Alright, here you go you guys, the double slit experiment explained:
As an electron propagates, it is emitting its electromagnetic field which travels at the speed of light. As the electron passes through one of the slits, the electromagnetic field it was emitting before it entered the slit is still propagating away from its point of emission at the speed of light in all directions as a wave, so the electron’s electromagnetic field passes through both slits while the electron itself only passes through one. As the electron leaves the slit, it interacts with its own electromagnetic field which it emitted earlier. Hence, the interference pattern.
“Ascribing a charge” is not quantizing it except as a mere example for an explanation of some relationship. It is giving an estimate of value to something that can never be perfectly precisely measured. They know that the decimal representation of a value is limited to the number of digits that can be recorded and accurately measured. Classical physics is not proposing that a given number is perfectly exact. Although they do propose that relationships between values are perfectly exact (calculus, which wouldn’t work in a quantized universe. But it does work in the real universe).
Right off the bat, electrons don’t “emit” charge. They are the result of charge, a center of concentration of the charge field.
There is a problem with that (besides the above mentioned issue).
Each electron would emit only one wave in front of itself (given that it “emits”). It could possibly interact with its own emission, but only once. That would cause that particular electron to shift its course.
The next electron has no idea where the first electron went. Its particular path is slightly different than the first. So when it has the same kind of interaction with its own emitted wave, it takes a still different course.
The question is; since the electrons seem to gather in certain places and avoid others, how do the electrons know where on the screen to gather and where to avoid?
According to Quantum Physics, they consider if they are being watched and choose based on that.
Physicists have been admitting that there are two physical “worlds” for them: (1) the “world of classical physics” and (2) the “world of quantum physics”.
Yes. One is objective and the other is solipsist.
Quantum Physics (and QM) are entirely about mental/mathematical constructs, not physical reality. Their “waves” are merely calculated graphs/equations/functions. The “wave-function collapse” is a collapse of the equation, the function. QM is NOT talking about a physical wave. But QP superstitiously proposes that the equation itself Is the only reality and that is why it collapses when an observer is involved. The equation is only in his head, but then so is all of reality (the double-slit experiment itself). If he isn’t observing, he can’t put in the extra information, thus the equation (in his head) doesn’t collapse. It is a con game of the mind, not Science at all.
Before particles had a charge, everything was assumed to have a north and a south. Finding that a particle can be positive or negative was perhaps the first time a particle had been quantized. However crude their physical representations of the particles (they obviously didn’t know the true shapes of electron orbitals), they still had the rote pattern of electrons ‘shells’ figured out.
Why do you think they only emit one wave? They are emitting a field constantly. Otherwise you are assuming action at a distance for two particles to be able to interact without having emitted a constant field.
You can completely dump the whole “particles aware that they’re being watched” notion in my opinion. There is however such thing as an ‘observer effect’, and that’s because the act of observation is mediated by a force carrier, implying that whatever you are observing had to have moved in the act of being observed.
You have no idea at all of what you are talking about concerning that entire issue.
The only wave that can occur by the electron traveling is the wave that proceeds in front of the electron. The electron takes one vector and thus would produce only one “wave-front” with which to interact.
But regardless the question remains;
I’m replying from a phone so it’s very difficult to manage embedded quotes, but in response to James:
- How don’t I
- How does the second part of your post explain why there wouldn’t be an interference pattern?
These electrons are being fired at about 40% the speed of light from what I’ve read, that’s fast enough to meet its own electromagnetic field in certain circumstances under the right conditions
For a pattern to form, there has to be a reason for all electrons to avoid particular regions on the screen, regardless of the initial angle they entered the slots.
It’s just the geometrical pattern formed when two (or more) waves meet; the same pattern can be seen in waves of water or waves of anything.
The electron could be anywhere in its electromagnetic field; does that make sense? It’s still sort of ‘just making sense to me’ (and I first heard about it years ago). It has made sense to me before in the past, but then I either forget it (since it’s counter-intuitive) or doubt it and try to re-think it through. Reading this today helped as it describes an actual test of the experiment (instead of just being a thought experiment): http://www.hitachi.com/rd/portal/research/em/doubleslit.html
One electron at a time (allowing for two “wave-fronts”) doesn’t form a pattern (by the theory you are suggesting).
