe in my ignorance of particle physics I have this all wrong. And this wave is not a random wave either. It is regular meaning the electron has well defined properties ... which we don't know about.
> ...


You could say it is like pulsing yes. With every pulse being an oscillation in the amplitude of the electric and magnetic fields.

Edit:
Also these pulses have an amplitude and a direction. Normally the direction is somewhat random or circular but it actually physically exists. We can use polarizing filters to get the oscillations to happen all in the same direction, which is often used in quantum experiments as a way of tagging specific streams of particles for example.


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## BigApplePi (Dec 1, 2011)

sprinkles said:


> This is what we're talking about when we say things about the wavelengths of light for example. The wave of light has a kind of bandwidth and frequency which is what differentiates what kind of light it is, e.g. red, blue, etc. Light waves actually have a kind of "fatness" to them depending on the wave frequency or how much it moves side to side. We can prove this with special materials that only allow specific wavelengths to pass through, for example optical filters which will only let in a certain color of light.


Photons are not electrons, right? Do these photons have different colors (wavelengths and amplitude) or is that something else? If photons do vary, then one wonders why they vary. Do they favor red or blue or does that depend on the observer? If photons vary, then do electrons?

Each of these particles is different. That means either that of which they are "made" is different or we observe them differently. At least the former is true.

BTW if someone moves through Personality Cafe causing trouble, one can say they are like a particle making waves. There should be no mystery.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

BigApplePi said:


> Photons are not electrons, right? Do these photons have different colors (wavelengths and amplitude) or is that something else? If photons do vary, then one wonders why they vary. Do they favor red or blue or does that depend on the observer? If photons vary, then do electrons?
> 
> Each of these particles is different. That means either that of which they are "made" is different or we observe them differently. At least the former is true.
> 
> BTW if someone moves through Personality Cafe causing trouble, one can say they are like a particle making waves. There should be no mystery.


Photons and electrons are different as they behave in different ways and have different properties (electrons have charge, photons do not)

On the other hand as subatomic particles they behave in a lot of similar ways and are often involved with each other, and electrons can some times produce photons when the electron collides with another kind of particle such as a positron. 

The wavelength of an electron depends on the amount of energy it has, measured in electronvolts (eV). Interestingly there are sort of different kinds of electrons depending on their eV. High energy collisions will produce different particles that are not photons, such as B mesons.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> In the case of subatomic particles such as electrons, there is no medium and this is possible because these are not mechanical waves. The actual particle itself is moving forward and we use the term "wave" to describe the way it moves. These waves do not propagate through a medium because the particle itself is also the medium. This is why light and such can travel through a vacuum.


That there is no 'medium' is one theory and that theory is incapable of explaining what is happening to cause the particle to act both as a wave and particle. 

In LET the Ether, a theory before Einstein, allows the wave and the particle to be separate forces instead of the wave being a function of the particle. The particle creates the wave through the disruption of the Ether and when the wave moves through both slits. The wave splits but the particle only goes through one slit. When the particle goes through the other slit it gets offset by the wave that it itself generated earlier that was split by the slits and this creates a channel for the particle to follow in the interference patter. The particle cannot move outside the channel because the interference pattern creates resistance to this.

When you put sensors on the side of the slit to see where particle goes through it senses the EMF, or wave, and not the particle itself. In order for the sensors to actually measure the EMF it has to absorb the wave energy and convert it into electrical output that can be sent to a computer. This absorption does not absorb the particle itself. This causes the particle to move through the slit undisturbed by the wave it generated in the Ehter because the wave energy has been absorbed the by sensor. This is why the interference patter disappears. The particles waves only start disrupting the Ether after it passes the sensors and reaches the sensors at the end where the particle hits the wall.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

grayman said:


