5 ms·

Many years ago, a friend (who is far smarter than I am) said something to me that made wave-particle duality click: "It's not that it's sometimes a particle an

by mabbo 5y ago

Many years ago, a friend (who is far smarter than I am) said something to me that made wave-particle duality click: "It's not that it's sometimes a particle and sometimes a wave. It's that very small things have a bunch of properties: some are shared with waves, and some are shared with small solid objects." We're duck-typing what we see and going "aha! It's a particle! No wait, now it's a wave!" but the class simply has both sets of methods on it and does not care how we classify it.

Angostura 5y ago
That doesn't really help me understand how a single 'thing' interferes with itself when travelling through a double slit, unfortunately.
- danielheath 5y ago
  I always struggled with that too - I found this Veritasium video helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ&ab_channel=Veritasium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ&ab_channel=Verit...
  - __s 5y ago
    Never heard of this, looked up whether there was some gap in the theory the video failed to mention, found a discussion on why this model isn't more pervasive: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/341400/why-would-pilot-wave-be-wrong https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/341400/why-would... & one comment which specifically separates pilot waves from the bouncing droplet demo https://old.reddit.com/r/quantum/comments/7crdz6/whats_wrong_with_pilot_wave_theory/dpuw6h5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/quantum/comments/7crdz6/whats_wrong...
- __s 5y ago
  If you view a body of water as a single thing, would you think it odd that its wave interferes with itself in the double slit? The issue isn't unintuitive phenomena (intuitive being patterns in microscopic/macroscopic scale which match by analogy to patterns you've learnt all your life from phenomena at your scale), but inadequately modeled phenomena https://youtu.be/citY6G8ePJw?t=223 https://youtu.be/citY6G8ePJw?t=223 > But what can I call it? I can say they behave like a particle-wave or they behave in a typical quantum mechanical manner. There isn't any word for it, if I say they behave like particles, I give the wrong impression if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way. Which, technically, could be called the quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is nothing like anything you have seen before. Your experience with things you have seen before is inadequate, is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different ... Well, there's at least one simplification, at least electrons behave exactly in this respect as photons, that is they're both screwy, but in exactly the same way ... But the difficulty really is psychological, and exists in the perpetual torment that exists from your saying to yourself "But how can it be like that?" which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled by say an utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar. I'll simply describe it
  - mabbo 5y ago
    Before opening the link, I read the text and thought "This sounds like Feynman!" The man truly had a way of speaking that is instantly recognizable.
- mabbo 5y ago
  Because that's a thing it can do. It's properties include self-interference. You are building your expectations of 'what a thing can do' based on the macro world you live in and the things you see and experience 'up here'. But down there, the rules are simply different. Our expectations and intuition are simply not evolved to handle situations that occur in that level of reality. We've never thrown a rock and watched it self-interfere. But we should throw a lot of doubt at anyone who claims that it's all very natural to them, imho.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Sure, but there are still different interpretation of QM to sort out, and electron jumps have recently been measured to take time. Which contradicts the idea that jumps were instantaneous. We don't know everything about QM, so it's right to push back somewhat on claims that it's just different. Isn't that basically saying shut up and calculate?
- criddell 5y ago
  I've always wondered if the particle is traveling at the speed of light, is there any sense of sequence in that frame? Interference would require it to be at point A before point B. If I understand it correctly, for the particle no time passes between when it is emitted on the front side and detected on the back side. So could that interference just be what the path of least resistance looks like in a different frame?
- goohle 5y ago
  See it there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by mabbo 5y ago

Angostura 5y ago

That doesn't really help me understand how a single 'thing' interferes with itself when travelling through a double slit, unfortunately.

danielheath 5y ago
I always struggled with that too - I found this Veritasium video helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ&ab_channel=Veritasium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ&ab_channel=Verit...
- __s 5y ago
  Never heard of this, looked up whether there was some gap in the theory the video failed to mention, found a discussion on why this model isn't more pervasive: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/341400/why-would-pilot-wave-be-wrong https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/341400/why-would... & one comment which specifically separates pilot waves from the bouncing droplet demo https://old.reddit.com/r/quantum/comments/7crdz6/whats_wrong_with_pilot_wave_theory/dpuw6h5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/quantum/comments/7crdz6/whats_wrong...
__s 5y ago
If you view a body of water as a single thing, would you think it odd that its wave interferes with itself in the double slit? The issue isn't unintuitive phenomena (intuitive being patterns in microscopic/macroscopic scale which match by analogy to patterns you've learnt all your life from phenomena at your scale), but inadequately modeled phenomena https://youtu.be/citY6G8ePJw?t=223 https://youtu.be/citY6G8ePJw?t=223 > But what can I call it? I can say they behave like a particle-wave or they behave in a typical quantum mechanical manner. There isn't any word for it, if I say they behave like particles, I give the wrong impression if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way. Which, technically, could be called the quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is nothing like anything you have seen before. Your experience with things you have seen before is inadequate, is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different ... Well, there's at least one simplification, at least electrons behave exactly in this respect as photons, that is they're both screwy, but in exactly the same way ... But the difficulty really is psychological, and exists in the perpetual torment that exists from your saying to yourself "But how can it be like that?" which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled by say an utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar. I'll simply describe it
- mabbo 5y ago
  Before opening the link, I read the text and thought "This sounds like Feynman!" The man truly had a way of speaking that is instantly recognizable.
mabbo 5y ago
Because that's a thing it can do. It's properties include self-interference. You are building your expectations of 'what a thing can do' based on the macro world you live in and the things you see and experience 'up here'. But down there, the rules are simply different. Our expectations and intuition are simply not evolved to handle situations that occur in that level of reality. We've never thrown a rock and watched it self-interfere. But we should throw a lot of doubt at anyone who claims that it's all very natural to them, imho.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Sure, but there are still different interpretation of QM to sort out, and electron jumps have recently been measured to take time. Which contradicts the idea that jumps were instantaneous. We don't know everything about QM, so it's right to push back somewhat on claims that it's just different. Isn't that basically saying shut up and calculate?
criddell 5y ago
I've always wondered if the particle is traveling at the speed of light, is there any sense of sequence in that frame? Interference would require it to be at point A before point B. If I understand it correctly, for the particle no time passes between when it is emitted on the front side and detected on the back side. So could that interference just be what the path of least resistance looks like in a different frame?
goohle 5y ago
See it there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]