3 ms·
The author left off at precisely the point I was hoping they would get across: How the wave that extends everywhere in space, obviously doesn't. I mean, I know
by carrolldunham 6y ago
The author left off at precisely the point I was hoping they would get across: How the wave that extends everywhere in space, obviously doesn't. I mean, I know you can make a localised 'packet' or whatever with an infinite sum of sine waves, but then wouldn't you have to talk about infinite photons moving every time 'one photon' hits a detector?
- krastanov 6y agoIt is a neat trick actually. If you superimpose a few of these waves with frequencies that are fairly close, then you will see how they cancel out in the distance, while they reinforce each other in the center. This is called a "wave packet". 3blue1brown was somewhat useful, somewhat tangential video on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBnnXbOM5S4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBnnXbOM5S4 The more rigorous way to say "superimpose a few of these waves", is to say that there is some uncertainty in the frequency. This uncertainty in the frequency lets you have more certainty about the position (the wave packet is centered somewhere, instead of being completely distributed the way an infinite plane wave is)
- l33tman 6y agoIt's an infinite sum of variations of the same photon, not an infinite amount of photons. When it hits the detector (or, really, when the researcher eventually gets entangled with the experiment) it is detected as a single interaction. This is why the terminology is confusing. A "classical" photon just doesn't exist in the modern treatment but we still need it to talk about what we do.