Quantum double slit experiment

[zketrouble]

Regretfully I find some problems in this post. First, "wave function collapse" is normally equivalent to "collapse of the state vector Ψ" and |ψ|2 gives you the probability of finding an electron in a specific location whereas a photon is subject to Maxwell's equations and the probability of a photon in a location is proportional to the square of the radiation energy density at that location. So I think this post has confused computational ψ waves with real-world radiation energy waves. Not the first time this has happened.

A second problem is the easy identification of photon with particle. There is scant evidence for the photon as particle aside from the lazy assumption that anything traversing space and terminating at a point must be a particle. As to why this "particle" should exhibit all sorts of wave behavior before its "particle" termination, many don't want to be bothered with that.

So the sensible answer as to why a photon can pass through both slits is that it is a wave and a wave, unlike a particle, can subdivide (and later rejoin and interfere).

The real question is why an electron can do the same thing. That is 1) tied up with the wave nature of the moving electron and 2) the subject of a different thread.

Regards,

PP

This doesn't take into account another important discovery of science: a photon can bounce into an electron and cause it to move out of its way. Thus, this wave has momentum, and for it to have momentum, by definition it has mass. A photon isn't "just a wave" nor "just a particle." Photons express wave-particle duality; they express both wave-like and particle characteristics. I think it is a little foolish for scientists to spend so much time assessing whether it should be called particle or a wave, understanding how it works is more important. And it seems to work in both ways so far.

 

[A. Neumaier]

This doesn't take into account another important discovery of science: a photon can bounce into an electron and cause it to move out of its way. Thus, this wave has momentum, and for it to have momentum, by definition it has mass.

By convention, the mass of a particle always refers to its rest mass (unless one specifically says otherwise). Thus the spatial momentum p carried by a photon doesn't add to its mass m, but only to its energy E=c*sqrt{(mc)^2+p^2}.