[Jack Hydrazine]

Double slit experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

[Jack Hydrazine]

It’s as if the electrons know when they’re being watched and decide to behave as particles again. According to Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, the phenomenon “has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery”.

[JPG]

In this case, truth is stranger than fiction.

[datura]

During my college years the more physics I learned (solid state physics was my major), the more obvious it became that God will never allow humans to understand it all.

[Erasmus]

This illustrates the electrons interfering with each other — the hallmark of wave behaviour.

It's a little stranger than that. Even if you reduce the electron flux to the point that there is never more than one electron on the path from the source to the target at a time, you still get wave formation at the target in the case of multiple slits.

[Mere Survival]

It’s neither a wave nor a particle. It’s a wavarticle.

Problem solved.

[USMCPOP]

I leave electrons alone and let them run around the wiring. Last time I poked in an outlet with a screwdriver to see if they were there, they got really angry.

[wendy1946]

In the standard double-slit experiment, a wide screen is shielded from an electron gun by a wall containing two separated slits. If the electron gun is fired with one slit closed, a mound of electrons forms on the screen beyond the open slit, trailing off to the left and right — the sort of behaviour expected for particles. If the gun is fired when both slits are open, however, electrons stack along the screen in comb-like divisions. This illustrates the electrons interfering with each other — the hallmark of wave behaviour.

When you see evidence of both waves and particles, the simplest explanation there could be is that both waves and particles are present. Similarly if you're on safari on the Serengeti and you see lion dung and elephant dung on the ground, you assume both lions and elephants have been around; you do NOT assume that some magical creature with properties of goth elephants and lions has been around.

[The_Reader_David]

I take issue with one part of the explanation, which minimizes how strange the phenomenon is: it’s not that the electrons or photons interfere with each other, it’s that the electron or photon interferes with itself. If the two slit experiment is done with a slow emitter so that only one electron or photon passes the screen at a time, the interference pattern is still there!

[patriot preacher]

Headline should perhaps read, “Intelligent Designer continues to confuse Brilliant Human Experts in Quantum Physics”

[Southack]

Quantum mechanics and relativity are mutually exclusive theories. Both can’t be right. This is why Strong Theory must be wrong (string theory attempts to unify QM with R).

[SuziQ]

Physics ping!

[Captain Beyond]

Physics ping

[woofie]

I conclude electrons do not like slits

[woofie]

WAVE

[TexasTransplant]

Actually put the Cat in the box and then decide poison or no poison ... pull the trigger and see if your results are different than expected.

Change your mind after the fact and you have a 50% chance of changing the outcome.

Rocket Surgery at it’s best

TT

[21stCenturion]

...

[Rockingham]

If one were to read the comments with a well-placed laugh track, the result would be more and better humor than an episode of Big Bang Theory.