Science Fair Question: Unifying Forces and Winning Science Fairs

[Willis666]

Okay, I plan on going to county science fair after my school science fair this year. I'm in 9th grade, and did a double slit experiment (with light!.) A friend of mine (best friend) has won first place before on a county and state level (same experiment.) And several grand prizes type things. He also won several second place science fairs. He told me that my project was good, and could win first place on the county level, if I some how tie it into modern (last 20 years or so.) science. I'm stumped on this one. Should i mention the electromagnetic force being a primary part of the unification of forces (string theory?) And tie that into my future work portion(that I plan on working on string theory as an adult.) The friend of mine who won the science fair last year merely found the best growing conditions for green algae, which obviously CO2, light, etc. are the best, but he tied in future work of using green algae for oil, and ended up winning.

Thanks guys!

 

[micromass]

You could probably mention what happens if you do the double slit experiment on electrons...

 

[Leveret]

This goes back a bit further than 20 years, but I think this is what your friend was getting at: why was the original double slit experiment important? What new ideas did it inspire, and what major theories that are still used heavily today came about as a result? What about physics today might be drastically different if not for the original double slit experiment?

 

[Willis666]

You could probably mention what happens if you do the double slit experiment on electrons...

I mention it near the end.

Edit: Thanks for the suggestions leveret! This is my first science fair, so I'm hoping to do good.

 

[jedishrfu]

The latest news on photographing the track of a photn going thru the double slit would be good:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/an-experiment-that-just-keeps-on-giving.ars

and checkout the top ten breakthrus for ideas for future discussion:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/48126

and lastly a Physorg article:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-which-way-detector-mystery-double-slit.html

There was also an article about light being photographed / slowed down:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-with-trillion-frames-per-second-video-camera

and cloaking device:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ing-Scientists-create-device-hide-events.html

 

[Willis666]

The latest news on photographing the track of a photn going thru the double slit would be good:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/an-experiment-that-just-keeps-on-giving.ars

and checkout the top ten breakthrus for ideas for future discussion:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/48126

Thanks for those articles! The second one was interesting, even if I wasn't doing this experiment.