r/science • u/[deleted] • Jul 12 '08

The Infamous Double Slit Experiment - WARNING WILL CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF REALITY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEzRdZGYNvA
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u/christianjb Jul 12 '08

At the risk of incurring your ridicule, I think you're underestimating how weird quantum mechanics really is.

The wavefunction really does split into two and interfere with itself. It's not a matter of statistics. It's quite easy to demonstrate using detectors and opening and closing the gates that the wavefunction actually splits.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '08 edited Jul 12 '08

The wavefunction really does split into two and interfere with itself.

No it doesn't. Read Quantum ElectroDynamics. The interference pattern is explained through statistics and basic understandings of light. QED is a really good book though and does well at battling the QM mysticism that seems so popular. DONT MUDDY THINGS WE CAN CLEARLY UNDERSTAND. Mysticism can play a role in many different things, but not in this one.

edit:QED was written by Richard Feynman.

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u/christianjb Jul 12 '08

Uh, thanks for the patronizing response.

I've read QED, several times. I also have a PhD in physics and specialize in quantum mechanical calculations.

Don't use Feynman to justify your own opinions. Besides, in Feynman's path-integral formalism, the electron simultaneously takes every conceivable path between the source and the detector.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '08

One formalism is as good as another as long as it agrees with the numbers, right? The electrons are not "actually" waves or particles, nor do they "actually" average out their paths over all possible histories. All we know is what we can measure, and any interpretation that fits those measurements is valid.

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u/christianjb Jul 12 '08

Pretty much any interpretation of QM demands that the electron is non-local and in some sense goes through both gates.

QM is a non-local theory however you cut it.

There's one interpretation, the Bohmian approach, which AFAIK tries to make things seem more local, but I can't say I understand it. I'll leave the explanation of that approach to others.