Wave particle duality as a research project

[alex_boothby]

Would this be a good idea for a research project, i.e as it has controversey in it, photoelectric effect verses Youngs double slit.

im doing A-level, and this is a piece of coursework.


thank you!

 

[NEWO]

what sort of things will you be looking at, how will you compare, how will you conduct your research etc. What is you assignment?

 

[mepcotterell]

Maybe you could somehow prove that the duality is the result of vibrations ocurring in higher dimensional space. If you can do that then you would truly have an awesome project.

 

[Hootenanny]

Maybe you could somehow prove that the duality is the result of vibrations ocurring in higher dimensional space.

Slightly beyond the scope of an A-Level syllabus don't you think?

 

[berkeman]

Would this be a good idea for a research project, i.e as it has controversey in it, photoelectric effect verses Youngs double slit.

Yes, I think it's a fine topic. Be sure to cover the part where electrons create an interference pattern when they pass through a double slit, even when they are fired through one at a time... Reality can be very strange sometimes.

 

[alex_boothby]

thanks guys, well all we've been asked to do is research somehting. Its not a practical experiment, we've just gota use books interweb ect to find out about something.

Any of you guys got any other goos ideas??

 

[berkeman]

thanks guys, well all we've been asked to do is research somehting. Its not a practical experiment, we've just gota use books interweb ect to find out about something.

Any of you guys got any other goos ideas??

Well, the solar neutrino controversy was pretty cool, and just got resolved recently. There was a pretty good Nova episode on it a few months back. The original calculations for the amount of neutrino flux that we should expect coming from our sun did not agree with the first few (big) experiments in neutrino detectors. This caused all kinds of discomfort and controversy, through many years and multiple (bigger and bigger and deeper underground, etc.) detector designs. Finally some clues led to the explanation -- neutrino oscillation. Very cool stuff. You should be able to find good info by googling solar neutrino flux controversy something something.

 

[berkeman]

Here's the link to the Nova episode "The Ghost Particle". I still remember way back in my high school and college days (late '70s), reading about the low number of solar neutrinos being caught in the detectors, and the worry about "how the heck could our theory about the sun's nuclear reactions be so wrong?" Way cool how it all got figured out!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neutrino/

 

[mepcotterell]

Slightly beyond the scope of an A-Level syllabus don't you think?

Yes, but it would still be cool...

Anyway, as for the Nova episode linked above, it an excellen episode.

 

[alex_boothby]

Hmmm Solar nutrinos... We have not currently covered that in our sylabus currently! Maybe i should stick to something i already know about!

I was thinking about doing my project as a kind of time line i.e starting off with Newton thinking it as waves, then einstein with the photoelectric effect ect.

would it be suitable to whack in the superstring theory just to throw it all away at the end lol??!