QuantumPion said:
).elishamei9000 said:
DennisN said:Hi! A cloud chamber would certainly be cool. Otherwise there's of course also the famous double-slit experiment, it's quite easy to do today. As a matter of fact, I experimented with this some months ago at home for fun, trying to get the best result with minimal equipment. I was thinking of writing a short guide on this actually, but I haven't done it yet. But here's what you would need:
1. A laser
2. Slits
3. A screen
Some notes on the way:
I used a small pen laser (at first with the power button pressed down by tape or something, but later I disassembled the laser and used an external power supply and a power switch).
There are a number of ways to construct slits; I have tried these (and I preferred option 2):
1. Razorblades and aluminium foil. Paint the aluminium foil black with e.g. spray paint. Glue/tape two razorblades together and cut two parallel slits in the aluminium foil (actually make a number of slit setups, since it's quite easy to tear apart the foil). This is however not the solution I preferred, it's a little tricky and easy to mess up.
2. One "barrier" is equivalent to two slits with infinite width. So you can get an interference pattern by using just a single thin barrier. You can use a hair (40-120 μm) taped up on some frame (I used old dia slides). You can also use a thin copper wire extracted from an electrical wire (paint it black). You can actually also use a lead for mechanical pencils; I tried with a 0.5 mm lead and managed to get a pattern nevertheless. But thinner barriers are better; I preferred hair or copper wire.
3. You can also take one or a couple of needles, paint them black and tape them together. But I prefer option 2.
4. Reflection from a laser via a CD is also supposed to show an interference pattern. I've tried this, but got pretty strange patterns which I found difficult to interpret.
5. You could also buy a slit setup from some science shop.
There are some other issues to address as well; laser targeting, environment lighting and screen distance. It's a little tricky to point the laser perfectly at the slits, so some smart mechanical setup is recommended. The laser can be fixated with e.g. tape or something, but I actually used a small adjustable Lego Technic construction I built for this purpose :). Further, in a bright room the interference pattern can be hard to distinguish. One solution is to "screen off" the screen, e.g. tape up a screen inside a cardboard box or something (the screen can be a simple white paper). And last, the distance from slits to screen will determine the pattern resolution (longer distance->wider pattern). I got the best result with the screen at about 4 meters from the slits. If the screen is too far away, I found the pattern to get too blurry.
I attach some pics from my experiment (I apologize for a lousy camera used by a mediocre photographer);
1. My first crappy setup (but it worked).
2. An adjustable Lego Technic laser cannon.
3. Interference pattern.
4. Interference pattern from shining laser through a thin black cloth. Irregular vertical/horizontal pattern since the threads in the cloth are not perfectly parallel.
5. Pattern (?) from a CD (I can't really interpret that one
Here's an instructional video I found (apparently there are special CDs with slits too);
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wkwJ2tiKg
There's also the quantum eraser, but this is somewhat more tricky than the doubleslit setup;
Do-It-Yourself Quantum Eraser:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=a-do-it-yourself-quantum-eraser
I haven't tried that, but I probably will sometime.
The first crappy setup cost me nothing, as I already had the necessary stuff at home. And that setup took me an hour or so (incl. doing slits). I have done the experiment many years before with professional equipment at university, so I already had some experience.. Anyway, I wish you good luck!The purpose of modern physics experiments is to test and expand our understanding of the laws and principles that govern the behavior of matter and energy in the universe. These experiments also aim to discover new phenomena and technologies that can improve our daily lives.
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