this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Double-slit (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Can someone post a search term or some other clue so we can learn?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The double slit experiment demonstrates the wave-particle duality of light.

You shoot photons at a barrier that has two slits in it. The pattern on the backstop appears as in the top right panel: an interference pattern, because light is behaving as a wave.

Next, you set up a detector at the slits, so that you can determine which slit each photon passed through, one photon at a time. Now the pattern on the backstop appears as the lower right panel, not an interference pattern, because each photon is acting as a particle.

Not looking: wave. Looking: particle.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Exactly. The issue is that you can't detect photons without interacting with them. So it isn't observation like so many people think. It's that if you interact with subatomic particles you change their state.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The issue is that you can’t detect photons without interacting with them.

Can't...So far, right? Like there hasn't been a method developed to somehow detect indirectly without interaction? I don't know enough about this to know how one might go about that, but I imagine those that know more might love to given whatever knowledge may be gained.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No. Can't. The only interaction sensors have is with particles. Photons usually. All things give off light but then measuring light itself, measuring is destructive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lol this guy still believes in particles

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Ah! A field absolutist. Keep preaching, friend.

[–] Klear 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Detecting" equals "interaction" in this context. You can't detect them without detecting them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Although, given some further thought, isn't the double-slit experiment being discussed here sort of demonstrative of a "detection" without detection, i.e. the wave pattern vs. the particle pattern emerging after "detection/measurement/interaction"? Or am I misunderstanding it?

Is there another way they operate/appear outside of the wave-particle that eludes observation?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Im not an expert but tour comment should be on top. Knowing this, all makes sense so easy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What if u look at only one of the slits?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Same deal, you're still measuring and can still determine which photons passed through which slit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But then you potentially wouldn't be interacting with all the photons right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You are, just not in an intuitive way. Because you'd know the rate of emission of your light source, the information of when a photon passes slit-2 would still "tag" them (whatever photon didn't pass slit-1 must have passed slit-2).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

TLDR the goddamn universe makes no fucking sense if you really look at it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Just start believing the conspiracy theories. Looking or not looking just changes the lighting system from ambient to raytracing, simple. Why spend so many resources rendering what no ~~player~~ is there to observe? Low level simulation on unloaded chunks.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Young's double slit experiment.

When which slit a photon goes through is unobserved, it behaves like a wave and self interferes so many photons create an interference pattern with stripes where self-interactions prevented any photons from appearing.

When the photon is interacted with in a way which leaves permanent information about which slit it went through, it behaves like a particle and the pattern from many photons looks 'ballistic' like you were shooting tiny balls through each slit.

So in the meme when he's not looking at the slits, there's stripes, and when he's looking it's a ballistic pattern.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If particles act as waves, but are not directly observed then those waves will interfere with each other and make the first image (this is correct). If it is observed directly, the wave collapses and you get the second one. Note that you would effectively only ever see the first one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Double-slit experiment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

TL;DR: quantum mechanics is freaky. In the double-slit experiment, it was shown that un-observed photons behaved like a wave, interfering with itself (top pic), while observed photons acted like particles (bottom pic). The phenomenon is known as wave function collapse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)
[–] can 4 points 11 months ago

Nothin' like learning in 240p

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

For those watching, just ignore the stupid conclusions of it. This movie tries to use quantum physics to explain their insane beliefs.