> That there is no 'medium' is one theory and that theory is incapable of explaining what is happening to cause the particle to act both as a wave and particle.
> 
> In LET the Ether, a theory before Einstein, allows the wave and the particle to be separate forces instead of the wave being a function of the particle. The particle creates the wave through the disruption of the Ether and when the wave moves through both slits the wave splits but the particle only goes through one slit. When the particle goes through the other slit it gets offset by the wave that it itself generated earlier that was split by the slits and this creates a channel for the particle to follow. The particle cannot move outside the channel because the interference pattern creates resistance to this.
> 
> When you put sensors on the side of the slit to see where particle goes through it senses the EMF, or wave, and not the particle itself in order for the sensors to actually measure the EMF it has to absorbe the wave energy and convert it into electrical output that can be sent to a computer. This absorption does not absorb the particle itself. This causes the particle to move through the slit undisturbed by the wave it generated in the Ehter because the wave energy has been absorbed the by sensor. This is why the interference patter disappears. The particles waves only start disrupting the Ether after it passes the sensors and reaches the sensors at the end where the particle hits the wall.


The medium is a field effect. Fields can be very large, such as gravitational fields, but the field effect also doesn't account for the times when the particle acts like a particle and not a wave.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> The medium is a field effect. Fields can be very large, such as gravitational fields, but the field effect also doesn't account for the times when the particle acts like a particle and not a wave.


I explained that. The particle and the wave are separate. The wave is the energy that the particle generates as it passes through the ether. You cannot generate a field effect without a particle to cause disruption in the field. A particle is a very small rock in the pond but it doesn't just create a wave as it enters the pond but continually generates waves as it displaces the water from the start of its travel all the way to the bottom of the pond.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

@grayman 

Also the quantum eraser experiment shows that the interference pattern can be removed and then placed back. The wave energy doesn't disappear because it is required for the polarization which is necessary to run the eraser experiment. Entangled particles are polarized so that it can be known which slit they went through, which destroys the interference pattern as the pair of particles is sent down different paths. When the polarization is removed so that you can't tell anymore which path the particle took, the interference pattern is restored, even if the polarization was changed after the measurement. 

If the wave was removed there would be nothing to polarize and the experiment would fail to work.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Also waves that propagate through mediums cannot polarize as the wave orientation lines up with the direction of the wave. 

Electromagnetic waves can have polarization which often resembles a helix. Waves traveling through a medium do not have this property, let alone in a way that it can be changed with polarization filters. With a filter you can make the wave go only up and down, or side to side, or on a diagonal. That's another thing that can't be done in a medium.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> @grayman
> 
> Also the quantum eraser experiment shows that the interference pattern can be removed and then placed back. The wave energy doesn't disappear because it is required for the polarization which is necessary to run the eraser experiment. Entangled particles are polarized so that it can be known which slit they went through, which destroys the interference pattern as the pair of particles is sent down different paths. When the polarization is removed so that you can't tell anymore which path the particle took, the interference pattern is restored, even if the polarization was changed after the measurement.
> 
> If the wave was removed there would be nothing to polarize and the experiment would fail to work.


The waves are only absorbed at the sensor where the splitting takes place. The particles will generate waves continually as they displace ether during their entire travel. The polarizers will bring them back in phase or move them out of phase because the waves are not being absorbed at the polarizers but only at the slit where the sensors sit.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> Also waves that propagate through mediums cannot polarize as the wave orientation lines up with the direction of the wave.
> 
> Electromagnetic waves can have polarization which often resembles a helix. Waves traveling through a medium do not have this property, let alone in a way that it can be changed with polarization filters. With a filter you can make the wave go only up and down, or side to side, or on a diagonal. That's another thing that can't be done in a medium.


Where is the helix used, measured, and what experiment proves that this helix exists? There may be an different interpretation of what is happening within the experiment.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

grayman said:


> The waves are only absorbed at the sensor where the splitting takes place. The particles will generate waves continually as they displace ether during their entire travel. The polarizers will bring them back in phase or move them out of phase because the waves are not being absorbed at the polarizers but only at the slit where the sensors sit.


If they always generate waves then why does the interference pattern disappear entirely? If the particles start making waves again in the ether then measuring them should only maybe slightly diminish the pattern, not remove it entirely. 

Also the polarizers are placed after the slit to guarantee that they don't interfere with the particle's "choice" of where it goes, so for the polarizer to work immediately after the slit, a wave must still be present with the particle.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

grayman said:


> Where is the helix used, measured, and what experiment proves that this helix exists? There may be an different interpretation of what is happening within the experiment.


