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Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment

The granddaddy of experiments to show quantum mechanics in action.

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15 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

evergrim : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:2007 Winner

evergrim

31 votes NegativePositive

212 days 2 hours ago...

Makes you wonder if that`s what we are doing all the time, by observing reality we might be forming it into a stable state that we can control and comprehend.

rambot59 : LVL 1: VP 1: said:

rambot59

16 votes NegativePositive

212 days ago...

So if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, it doesn`t make a noise?

Flynn_2006 : LVL 45: VP 5: said:

Flynn_2006

2 votes NegativePositive

212 days ago...

Who`s to say our mindset are capable of understand it with the current mathematics model. Since none of the species on earth had to evolve and survive in the quantum level, our senses and mind aren`t exactly equipped to deal with quantum environment just yet. If there were species living in the quantum world, they would look at us in a strange way too.

amnesiac : LVL 35: VP 4.3: said:

amnesiac

5 votes NegativePositive

211 days 23 hours ago...

quantum world (reality) > enters brain > brain interprets (as 5 different senses) > we live and learn

Conclusion, we are what our brain tells us. We are shown the external world in such a way that we must survive as long as possible, and prolong the surivival of our species. So goes for every other type of life form out there (animals, insects, plants, cells, etc).

Pyranique : LVL 24: VP 3.3: said:

Pyranique

-4 votes NegativePositive

211 days 23 hours ago...


Sexy title.

hisoka : LVL 40: VP 4.8: said:

hisoka

-5 votes NegativePositive

211 days 22 hours ago...

Awesome.

And I agree with Pyra, when I clicked this I was expecting something entirely different.

Leopard : LVL 32: VP 4.1: said:

Leopard

-6 votes NegativePositive

211 days 22 hours ago...

^^ LMAO @ Pyranique

Damn i wish i didn`t have to lean all this for Phys A level..
Doesn`t Help that my teacher sucks ass...

Wavelength = slit separation x distance of fringes
distance from slits

Bill The Poo : LVL 27: VP 3.6: said:

Bill The Poo

14 votes NegativePositive

211 days 22 hours ago...

@rambot59

I`m gonna quote one of my favourite authors, Philip K Dick (he was referring to the question so don`t say it`s out of context):
"...if you didn`t have ears, you would not interpret a perturbation in the atmosphere as sound, because sound really refers to the membrane of the ear and, you know, the cochlea, you know, and all that stuff. That`s where sound occurs. Sound occurs in the ears. Sound does not occur in the atmosphere. It occurs essentially within the human being..."

Basically, if a tree falls and no ones around, it makes no noise.

unireality : LVL 2: VP 1.1: said:

unireality

Hidden (Show Comment) -10 votes

211 days 22 hours ago...

this is a bunch of bs....i believe the clip is from a documentary called "what the bleep do we know". it basically twists the ideas of Quantum Mechanics to support their own false beliefs and ideas that somehow an observer just by observing changes the world....Scientifically it is complete nonsense....Quantum physicist do not agree with this at all....the reality is independent of our observing it....the universe exists and acts based on certain physical principals...whether we are there to observe it or not...it doesnt matter.....an electron is not deciding how to act...it is simply bound by the forces just like when i jump up...i dont decide that i should fall now....i just fall....how difficult is that to understand...i do realize that our common sense does not apply to quantum world and it is strange...but what they are trying to convince us in this video is complete non scientific nonsense........

Boncos : LVL 26: VP 3.5: said:

Boncos

5 votes NegativePositive

211 days 21 hours ago...

That means that in some level we can always get brainwashed.. FUCK!! I though it was 100% science.

Nose Nuggets : LVL 8: VP 1.7: said:

Nose Nuggets

20 votes NegativePositive

211 days 20 hours ago...

Unireality: this is so far from BS, but that’s ok; I understand your position. From watching the theatrical first release of what the bleep, this was not in it. However, at the end it does look like they are about to go to the basketball court scene. So I cant be sure. Regardless, this two slit test has been conducted and confirmed by MANY a university and scientist, and I can promise you that every result is the same as in this video, with and without observation. It’s a common scientific understanding that waves of probability are collapsed by the act of observation. If you get into string theory, and super strings, you will find where these waves originate.