Each new electron takes a different path and thus has a different interference.
…not to mention that an electron isn’t a wave.
It’s not dependent on the path of the electron, it’s dependent on the size of the slits and distance the slits are away from the detector.
I actually got to see the double-slit experiment performed in a class in high school; although it was done with a laser (not an electron microscope). The slit itself is actually incredibly small, and if I remember it took quite a bit of monkeying around with aiming everything just right to get the interference pattern.
A laser is an actual wave and continuous, thus a pattern is easily formed, just as expected, just like water waves. But single electrons is an entirely different issue. They happen to show a similar pattern, but the cause is entirely different. Currently QP proclaims that the cause can never be known. The best they have come up with is to presume that particles ARE waves (so as to make the wave theory work for particles). The problem with that is that particles are NOT waves, except to the Quantum Magi and even if they were, single wavefronts (not being continuous) wouldn’t make a pattern anyway.
Science is merely their religion, making excuses for their theories. They are Theists.
Although I don’t think they have a consciousness or whatever, what I think you were actually trying to get at initially (before you decided to start rambling emotionally instead) was your concerns regarding unforeseen consequences with particle accelerators and the like - which is a concern I share.
We simply do not know what is beyond these particles we are tampering with. There is nothing for us to compare it to, it is entirely new territory. And all of the theories in physics we depend on to tell us that what we’re doing is safe and won’t accidentally suck the planet into a black hole are only theoretical - they’re assumptions built off of assumptions built off of assumptions, built off of assumptions; and in order to verify those assumptions, we use another body of assumptions.
Does the same type of particle annihilation occurring in a collider ever occur in nature? Suppose the Higg’s boson is self-perpetuating and could cause a cascade of mass-creation? We are talking about a particle proposed to play a role in the primordial mechanics responsible for space, time, matter, and energy themselves - the creation of the very fabric and laws of existence. With those kinds of mechanisms at play, how can we at all convince ourselves that what we are doing is safe?
To claim that what physicists are dabbling in is “safe” would imply that they already know the bounds and limitations of what they are working with – even though unknown bounds and limitations are precisely what they are trying to look for!
The existence of “dark energy” and “dark matter” that physicists have to assume (in order for many of their equations to make sense) can only mean in my opinion that there are still more subatomic particles and possibly even more subatomic forces we haven’t discovered yet.
Basically I think saying there is ‘dark energy and dark matter’ is just a way for physicists to bundle together everything they haven’t accounted for yet. It’s like the ultimate “we don’t know”; it’s just a convenient placeholder.
An electron’s electromagnetic field is a wave as well.
The electron itself isn’t actually bumping into the walls of the slits, it’s electromagnetic field is.
In a very rough sense, the ‘point particle electron’ is told where to go by its electromagnetic field.
The influence of this electromagnetic field propagates out as a wave; thus, when we fire an electron at high speeds (fast enough to make a trip around the earth something like 10 times in a single second, to put it in perspective) at a double slit apparatus, this wave interferes with itself causing the electron to hit the back wall in locations we’d expect from an interference pattern produced by multiple waves.
I remember making sense of all this years and years ago, but for some reason like a year or two ago I shed doubt on what I knew and started trying to think of it in different ways.
There’s really no other way to think about it though…
Also, you said earlier that an electron doesn’t ‘emit’ its electromagnetic field; do you think that it ‘is’ its electromagnetic field? I view subatomic particles like electrons as point-particles, and their wave-like properties are the result of forces.
The big problem with thinking that a particle such as an electron ‘is’ the wave of the electromagnetic field is that the negative charge throughout the electron cloud should repel other parts of the electron cloud causing it to disperse.
What do you guys think of this for an explanation why positives and negative charges attract and how electromagnetic interactions work?:
First, let’s think about what a photon is; photons are like packaged inertia - light (in the entire electromagnetic spectrum) is like a wave of inertia. When light comes in contact with a particle, the particle is accelerated in the opposite direction.
