Electron self inteference

Jack,

Take a look at Nick Herbert's classic Quantum Reality: Beyond The New Physics. Herbert explores for the non-specialist the major schools of thought which attempt to unravel the actual, physical "reality" underlying quantum phenomena (one school even asserts that there is no underlying reality! I disagree) and how it might explain the utterly bizarre, counter-intuitive World of the Very Small.

A fascinating read, IMHO.

I will. The reason I try to take apart Young's 2 slit is that I am perfectly aware that the quantum business of the super position being collapsed when observed smells, intentional or not, an awful lot like the good Bishop Berkeley's assertion that none of this exists except in the mind of god.

Nonetheless, I think my question is valid. Are we through a language error making a conceptual error about reality. Could such an error have persisted all these years? I would find that incredible!

Nonetheless, whilst not a mathematician, nor a physicist, I am a hard nosed materialist and that is what I try to apply to all that exists.

The recitation as to the 2 slit appears to me a language mix up of two separate states of nature, i.e., the particle state, and the wave state, which are not the same, the latter being the mass expression of the former and, I would guess, the necessary result of various particle charge properties.

Although useful, quantum and Heisenberg's uncertainty maths, although I cannot handle the math, seem to be a work around what is said to be unobservable, again an echo of idealist philosophy, Kant's unknowable thing in itself, or to push it further that nonesense of which university philosophy professors are so fond, the so-called "Mind/body separation" which today we have completey overcome with our ability via MRI to actually watch the brain/mind at work.

I note I am asked if this is off topic. I don't know if it is for those of you reading this thread. I came upon this thread because I was searching, in regard to the Young 2 slit, for information in re electron make-up and behavior and found this lovely thread with the authors exposition of electron makeup and behavior including its seemingly strange behavior in time. Indeed, I think that considering the thread on electrons, my search nicely complements and is complemented by the original source of this thread.

If I am wrong I apologise but what I was here reading seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

Jack Jersawitz

404-892-1238

bigjackjj@yahoo.com

Interesting as this subject is I think that there are three keys points that you are missing (and sorry if this sounds as though I'm trying to teach people how to suck eggs!)

1. The world is not deterministic - outcomes of events (micro- and macro-world) are controlled by probability distributions (go flip a coin!)

2. A "Theory" (which QM is): this strictly means that it does not describe what actually happens or what something actually is rather it is a way to describe and explain the outcomes of certain events within the limits of its assumptions.

2. QM is not saying the photon or electron is a particle or is a wave - as the theory is constructed the behaviour of the photon or electron can be described as either a particle or wave at the same time. However, certain events/processes mean that you can only explain them when using one or the other ways to interpret the event/process.

Ta

Brian

What Brian is saying at 3 (Although in error 2) begins to clear for me the language expression of QM theory.

If you believe as Brian and I am sure many physicists do that "1. The world is not deterministic - outcomes of events (micro- and macro-world) are controlled by probability distributions (go flip a coin!)" then you are free to say that the manner of description, particle or wave, is only an accomodation to describe an unknowable (Kant) world, therefore possibly only a mental phenomina of god (Berkeley) instead of our best way to describe "certain events/processes" of knowable but as yet unknown phenomina.

But that is precisely the reason I try to penetrate the QM "mystery" that many describe, phycisists included, as an opening in reality back to all the nonesense of idealism and mysticism. Indeed, I knew here in Atlanta a very nice man, a Georgia Tech physicist, who used to hold what I would assert were seances at his home. Lots of nice students there, I went to one, lapping up his mystical garbage.

If one believes that the world is not in fact material then one is free to say that "The world is not deterministic" and all that goes on is merely a coin toss.

In physics, or any other science as I understand it, "Theory" is an attempt to explain the existence and functioning of a concrete, material world, that exists, outside or in spite of, our brains, consciousness, etc. Our attempts to understand that material world are, at base and origins, our attempts to take our existence into our own hands and prolong it.

I was not here looking for a philisophical discussion in mysticism although I certainly knew it was possible.

The fact is, terms like deterministic aside, that the universe is material and our theorys, when they are right, prove it. "Theory" in science is bi-valent it is theory as a projection/hypothesis, but assumes a harder meaning, best proven description of reality, after testing proves it valid.

The puzzle of QM is all the more important when you know, as I assume we all do, that electrons are no longer just theoretical little bits of reality. We have cameras that are capable of seeing molecules and atoms, and photographing them, and as well the orbital haze of the electrons. I know it is common to talk about not believing what you see but....

Who was it...IBM, that gave us the pictures of writing at the molecule/atom level? Reality is obviously not just a notion in Bishop Berkeley's gods mind.

I have no problem with describing electrons as particles that in mass travel as waves just as water molecules in mass travel, when disturbed, as waves. I do have a problem with Brian's implication that all of this is not material, correct me if my understanding of your use of "deterministic" is not meant that way, because in physics class folks go on teaching the "mystery" of the Young 2 slit and other extensions of it.

I am always fascinated by these discussions because of what they tell me about mental process. Nonetheless I must agree with IMHO who agrees there is an actual "underlying reality."

Roger, whose thread started me on this and was precisely the sort of thing I was searching for, and his "self inteference" of electrons which obviously might address the 2 slit inteference phenomina might be the proof of that underlying reality instead of the class room mysticism which might be more fun for some.

j.

Very interesting discution (I like QM. It's pity that I am not a phisicist nor matematition):

My question: mater and energy is the same think, right?...at the same time...

so what time is?

One example of a material object that is exhibits the properties of wave and particle would be an airplane propeller. It is solid, yet not solid. It can be traced as a sinusoidal waveform, whose wavelength is a function of its frequency and velocity. Like an electron, it is not possible to determine its position and velocity at the same time. Instantaneous measurement with high speed camera could show the instantaneous position of the blades, but not the velocity or frequency (rpm)

If many such objects were to travel through an appropriate sized slit, I believe that they would show the same dispersion pattern as we find in the original experiment, which gives rise to quantum theory. that is to say, that the rotational inertia of the object is not the same as the linear inertia, and depending on how the edges of the slit interact with the particle (propeller) determines what inertia has the primary influence.

just my lay thoughts.