- #1
TheRabidRabbit
- 3
- 0
Hello,
I am a high school senior trying to a project on wave particle duality. I know a lot of you are probably going to shoot me because i have no clue (compared to laot of you) what I am talking about. I was searching the net for answeres when i stumbled upon these forums, so somone please help me.
Basically, my problem is this:
I understnad how the double slit experiment works. I understand what waves are and how they intereact. I also understand what particlces are and how they behave. After stareing at my computer screen for hours on end, i have finally figured out everything i need to know for my project about the double slit experiment so i can adequetly explain it to me class... Except for one thing:
When a single photon is fired through a single slit, it produces the pattern on the wall like a bell curve, which is what you would expect from a particle. However when you open up both slits, evan if you fire it one photon at a time you get a wave-like interference pattern on the wall behind the slits.
If i am correct, this is because somehow the particle is interfereing with itself somehow? I have read all sorts of crazy theorems, although this is quantum physics so a lot of them probably arn't as crazy as I think. One of them is that my view of a photon as a particle is wrong and that a photon is actually some energy spread out over a space, and so when you fire a "photon" at the double slits it actually goes through both of them. Another theory is that there are waves of probablility or something that interefere with each other... that one didnt make any sense at all, and i think its wrong anyways. eh.
SO anywyas i was hopeing somone could offer me a very simple explination as to HOW A PARTICLE IS INTERFEREING WITH ITSELF... in the context of the double slit experiment. if there is no simple explination then please don't even both because I won't understand..for I am but a lowly high school student who really doesn't understand much.
Please offer me help you geniuses of the physics forum...
I am a high school senior trying to a project on wave particle duality. I know a lot of you are probably going to shoot me because i have no clue (compared to laot of you) what I am talking about. I was searching the net for answeres when i stumbled upon these forums, so somone please help me.
Basically, my problem is this:
I understnad how the double slit experiment works. I understand what waves are and how they intereact. I also understand what particlces are and how they behave. After stareing at my computer screen for hours on end, i have finally figured out everything i need to know for my project about the double slit experiment so i can adequetly explain it to me class... Except for one thing:
When a single photon is fired through a single slit, it produces the pattern on the wall like a bell curve, which is what you would expect from a particle. However when you open up both slits, evan if you fire it one photon at a time you get a wave-like interference pattern on the wall behind the slits.
If i am correct, this is because somehow the particle is interfereing with itself somehow? I have read all sorts of crazy theorems, although this is quantum physics so a lot of them probably arn't as crazy as I think. One of them is that my view of a photon as a particle is wrong and that a photon is actually some energy spread out over a space, and so when you fire a "photon" at the double slits it actually goes through both of them. Another theory is that there are waves of probablility or something that interefere with each other... that one didnt make any sense at all, and i think its wrong anyways. eh.
SO anywyas i was hopeing somone could offer me a very simple explination as to HOW A PARTICLE IS INTERFEREING WITH ITSELF... in the context of the double slit experiment. if there is no simple explination then please don't even both because I won't understand..for I am but a lowly high school student who really doesn't understand much.
Please offer me help you geniuses of the physics forum...