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If they tried with a large enough object I wonder if they could film it going through the slits, like with a high-speed camera. I guess individual molecules ca
by radarsat1 15y ago
If they tried with a large enough object I wonder if they could film it going through the slits, like with a high-speed camera. I guess individual molecules can't be photographed without an electron microscope though.
- maggit 15y agoNo, that would change the experiment into "Which slit does the object pass through?", instead of the current experiment "How does a beam of objects manipulate the wall behind these slits?" Observing the object in either one of the slits would remove the necessary precondition for getting the interference pattern on the wall, so the pattern would no longer be there in your experiment.
- pmjordan 15y agoAs soon as you know where the particle is, you're collapsing the wavefunction (the photons are interacting with the particle), so that won't work.
- simonh 15y agoIf anything interacts with the object in-transit, such as photons bouncing off it to take pictures, then it's quantum wave function would collapse and nolonger be uncertain. It would essentially 'force' particle-like behaviour.
- ovi256 15y agoWell, as soon as you "observe" it, the wavefunction collapses. In this experiment, they observe it way after it passes through the slits, so the quantum can pass through both slits. If you observe it before passing, if that's possible, the wavefunction will collapse at that moment, and the quantum will pass, like a particle, through a single slit. No idea how it would be possible to observe it mid-flight though.
- dhimes 15y agoWell, as soon as you "observe" it, the wavefunction collapses ...according to the most commonly accepted interpretation at any rate.
- judofyr 15y agoI think he mixed up the observation and the conclusion/interpretation: Well, as soon as you "observe" it, we will no longer see an interference pattern
- ovi256 15y ago>Well, as soon as you "observe" it, we will no longer see an interference pattern That's not strictly true, because the experiment is observing the quantum, and it is seeing an interference pattern. The critical thing is that they're observing it after the quantum has gone through the slits, so as it passes through the slotted wall, it's wavefunction is not constrained. So the moment of observation is very important.
- wavephorm 15y agoAs others have mentioned, the universe won't let us see what happens when a photon travels through the slits as a wave. It's as if God puts down a curtain, and instead shows it to us as a particle instead. We are not allowed to see what really happens. It is this phenomenon that makes me believe our Universe is in fact artificial, a digital simulation.