What can I use as a detector to collapse the wave function?

[iamburitto]

Hi! I have a plan to build my own version of young's experiment using various household items, a laser, and my physics textbook. My question is about what I could use as a "detector" to observe and collapse the wave function? I had the idea of making a tiny inductor to go around one of the slits, with a resistor attached to it, and either use a multimeter to measure the change in resistance, or fashion an ammeter to measure the change in current. However I am not sure this would work, both because the current caused by the mag-field of the light through the inductor would be too weak, and because I'm not completely sure what causes the wave function to collapse, or what kind of measurement is needed; I'm just starting to get into quantum physics in my undergrad this year. If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated!

-Britt

 

[A. Neumaier]

Hi! I have a plan to build my own version of young's experiment using various household items, a laser, and my physics textbook. My question is about what I could use as a "detector" to observe and collapse the wave function? I had the idea of making a tiny inductor to go around one of the slits, with a resistor attached to it, and either use a multimeter to measure the change in resistance, or fashion an ammeter to measure the change in current. However I am not sure this would work, both because the current caused by the mag-field of the light through the inductor would be too weak, and because I'm not completely sure what causes the wave function to collapse, or what kind of measurement is needed; I'm just starting to get into quantum physics in my undergrad this year. If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated!

I can't help you with setting up the experiment, but partial collapse happens with any sort of interaction.

Thus once you are able to get a response from the quantum system, you collapsed it already.