From: YakWaxx@aol.com
Date: Thu Aug 14 1997 - 11:42:33 MDT
John K Clark wrote:
> >Do you get the same result if you only send one photon through
one
> >slot? Or do you have to send two photons through both the slots
at
> >different times?
>
> One photon (or electron) never makes a smug, it always makes a nice neat
> little spot on the film, regardless of how many slots you have, but the
> pattern the spots build up into is very different, even if you send them
> through one at a time. With one slot you just get a diffuse picture of
the
> slot itself, with 2 slots the points build up into a complex interference
> pattern. Suppose you just send one electron through the 2 slots, record
> the position of the spot on the film, destroy the entire device, build
> another machine and send one just one electron through it and so on.
> When you plot the position of all the little spots together, all the spots
> produced by all the 2 slit machines, you will start to see an
interference
> pattern emerge.
This is simple: I don't know which slit the photon/electron is going to go
through and I can't find out. I have to send more than one photon/electron
towards the slits to make sure they go through, they are likely to go through
both. All this says to me is that interference between photons and electrons
isn't effected by time. If I send them through one at a time I get
interference from the one I haven't sent through yet, but I still have to
send through both slits at some point in time.
Am I missing something?
> Don't ask how the electron even knows of the existence of
> the slit it did not go through, much less is influenced by it, don't try
to
> make sense out of it, you can't, it's just weird.
Too late.
--Wax
P.S. Just to add to the weirdness (you enjoy it really). If at some point we
prove that Everett theory is true, the universe will split into two (or more)
realities, one where the theory is true (this one) and one where it is not.
Because in the other reality the theory is not true, our reality cannot
exist! So as soon as we consciously observe the existence of many worlds,
those many worlds will collapse leaving only one!
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