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Double-slit (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago by coja@lemmy.ml to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] HoHum@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Can someone post a search term or some other clue so we can learn?

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The double slit experiment demonstrates the wave-particle duality of light.

You shoot photons at a barrier that has two slits in it. The pattern on the backstop appears as in the top right panel: an interference pattern, because light is behaving as a wave.

Next, you set up a detector at the slits, so that you can determine which slit each photon passed through, one photon at a time. Now the pattern on the backstop appears as the lower right panel, not an interference pattern, because each photon is acting as a particle.

Not looking: wave. Looking: particle.

[-] Neato@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago

Exactly. The issue is that you can't detect photons without interacting with them. So it isn't observation like so many people think. It's that if you interact with subatomic particles you change their state.

[-] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The issue is that you can’t detect photons without interacting with them.

Can't...So far, right? Like there hasn't been a method developed to somehow detect indirectly without interaction? I don't know enough about this to know how one might go about that, but I imagine those that know more might love to given whatever knowledge may be gained.

[-] Neato@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago

No. Can't. The only interaction sensors have is with particles. Photons usually. All things give off light but then measuring light itself, measuring is destructive.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 2 points 10 months ago

Lol this guy still believes in particles

[-] DrQuint@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Ah! A field absolutist. Keep preaching, friend.

[-] Klear@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

"Detecting" equals "interaction" in this context. You can't detect them without detecting them.

[-] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

Although, given some further thought, isn't the double-slit experiment being discussed here sort of demonstrative of a "detection" without detection, i.e. the wave pattern vs. the particle pattern emerging after "detection/measurement/interaction"? Or am I misunderstanding it?

Is there another way they operate/appear outside of the wave-particle that eludes observation?

[-] IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Im not an expert but tour comment should be on top. Knowing this, all makes sense so easy.

[-] elxeno@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

What if u look at only one of the slits?

[-] Gabu@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Same deal, you're still measuring and can still determine which photons passed through which slit.

[-] fruitSnackSupreme@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

But then you potentially wouldn't be interacting with all the photons right?

[-] Gabu@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You are, just not in an intuitive way. Because you'd know the rate of emission of your light source, the information of when a photon passes slit-2 would still "tag" them (whatever photon didn't pass slit-1 must have passed slit-2).

[-] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

TLDR the goddamn universe makes no fucking sense if you really look at it.

[-] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Not looking at it only introduces more uncertainty.

[-] DrQuint@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Just start believing the conspiracy theories. Looking or not looking just changes the lighting system from ambient to raytracing, simple. Why spend so many resources rendering what no ~~player~~ is there to observe? Low level simulation on unloaded chunks.

[-] kromem@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Young's double slit experiment.

When which slit a photon goes through is unobserved, it behaves like a wave and self interferes so many photons create an interference pattern with stripes where self-interactions prevented any photons from appearing.

When the photon is interacted with in a way which leaves permanent information about which slit it went through, it behaves like a particle and the pattern from many photons looks 'ballistic' like you were shooting tiny balls through each slit.

So in the meme when he's not looking at the slits, there's stripes, and when he's looking it's a ballistic pattern.

[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If particles act as waves, but are not directly observed then those waves will interfere with each other and make the first image (this is correct). If it is observed directly, the wave collapses and you get the second one. Note that you would effectively only ever see the first one.

[-] Vryoptic@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Double-slit experiment

[-] elbucho@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

TL;DR: quantum mechanics is freaky. In the double-slit experiment, it was shown that un-observed photons behaved like a wave, interfering with itself (top pic), while observed photons acted like particles (bottom pic). The phenomenon is known as wave function collapse.