Ryan Solete
Jan8-09, 06:00 AM
---
[[Mod. note -- I have rewrapped the excessively-long-lines in the
author's original submission, and inserted paragraph breaks. -- jt]]
Hi, Â* I read your article on the Double Slit Experiment over and
over (as well as many other articles on the subject) and have several
questions that nobody has been able to successfully answer. Hopefully
you can kindly shed some light? Â*
If electrons, when fired one at a time, produce a wave-like response,
why do not bullets, for example, do the same thing? What makes
particles unique compared to bullets? is it the mere fact that we
are able to see bullets and therefore know that they cannot pass
through both slits at once?
[[Mod. note -- We do indeed see interference patterns from double-slit
experiments using objects considerably larger than electrons, notably
C60 "Buckminsterfullerene" molecules. See the classic paper
"Wave-particle duality of C60"
Markus Arndt , Olaf Nairz, Julian Voss-Andreae, Claudia Keller,
Gerbrand van der Zouw, and Anton Zeilinger
Nature 401, 680-682, 14.October 1999
You probably need a subscription to see that, but Prof. Zeilinger's
web site at
http://www.univie.ac.at/qfp/research/matterwave/c60/index.html
gives a good overview of these experiments.
There is good reason to think that we would indeed see interference
patterns from a double-slit experiment using bullets, *if*
(a) the bullets were small enough to pass through a suitable slit
(alas, the actual slit width needed to get a measurable interference
pattern scales inverseley with the bullet momentum, and for reasonable
values it's likely to be much smaller than an atom), and
(b) as the original poster conjectured, if conditions were such that
the bullets weren't observable in-flight.
-- jt]]
Why are electrons assumed to behave like bullets? I.e. to behave
like matter that we are so accustomed to? If they are just particles
of energy, then I would actually expect an electron particle to
pass through both slits, as it does, not just one.For example, I
consider light to be energy. Light passes through both slits at
once, producing a wave formation. Maybe electrons are just balls
of energy, and so act no differently than light particles. Maybe
we are all wrong in the assumption that electrons are hard matter
like bullets.
[[Mod. note -- Light does indeed produce an interference pattern...
but light is also quanitzed. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect
for a discussion of one of the classic experiments showing this.
-- jt]]
The very act of measuring seems to convert these electrons to
particles. I have a problem with this, too. In nature, maybe the
electron is supposed to pass through both slits at once, so we have
already observed this. By setting up a measuring device and observing
which ONE slit it will pass through, we have inadvertently limited
the possibilities to only one slit! We cannot set up a measuring
device to observe which "both" slits it will pass through, because
we have already observed this... it happened naturally on its own.
Â* Your thoughts on the above are very greatly appreciated. Â*
Kind regards, Â*
[[Mod. note -- I have rewrapped the excessively-long-lines in the
author's original submission, and inserted paragraph breaks. -- jt]]
Hi, Â* I read your article on the Double Slit Experiment over and
over (as well as many other articles on the subject) and have several
questions that nobody has been able to successfully answer. Hopefully
you can kindly shed some light? Â*
If electrons, when fired one at a time, produce a wave-like response,
why do not bullets, for example, do the same thing? What makes
particles unique compared to bullets? is it the mere fact that we
are able to see bullets and therefore know that they cannot pass
through both slits at once?
[[Mod. note -- We do indeed see interference patterns from double-slit
experiments using objects considerably larger than electrons, notably
C60 "Buckminsterfullerene" molecules. See the classic paper
"Wave-particle duality of C60"
Markus Arndt , Olaf Nairz, Julian Voss-Andreae, Claudia Keller,
Gerbrand van der Zouw, and Anton Zeilinger
Nature 401, 680-682, 14.October 1999
You probably need a subscription to see that, but Prof. Zeilinger's
web site at
http://www.univie.ac.at/qfp/research/matterwave/c60/index.html
gives a good overview of these experiments.
There is good reason to think that we would indeed see interference
patterns from a double-slit experiment using bullets, *if*
(a) the bullets were small enough to pass through a suitable slit
(alas, the actual slit width needed to get a measurable interference
pattern scales inverseley with the bullet momentum, and for reasonable
values it's likely to be much smaller than an atom), and
(b) as the original poster conjectured, if conditions were such that
the bullets weren't observable in-flight.
-- jt]]
Why are electrons assumed to behave like bullets? I.e. to behave
like matter that we are so accustomed to? If they are just particles
of energy, then I would actually expect an electron particle to
pass through both slits, as it does, not just one.For example, I
consider light to be energy. Light passes through both slits at
once, producing a wave formation. Maybe electrons are just balls
of energy, and so act no differently than light particles. Maybe
we are all wrong in the assumption that electrons are hard matter
like bullets.
[[Mod. note -- Light does indeed produce an interference pattern...
but light is also quanitzed. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect
for a discussion of one of the classic experiments showing this.
-- jt]]
The very act of measuring seems to convert these electrons to
particles. I have a problem with this, too. In nature, maybe the
electron is supposed to pass through both slits at once, so we have
already observed this. By setting up a measuring device and observing
which ONE slit it will pass through, we have inadvertently limited
the possibilities to only one slit! We cannot set up a measuring
device to observe which "both" slits it will pass through, because
we have already observed this... it happened naturally on its own.
Â* Your thoughts on the above are very greatly appreciated. Â*
Kind regards, Â*