You are correct about the movie what the bleep, there was a lot of things covered that have nothing to do with actual science, sadly. However there was a lot that was squarely rooted in modern peer reviewed science. Non science related subject matter would be Ramtha and the dude who froze water with labels on the bottles. I have not seen anything peer reviewed or backed up by good sources on either of these subjects. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, is very much mainstream science at this point as the results are repeatable.

The true fact of the matter is; science is not set in stone. We have no laws in science, only theories. It’s not Newton’s law of gravitation, it’s Newton’s theory, even as sure as we all are about falling after we jump. To say unequivocally that all things are bound by what you perceive as ‘laws of physics’ during your brief journey through life do not make it thus.

There are far more things in this universe that we know nothing about then know something about. Our realm of understands spans a single planet that orbits a single star among a hundred thousand million stars, in one galaxy among hundreds of millions more. You are doing yourself a disservice by not being open to the fact that we know jack shit, in the grand scheme of things.

continues...

Nose Nuggets : LVL 8: VP 1.7: said:

Nose Nuggets

19 votes NegativePositive

211 days 20 hours ago...

You would probably be comfortable in the notion that time is constant. Time always passes for you at one second per second to you, as the observer. If you took two watches that where exactly the same and put one in a shuttle orbiting the earth for couple weeks at about 17,000 MPH it would come back with a slightly retarded time in comparison to the one that stayed on earth. Now, the watch in space isn’t younger, time still passes at the same rate, but its relative. Speed is one of two things that govern the rate of time; the other is mass. For example, a super nova (collapsing star) is EXTREMLY dense. A teaspoon of super nova would weight hundreds of millions of tons, maybe more. If you could stand on a supernova and observe earth, it would be spinning like a top as it’s orbiting the sun at an alarming rate. Now, a black hole is theoretically the densest thing in existence, it’s so dense that light itself can’t escape its gravitational pull. If you could touch a black hole, all of existence would pass in a fraction of a second. Now, if you could watch someone go and touch a black hole, they would stretch out infinitely, and it would take them all of existence to finally cover that distance and touch the black hole.

Bill The Poo : LVL 27: VP 3.6: said:

Bill The Poo

14 votes NegativePositive

211 days 19 hours ago...

^ I like this guy.

LeighCedar : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

LeighCedar

10 votes NegativePositive

211 days 19 hours ago...

HAve to back up both Nose Nuggets and Unireality,

Yes this particular clip is representing science accurately, but most of the movie is total BS pseudoscience thrown together as a requirement drive for a wacky religious cult led by the 10,000 (?) year old spirit of an Ancient Atleatean Warrior who just happens to take up residence in a stupid huckster of a woman.

Quantum Physics is so very interesting, but please don`t let this clip fool you into watching the movie.

noachr : LVL 2: VP 1.1: said:

noachr

7 votes NegativePositive

211 days 18 hours ago...

As mentioned above, this clip depicts accurate physics. As strange as it is, the electron`s state is changed by the observer. But its not mystical -- the electron doesn`t "sense" someone watching it. In experiments such as this, observation generally means detecting how/if the electron changes an electric or magnetic field. In everyday life, observation means detecting reflected light. In both cases, photons are interacting with the "observed" object and then being detected. When the electron has such an interaction, its state collapses from the superposition of all states (both slits, one slit, etc.) to just one state. Which state is collapses to depends on the nature of the initial superposition; there could be an even probably of collapsing to all states, or one state could be much more likely. So, initially the electron has no well defined path through the apparatus; observation forces the electron to "take a stand" and choose one according to the state`s relative probabilities.

Where "What the bleep" and other pseudo-scientific works of that ilk become BS is their suggestion that human consciousness is necessary for such a state collapse, or even that consciousness can select which state is chosen instead of the measurement proceeding probabilistically.

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Entry Dates: 9/8/2007-9/14/2009