A silly question I'm sure about Feynman's many paths

[maverick_starstrider]

Lol. I love how this post has gone on for 4 pages and the OP has not replied since the first post and probably have no idea what was being said since the second post.

 

[jaketodd]

Ok, I have not read all four pages of posts so this may have already been addressed. From what I did read, the paths the particle takes (Feynman) are probability waves (probability given by amplitude) and the amplitudes interfere, some cancel out. I remember the words of one post: "a probability with a direction." And I remember someone else saying that's a good interpretation.

My question now is: These waves with amplitude travel in different directions, so they are not superimposed on each other, so how can they cancel out or interfere at all? So I would say that the electron does not take all these many paths. Instead I would favor the idea that it is a singular wave of probabilities that propagates through space and manifests as a particle according to a formula that takes into account how many thing(s) it runs into (the more, the more likely for collapsing to a particle and sooner), how far away from the source of the electron wave those thing(s) are (the closer, the more likely the manifestation of a particle there), and some degree of randomness.

 

[jambaugh]

Ok, I have not read all four pages of posts so this may have already been addressed. From what I did read, the paths the particle takes (Feynman) are probability waves (probability given by amplitude) and the amplitudes interfere, some cancel out. I remember the words of one post: "a probability with a direction." And I remember someone else saying that's a good interpretation.

My question now is: These waves with amplitude travel in different directions, so they are not superimposed on each other, so how can they cancel out or interfere at all? So I would say that the electron does not take all these many paths. Instead I would favor the idea that it is a singular wave of probabilities that propagates through space and manifests as a particle according to a formula that takes into account how many thing(s) it runs into (the more, the more likely for collapsing to a particle and sooner), how far away from the source of the electron wave those thing(s) are (the closer, the more likely the manifestation of a particle there), and some degree of randomness.

Much of how you are characterizing this is interpretation dependent. What QM says operationally is that the wave functions add linearly and thence interference patterns in the wave function of e.g. an electron can be setup e.g. via double slit experiment. If you then in that experiment measure the position of an electron prior to and posterior to "passage through the double slits" and in addition configure the experiment so as not to allow measurement of "which slit the electron passed through" then you will get a probabilistic prediction for the final position measurement expressed using the interfering wave function.

When you do multiple experiments you can confirm the probabilistic prediction via the distribution pattern of the many electron position measurements. You thus see an interference pattern in the distribution of electron position measurements.
This is all the theory predicts. We argue about what the theory implies vis-à-vis interpretation debates which also delve into the semantics of what we mean by "the electron".

Is the electron some type of field modeled by our wave-function said field behaving non-locally when it collapses during a position measurement? Is the electron a point particle guided by a Bohm pilot wave represented by the wave-function? Is the electron a point particle passing through different slits in different sub-universes? Is "an electron" shorthand for a systematic class of phenomena wherein a certain mass and charge leaves one device and enters another and should we view questions such as "which slit the electron passed through" as ill posed given that in this instance no measurements are being made which would distinguish cases? Different interpretations answer this in different ways.

Pick your favorite.