2 ms·

It makes me wonder, is speed a factor? How fast are they traveling?

• pmjordan 15y ago
  Velocity is part of the wave function, but varying it shouldn't affect the qualitative result of the experiment. It will change the specific intensity pattern on the detector side.
• jessriedel 15y ago
  It's not a speed factor. The possibility for observing quantum interference is controlled by the amount of environmental decoherence. (This is roughly the amount of interaction with the rest of the universe.) Decoherence is eliminated by working in a high vacuum, carefully designing the slits, etc. In principle, interference of macroscopic object is possible, but the sources of decoherence generally increase exponentially with object size. If you look at figure 3, you can see that the molecules are traveling at 10-100 meters per second, depending on size.