Does Human Observation Affect the Double Slit Experiment Results?

[Boing3000]

It's not a mind trick but an observational fact. QED is among the best confirmed theories of physics ever!

A theory IS a mind trick, by definition. An excellent mind trick which is very useful for a particularly precise (and limited if you are that cat) domain of application.
A theory is not an observational fact, a theory is confirmed by facts.

Whatever your philosophical inclination might be, one century ago, we observed some new facts about nature, that is, it comes in small packets. We don't have a quantum (singular) theory. We have a quanta (plural) theory. An excellent and powerfully theory.

Interpretation are not only born from the vanity of some people to impose there implicit misconception upon nature. A photon will pass trough two slit and ends up on the screen. And as far as facts go, only individual photon do that. Thus trying to explain what happens with that photon is quite legit.

Pretending that those individual event are just happenstance, and the only thing that can be made sense of is some ensemble behavior is really a strange claim.

Nature knows what to do with each and every individual photon. Shouldn't we be able to understand "how" it does that trick ?

 

[vanhees71]

There is one overall framework called quantum theory. It has different applications and ranges from relativistic quantum field theory for the highest energies in particle and nuclear physics to non-relativistic approximations at lower energies.

Natural sciences aim at describing Nature, as far as objective facts are concerned, not to understand "how she does that trick" (whatever trick you mean). This is done in terms of theories describing quantitatively what can be observed. What a photon is, is clearly defined in QED, and QED's predictions are confirmed by measurements at very high accuracy. There's no "trick" behind the behavior of photons. It's very well described by QED.

 

[jerromyjon]

Nature knows what to do with each and every individual photon.

I would say that slightly different, perhaps "Individual photons behave how nature allows them to behave."

Shouldn't we be able to understand "how" it does that trick ?

Proposing a hypothesis about how that occurs is one thing, verifying it scientifically is another. If we could prepare photons in identical states and send them off to hit a screen at an identical location 100% of the time would seem to me to make quantum probability obsolete... but it seems to me nature doesn't care where photons hit a screen, only that they do hit somewhere. Like a classical example, if you roll a ball up a sphere with just enough force to make it to the top, nature doesn't care which direction it rolls down, only that it does roll down.

 

[Boing3000]

There's no "trick" behind the behavior of photons.

That much is totally unknown. I have no idea how you can display that much confidence. Whatever is "behind the curtain" exist, whatever name you choose to describe nature.

It's very well described by QED.

It's clearly not on an individual Quantum basis. That QED uses a beautiful "trick" with a probability space of quasi infinite dimension made of complex value, is fine and unquestioned by anybody.
I suppose it is intellectually valid to say: let's stop science there and let's forget about the goal to describe nature better, because one can only deal in probability upon ensemble.
But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend to prove the absence of something without backing up with math and facts.

 

[jerromyjon]

Whatever is "behind the curtain" exist, whatever name you choose to describe nature.

That's the crux of the problem though. Whatever is "behind the curtain" can't logically exist by classical, local means in a single universe. It can't add up to the verified predictions of QED. There's no other consistent way to get the same results.

 

[1977ub]

That's the crux of the problem though. Whatever is "behind the curtain" can't logically exist by classical, local means in a single universe. It can't add up to the verified predictions of QED. There's no other consistent way to get the same results.

Trivially (?) If there is some other *real* classical mechanism which feeds the apparent universe - including our inclinations to make particular measurements at particular times, then this type of "conspiracy theory" could never be contradicted by any experiment. If our universe is (super) deterministic, then any non-locality demonstrating experiment, since it takes place in some light cone, can't be guaranteed to be non-local or illogical, eh?

 

[jerromyjon]

If our universe is (super) deterministic, then any non-locality demonstrating experiment, since it takes place in some light cone, can't be guaranteed to be non-local or illogical, eh?

That would be quite a feat of nature... to make everything seem legit and predictable on macroscopic scales, yet to be non-local and probabilistic on microscopic scales. Just because some omnipotent point of view has some privileged perspective? It still does not form a consistent basis because there is no "light-cone" that can encompass the results to provide a c limit to information that has been collaborated. It can't fit in our 4 dimensional understanding of a single macroscopic universe no matter how you slice it unless something is "pulling strings" just for the sake of confusing us.

 

[1977ub]

That would be quite a feat of nature... to make everything seem legit and predictable on macroscopic scales, yet to be non-local and probabilistic on microscopic scales. Just because some omnipotent point of view has some privileged perspective? It still does not form a consistent basis because there is no "light-cone" that can encompass the results to provide a c limit to information that has been collaborated. It can't fit in our 4 dimensional understanding of a single macroscopic universe no matter how you slice it unless something is "pulling strings" just for the sake of confusing us.

Yes I guess at some point you have to decide which illogical and unlikely possibility one prefers - the non-local non-causal one or the superdeterministic conspiracy theory.

 

[PeterDonis]

Thread closed for moderation.

 

[PeterDonis]

The thread has run its course and will remain closed.