/sci/ - Science & Math

oh wow this is dumb

For one thing this is a very dumb thought experiment to show laymen about how quantum mechanics works because the actual details are completely wrong, yet the imagery involved means schrodingers cat gets repeated and repeated way outside the context it was supposed to address and in a way which misleads people about what quantum mechanics is.


First off, lets cut through the underlying misconception. All perspectives are valid ones, if something collapses it collapses for the whole fucking universe, not just for one person. As a result of this, and this is the key misconception here, only an excruciatingly narrow set of phenomena can ever by in a state of quantum indeterminacy. A better experiment , partly because it's real and not just as thought experiment is the double-slit experiment. It involves an actual wave collapsing if you try to observe it at the wrong stage. A simple experiment that takes a great deal of time to spell out all the implications, however one thing that becomes obvious is that every time an electron gains or loses energy it collapses so to speak. Only extraordinarily simple molecules can avoid doing this and have a proper waveform in the first place. Things that are even remotely complex, cats, grenades, gas, those are all collapsed all the time

Haven't read the thread, but pic related, it's the double slit experiment with one electron at a time.

Quantum Chromodynamics vs Electrodynamics vs Flavordynamics vs Geometrodynamics...

choose your master race

go

>>3647970
>the god damn documentary said that only light have that atribution...what a bad documentary
What? Kill whoever made that documentary.

Here's the double slit experiment with one electron at a time.

>>3597563
Even worse, individual ELECTRONS.

>>3545075
>, what does it mean "interferes with itself" . it's kinda like saying "a wizard did it".
Holy shit. Just because you don't understand doesn't mean we don't have a predictive theory.

It's not just explanatory. It is PREDICTIVE. We can PREDICT the interference pattern formed, and that prediction is CORRECT.

>>3276055
Ok. So as we all know it, we get an interference pattern in the case of the "unobserved" shooting of electrons. But when they are "observed", or to put is simply they are put through an electromagnetic field, they suddenly start to behave like particles.

But what the electromagnetic field actually does it homogenize the electronic spin of the particles. For example technically the MRI works by homogenizing the protons and then sending a radio wave through the tissue and as such you easily measure the different density of tissues.

Now if I make a relevant correlation, though not completely correct, is in the case of soccer, when the rotation of the ball gives the ball a curvy trajectory instead of a straight one. Now presuming that the electrons have the same energy but different spins, they would travel at constant but differently oriented parabolas and the slits only function only as a filter to predetermined parabolas and thus obtaining an interference pattern.

>>3202352
Yes, but the troll is Nature.

The double slit experiment produces the same pattern of nodes and anti nodes even when you are firing single photons at the slits

Whats more crazy is this even occurs with larger particles such as electrons and has even been shown with C60 molecules

Pic related

>First off how does a single electron travel through two holes at once?
Electrons are not little billiard balls. Both the "particle" and "wave" models are wrong. The electron is distributed slightly in space and goes through both slits, and interferes with itself. Energy and mass are both conserved in this process.

Here's a double-slit interference pattern forming from electrons going through one at a time.

"Observe it" actually means "interfere with it". You can change the amount of "spread-out-ness" the electron has, and prevent it from going through both slits. It turns out this is EXACTLY what you do by shining photons on the slits to "see" which slit the electron goes through. You're changing it.

Look up some QM, especially the idea of probability distributions and wave functions. Then when you REALLY want your anus torn open, look up the delayed choice quantum eraser.

This is a pic of the double-slit experiment with electrons, done with one electron passing through the slits at a time.

I'm glad OP is trying to think and explain, but this pattern doesn't fall out of his theory.

>>1288212
Each photon/electron passes through BOTH slits, and interferes with itself. Obviously, this only works for slits that are pretty close together.

Cool, huh? Here's a pic from the experiment with electrons by Tonomura et al.