Talk-Polywell.org

tbh im having trouble visualising the double slit experiment, and the videos i saw werent very helpful

ladajo said 'you are thinking of the electron as a physical entity'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... cover.html

i thought they were physical because how else we know they are round?

if they are a round 'ball', in what way are they also a wave ? u mean their trajectory isnt ballistic , but follows this shrodinger wave equation (which im imagining as a sine wave)?

am i getting photons and electrons mixed up?

when a single photon is fired, its fired at the wall between the two slits, and somehow spreads out and goes through both slits? not just horizontally but vertically too ?

so a single photon expresses itself at every possible path on this 3d wave function ?

a single photon produces an interference pattern? just one photon fired in total and a pattern is made?

sorry for the questions, if they are too basic , feel free tell me to piss off and go read a book or something!!

no, you're still not getting it. it's not about what forms first or last, it's about simple mechanics. like the two little magnetic steel balls, electrons should ALWAYS fly right into the proton thus making a neutron, no matter how long they're been around or how far apart they are. but in reality they almost NEVER do. (the only exception being the "weak interaction" which is exceedingly rare)

we don't know they're round.



we don't know they're round. and best we can tell that's backwards; the schrodinger equation is prior and they are waves first, and only appear as particles when we measure them. if you want to think in terms of trajectories, check out the feymann path integral, which is equivalent to the shrodinger equation.

doesn't matter. we could just as well be talking about protons or neutrinos. they all do this. just different mass/charge/spin.


a brief synopsis of the path integral formulation of quantum physics i wrote up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-sli ... ormulation

also if you prefer video from a famous professor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPDP_8X5Hug

np. i kind of enjoy answering, gives me something to do.

thanks, im beginning to appreciate the peculiarities and problems arising from them

the feynman video was interesting and entertaining, though even he refers to light in terms of spinning objects, in the section about his arrow method

what im still not really getting is how a photon fired from a gun, transitions into a wavefront that hits both slits to make the interference pattern


furthermore, with regards to observation of things moving at speed relative to each other, i dont see how this actually AFFECTS anything. A ship passing me walking the dog, moving at light speed(the ship, not me or dog!) sees me differently to how i see it. This seems obvious to anyone who has stared out of the window of a train. But surely 'time' is still ticking away , tick tock, and the only difference is the ship at speed has travelled a greater distance than the dog in the same 'time'

and within the twins example, each clock is stationary within its own frame, ie on the captains mantlepiece within the ship, thus is 'unaware' of the speed its travelling at , thus both clocks have the exact same time
(i think this is what johan argues, using the lorentz transform to back it up ? )

I could not have stated it better! Congratulations. I had to post this, but I still do not have the time to be drawn into meandering discussions, by people like tomclarke, which are based on metaphysics. You are correct: Both clocks are stationary and MUST thus keep the same time.

This is agreed by all.

Johan extends this to claim that the clocks will read the same time when reunited. In a relativistic universe time is not simple and that cannot be guaranteed.

Think of it as the clock with the bent trajectory (that turns around mid-journey) travelling on a slightly shorter spacetime path. But still working as normal in its own instantaneous frame.

johan is saying that in the absence of general relativity, each observer will read the same time on _their own_ clocks. this will be different than what they read on _each other_'s clocks. however, likewise, the time a reads on b's clock will match the time b reads on a's clock.

this symmetry is gauraunteed by the fact that the paths they see each other travel are only differ by a rotation and/or reflection.

however, if you follow this logic mathematically, and aren't very careful, it seems to imply that a<>a, hence the term "twin paradox". a=b, a'=b', a>b', b>a' does not imply a contradiction, but if you simply remove the prime ('), it does.

glad to know you like it. so did i, hence the recommendation.

the "spinning objects" are clocks, as in special relativity. what he's showing in a very visually intuitive manner is how quantum physics, and all of the phenomena we associate with it - or don't associate with it - results naturally from how space is connected spatio-temporally .



that's because you're still assuming the gun fires a photon; that it fires a hard round static object like a ping pong ball. it does not.

it fires a singularity in an electomagnetic field, and to find out what happens to the singularity you have to follow the spatio-temporal connections of the underlying space, which feyman shows in his video w/his clocks and paths.

also you say single photon. for that i refer you to the very low light experiment in the wikipedia article on the double-slit experiment.

there are many unanswered questions and competing theories on some of the more subtle nuances of quantum physics. for instance, if it's really a field, why do all our measurements show up as singularities? ("wave-collapse") personally, i would that the instruments we use to observe and amplify the signal also obey quantum physics, as in the feyman lectures - the clocks, and by the time they're human readable, well yes, we are still seeing an "interference pattern", as it were, but of our measuring and amplifying equipment in addition to the slits, not to mention our retinas. so when you consider the whole apparatus, it's not astounding that you don't see the raw "wave", rather, it would be astounding if you DID.

That is all true, for two clocks both on "unbent" trajectories.

When one of the trajectories is bent the symmetry no longer exists, but if you assume it does, you argue as Johan that the two clocks must read the same time when they come together. That would be trivially so were the situation symmetrical.

When calculating this case using LT there is a correction that must be made to the calculated time of the far clock when the frame in which this is calculated changes.

Best wishes, Tom

what's this "bent" trajectory thing? you talking about curved space i.e. gravity? i'm talking about in the absence of gravity, any trajectory, "bent" or "unbent", spirals swirls hammerheads sharp right turns, oscillations, whatever. i am talking about what's, in technical parlance, is called A TRAJECTORY. REFERENCE FRAME A'S TRAJECTORY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF REFERENCE FRAME B IS THE SAME AS REFERENCE FRAME'S B'S TRAJECTORY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF REFERENCE FRAME A EXCEPT FOR A SINGLE 180 DEGREE ROTATION AND/OR A SINGLE REFLECTION. what part of that is so god-damned difficult for you to understand?!?!

How do you accelerate without gravity?

Do you have evidence I was not understanding it?

I am not sure if we differ, but where we might differ is the significance of this 180 degree rotatin. That makes the trajectory into two sides of a triangle in space-time - when compared with the straigt trajectory (one side of the same triangle).

All I am saying is that the two sides have a different elapsed time from the one side because of their shape.

In Euclideam space that would be blindingly obvious: the length would be larger.

The analogy I'm making is that the longer length is not a property of the straight sides, or of the vertex, it is a property of the whole path, so no-one would think the two sides were symmetric (in terms of length) with the one straight side.

In Relativistic spacetime it is less obvious because we tend to think of time as a path-independent constant, not a property of the path like Euclidean path length. Also, we find the opposite effect (the two-sided path is shorter) counter-intuitive.

I can't think of a short way to refer to this except "timellike bent paths are shorter than straight paths".

i don't know how to put this politely.... what you say is wrong in so many ways. you are even more wrong now than you were before, and on a wider range of subjects.

i see know that john was right, this is utterly futile. beyond futile: the effect seems to be, shall we say, equal and opposite.

Well, would it help if I posted the math? Of course, since you don't give any reasons for rejecting my statements above I guess anything I post is not likley to challenge your views.

The experimental evidence is with me, you know...

i think you should post the math

happyjack , whats the furthest apart the two slits have been and the interference pattern still occurs , does the singularity cause a shockwave or resonance in the em field?