Photons are both positive and negative. When a photon comes in contact with an electron, the negative element of the photon causes repulsion, resulting in acceleration of the electron. The positive element of the photon however, continues propagating uninterrupted. The negative electromagnetic field of the electron propagates in the opposite direction of where the photon made contact with the electron; this negative electromagnetic field coincides with the positive element of the photon - and what this means is that the acceleration of the electron produced a photon. This way of viewing electromagnetic interactions is similar to the various proposed theories of ‘virtual particles’; the negative element of the photon is disbanded from the photon, while the positive element of the photon joins the electron - although it may appear to be the same photon, it is actually a newly formed photon resulting from the electron conjoining with the positive element of the old photon. This new photon also has a lower frequency.
Now, why do positives and negatives attract? Why do particles with a negative electromagnetic charge (electrons) stay bound to particles with a positive electromagnetic charge (protons)? My answer is simply that charged particles follow a path of least resistance, and there is the least resistance in the direction of an oppositely-charged particle.
Consider an electron bound to a proton; for the electron, every direction besides the direction of the proton is more negative than positive - the direction of the proton is the least negative, and therefore less resistance.
Positive and negative electromagnetic fields never interact with each other - only like charges interact, producing repulsion. There is no such thing as ‘attraction’, only path of least resistance.
Thinking about my first paragraph some more, I think it would imply that there is no such thing as ‘speed’ for an electron, only relative velocity.
So by your theory, why don’t electrons collide with protons?
I have nothing supporting this, it’s all just speculation, but first of all, what do you mean ‘collide’? At this scale, you need to be specific. Kinetic interactions are mediated by electromagnetism, so if that’s what you mean by ‘collide’, I already explained that.
Anyways, I’m guessing your question was something like, why doesn’t an electron fly into the proton and displace the quarks inside of it, and here is my answer for you:
The three quarks which constitute the proton are in a sort of equilateral triangle formation. If the down quark were to move closer to one of the two up quarks, the up quarks would have to move away from each other due to their own repulsion, and therefore the down quark makes no progress in distance getting closer to either of the up quarks… An up quark couldn’t move closer to either the down quark or the other up quark for similar reasons - all the charges are balanced and no headway can be made. An up quark can’t move closer to the down quark, because it is being repulsed by the other up quark.
Now realistically, these quarks are inseparable. Because there is nothing between them, they will stay in their arrangement more or less indefinitely.
As an electron approaches, it doesn’t matter how close it gets, its not ever going to separate the three quarks, because if one quark moves, the other 2 quarks move right along with it, and nothing short of a particle accelerator can make it otherwise.
Just keep in mind that the quarks in a proton are literally as close together as they can possibly be, and only when you fire two protons directly at each other at high speeds does quark displacement become a possibility.
Then you have the weak nuclear force, protons changing into neutrons, neutrons changing into protons, and I have no friggin idea how to explain that at all.
Another explanation is that the repulsion from the negative charge of the down quark is enough to maintain a distance between the proton and a nearby electron. Remember, I am assuming that there is no such thing as electromagnetic attraction - only electromagnetic repulsion and path of least resistance, so nothing would be causing the electron to accelerate closer towards the atomic nucleus other than that direction being the path of least resistance; once it came within a close enough proximity to the negative charge of the down quark, it would no longer be the path of least resistance.
Also, here are a few other things that might play some sort of role in everything: down quarks are more massive than up quarks; someone once told me that the ‘flavor-charge’ of quarks should not be considered the exact same thing as electromagnetic charge
One could fire 10 million electrons directly at a proton and not a single one of them would actually hit the proton despite the apparent attraction to it combined with the aiming at it.
There is an interestingly unnamed “force” that prevents them from colliding. It isn’t named because you aren’t supposed to know about it. It is used in secretive ways in order to do “magical” things (until the enemy discovers how it all works anyway). Quantum physics and its proposed entities is merely a clever distraction.