Vanadium has been telling me, since post #5 on page 1, that the experiment can't work.
He or she has used strong language without reprimand.
And has implicitly painted me as a fool, unable to understand a two-term equation or check external resources.
I have listened and asked for...
I'm not sure what you are saying. Is it;
[1] classical approximations of QM phenomena are not wanted in this forum,
or
[2] lens don't create the results you described
or
[3] other ?
David
Yes, you're right, there is a limit to attainable resolution for telescopes.
But the question is, will that limit prevent me doing what I proposed to do?
What is its actual size?
You posted an equation :
I'm sorry but I can't make sense of that.
I calculated that it's not a show-stopper at...
Ah, but look at the bigger picture, Bill. That description covers only a single photon passing through a transparent material of undefined shape. But I'm talking about the pattern of photons processed by a telescope.
Let me explain where the Fourier transform comes into it:
Here's a very...
Interpretations are simply tools to help us think about QM - in particular, they help us to predict the results of new experiments.
Strange as it may seem, scientists who agree on all the known equations and predictions of QM, may disagree on what a given apparatus will do. They may even...
Tell me, do you think that his explanation was correct?
The notion that all photons passing through a chosen point on the telescope lens will all meet up at a single point on its image plane - do you agree with it?
It would make my "thought experiment" look like rubbish - but is it true?
I did...
Let me spell out what happens to a single photon in the telescope:
1. Two lobes of its wave function pass through the slits (call them A and B)
2. A portion of lobe A impacts the entire lens glass
3. Simultaneously a portion of lobe B impacts the lens
4. If the lens were opaque they would be...
A telescope performs a Fourier transform on the incoming photon pattern. Photon angle is transformed into position at the detector. Photon position at the lens does not appear at the detector.
The bands impinging on the lens do not appear in the image formed. The only way for the telescope to...
This is how the minimum-size lens sits on the interference bands. It's not possible to place it exclusively in a "strong" band. At least one strong band and one weak band will fall on it. And with this lens, the image of the slits is just about discernible. We would need a larger lens for good...
Sorry if I didn't make my notation clear; by "fringe spacing" I mean bright-to-bright, i.e. the "wavelength" of the pattern. A lens that's 1.22 fringes wide will have both a bright and a dark band impinging on it, regardless of how you shift it around in the illuminated area. It can't be...
Vanadium : this disagreement is no mere tangential issue. It is central to the point that I am making, to the demonstration that I proposed.
You said that an observer, standing among Young's fringes, could not possibly resolve the two slits. Why not?
I suspect that you deduce this from the...
This is how Quantum Mechanics differs from other areas of science: in other fields, we can explain phenomena by taking things apart and studying their components.
So, for example, we can explain the behaviours of Gases by considering them as many little atoms bouncing around.
But with QM, we...
Everything that I read about telescopes today seems to agree with this statement;
"The minimum angular separation of two sources that can be distinguished by a telescope depends on the wavelength of the light being observed and the diameter of the telescope. This angle is called the DIFFRACTION...
Thank you. That sounds reasonable. It's also completely contrary to my understanding of QM, so I need to think about it.
Can you refer me to any experiments demonstrating this?
David