Posted on 10/12/2005 3:10:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Thanks for the ping!
If I ever figure it out.
Was there a difference in the number of electrons striking the target and the number of electrons emitted? That is a fairly easy thing to measure.
I would like to know if there was a difference with and without the 2nd slit being closed.
Passing a stream of electrons through a pair of closely spaced slits and seeing an interference pattern similar to light would not be surprising as within that stream each electron would have some small effect on any other electrons near it, possibly pushing them to the side enough to go through the 2nd slit. All of this I have had to deal with in color CRT (picture tubes) construction.
To believe what they are saying would require understanding how 100 electrons could be emitted, some or all passing through 2 slits at the same time. Seems we would for a moment have more than 100 electrons and where did they come from?
As far as the duality, never liked that word and they may have seen too many episodes of Star Trek TNG. Duality was Counselor Troy's favorite word. New age mumbo jumbo.
You know, it's discussions (not the previous post specifically) like this that require the explanation of the postulates of quantum mechanics in the Freshman year of high school, instead of waiting to the sophmore/junior year for physics majors. Then we can just say that the electron is a quantum object and forget all of this wave/particle B.S.
The electron is a quantum system where the relative value of Planck's constant is large compared to the mutiplicand of momentum and distance. It is acting like a quantum system. We've had outstanding descriptions of this for the last 50 years. This experiment has done nothing but, once again, validate the accepted description for the umpteenth time. The electron is acting exactly like the math says it should. An electron is what it is and we can validate it's description down to 13 decimal places. There is no problem with independent reality here, and anyone who says there is is a COMPLETELY IGNORANT MORON!
You owe me two minutes of my life.
You know, it's discussions (not the previous post specifically) like this that require the explanation of the postulates of quantum mechanics in the Freshman year of high school, instead of waiting to the sophmore/junior year for physics majors. Then we can just say that the electron is a quantum object and forget all of this wave/particle B.S.
Yeah, they should put pictures of electron orbitals next to the solar system one and say that we'll show how to derive them after the student has learned some Calculus.
It really p****s me off when journalists, and especially textbook writers, go on about how weird and mysterious some physics concepts are when the actual concepts have been non-controversial for decades in the physics literature. I admit it could be strange to a novice, but don't leave the impression that a little more background won't cure the metaphysical vertigo. Doesn't anyone know that Newtonian mechanics was just as weird for most people back then as Quantum mechanics is now? Heck, once someone REALLY knows how to do Classical mechanics, Quantum mechanics is a very small extension.
"He's a real nowhere man..."
I was gonna name such a particle a Kerrytron.
There you go.
Like trying to explain a black hole to the average high school graduate – or journalist.
There is only One Electron!
It wasn't just Einstein. This idea goes way back.
Although to be fair tunneling is a fairly non-classical phenomenon.
I still think Harriet should withdraw and evolution is bunk!
bttt
Agreed. People tend to try to read too much philosophy into the science of quantum mechanics. Wave-particle duality means just what it says; no explicit or implicit statements about "independent reality" lie within it.
That is true (and easier said than done). The big leap (IMO)is accepting the probablistic nature of the wave function; once you do that, most of the problem is statistical-mechanical in nature.
"The Kerry Effect"-------Zero + Zero= sumtin?
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