Railguns and polarized glasses work with field polarization. With a railgun, when you have two rails which form one conductive path with the current going up one rail and down the other, and each produces a magnetic spiral which goes clockwise relative to its direction. This magnetic spiral produces a force called Lorentz force, and if you put a sliding conductive armature between the two rails, the Lorentz force will actually push it down the rails. Because the two rails have current going in opposite directions, in between the rails the force goes in one direction. If you're standing at the back of the gun the force looks like it's clockwise and counterclockwise, which means the force in between is going in the same direction, but that's because one side is mirrored since one rail is coming towards you and the other one is going away from you.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> If they always generate waves then why does the interference pattern disappear entirely? If the particles start making waves again in the ether then measuring them should only maybe slightly diminish the pattern, not remove it entirely.
> 
> Also the polarizers are placed after the slit to guarantee that they don't interfere with the particle's "choice" of where it goes, so for the polarizer to work immediately after the slit, a wave must still be present with the particle.


The rock generates waves as it displaces water all the way through the water to the bottom of the sea. If you remove the waves some how at a certain place of its trajectory it does not keep the rock from generating waves through the rest of its trajectory. The distortion or wave deteriates in magnitude like any wave as it disperses outward. The interference only occurs when the rock is close to the distortion. In other words the slits have to be really close together for the wave of the particle to interfere with itself and displace it onto a new trajectory.

"youtube.com/watch?v=iWRNZNemQyY"

While the particle and waves are separate, the particle continually creates new waves as it moves and displaces Ether and old waves decrease in such magnitude so that they become undetectable. This gives the impression that the waves are a part of the particle itself because you can only measure the waves generated directly around the particle. Yet it is an important distinction because the slits are so close together that the particle can actually be displaced by the waves it had generated previously.

The sensors are not close enough to the polarizers in order for the sensors to have an effect on the waves generated by the particle as the particle passes through the polarizers. For this reason this sensors have no effect on the displacement of the particle as it passes the polarizers.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

grayman said:


> The rock generates waves as it displaces water all the way through the water to the bottom of the sea. If you remove the waves some how at a certain place of its trajectory it does not keep the rock from generating waves through the rest of its trajectory. The distortion or wave deteriates in magnitude like any wave as it disperses outward. The interference only occurs when the rock is close to the distortion. In other words the slits have to be really close together for the wave of the particle to interfere with itself and displace it onto a new trajectory.
> 
> "youtube.com/watch?v=iWRNZNemQyY"
> 
> ...


The quantum eraser doesn't use sensors at the slits. 

And this still doesn't explain why there is no wave behavior at the target. You have assumed it's because things are too close together but this is just an assumption.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

sprinkles said:


> The quantum eraser doesn't use sensors at the slits.


 I was using the experiment here as reference. 'en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment'
where are the detectors placed?



sprinkles said:


> And this still doesn't explain why there is no wave behavior at the target. You have assumed it's because things are too close together but this is just an assumption.


There is a wave at the target. Did you mean there is not interference pattern? Diffraction still occurs at the target as far as I understand it.

There is no assumption being made. If an object emits energy by displacing ether, the energy created would be the same even though it spreads out in a larger circle from the source. This would require that the wave decreases in magnitude from the source that generates the wave. The experiment proves that close proximity is a factor. The slit has to be close together in order for the interference pattern and diffraction pattern to show up. I've seen them dial in the slits in order to create the interference pattern. What happens fits with what is theorized.

EDIT: oh wait, Was your second paragraph referring the double slit experiment or the quantum eraser experiment? I answered it for the double slit...


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

grayman said:


> I was using the experiment here as reference. 'en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment'
> where are the detectors placed?
> 
> 
> ...


The quantum eraser is an extension of the double slit experiment.


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## grayman (Aug 3, 2015)

@sprinkles
I guess I was looking at the quantum eraser experiment, not the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment.

'aetherdisplacement.com'

The explanation is at the bottom.

It claims that there are two inverted interference patterns due to the up/down photons bot a and b slits. The a and b offsets the inverted interference patterns creating an image that looks like a single slit.

Do you see any issues with their explanation?


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