Oh yeah! Of course. So only the electrons that traveled to the second measured slits would “choose” a slit and not cause an interference pattern. Like you and others have said, the new “source” becomes the second slits.
I should have been more clear. One type of detector caused inelastic scattering, which I don’t understand, but apparently the one slit acted more like a spherical wave that didnt interfere with the adjacent cylindrical wave...
Ok. Then this experiment isn’t as mysterious as I had previously thought. Of course if you interact with something things will change. I guess what they’re still trying to figure out is the mechanism for this change. And from other studies it looks like in one case the detector causes the...
It’s amazing. I wish science was better at answering why questions though. It’s just so counterintuitive to me that it just seems like somethings wrong. Like the measurement device is messing with it. But I’m sure there have been sufficient experimentation to verify this is just how it behaves...
Sorry, let me be more clear. Suppose an electron wave travels through a double slit. Typically without measurement I’d assume it would create an interference pattern on a screen. Now replace that screen with two different double slits and measure which slits the electron goes through on one of...
Thank you so much for all of your helpful explanations and setting my mind straight. I’ll probably be showing the extent of my naivity but I’d like try and see if I understand.
So if we send the electrons through the first double slit and don’t measure it the electrons will diffract into an...
This question relates to the double slit experiment where measurement affects whether an interference pattern is generated.
If an experiment were performed where electrons were sent through a double slit with another double slit behind the first double slit, and the measurement device measured...
I think this is what I was hypothesizing David. Thank you for that paper at caltech.
Based on my limited understanding, I think what I understand is that parallel pulses of light will not exert gravitational influence on each other. In basic terms I think that this is because the gravitational...
So, assuming a massive body and a beam of light come into existence at the same time, and the beam of light is traveling directly away from the massive body, I would hypothesize that the beam of light would never exert a gravitational force on the massive body and vice versa because the...
Thank you all for your very insightful posts. Based on your responses, it looks like I am way in over my head at this point on this one. Fascinating thought experiment, but to find a solution it appears that the math is way too advanced for me. I really respect you all for your great knowledge.
Imagine a theoretical universe which contained only two photons with the same energy. Imagine that each photon began at approximately the same point and traveled in exactly opposite directions. I believe that general relativity predicts that photons exert a gravitational force on each other...
Dalespam, so if mass has energy and energy has mass, is light not energy? It has no mass. But perhaps I'm confusing the two different concepts of mass again.
I'm trying to reconcile everyone's replies now. So I think what you are saying is relativistic mass has energy and energy has...
Thank you both for your insightful comments. I do remember now the +pc, I had forgotten. Also, thanks for straightening me out on the definitions of mass.
So the answer is... Nobody knows where the mass goes and suddenly the matter is going the speed of light without having its mass approach infinity? So what's all the talk about needing an infinite amount of energy to accelerate mass to the speed of light?