Re: String theory, double slit experiment



Mike Jr. wrote:

RP wrote:

david petry wrote:


I still have trouble intuitively grasping the results of the double
slit experiment for single particles. What I'm wondering is whether
string theory offers us an intuitively appealing explanation?

There has never been an experiment conducted with a single particle.

In my estimation string theory is nothing more than adding pixies upon
more pixies. Any theory that involves anything other than the
empirically derived data is just the empirical data plus ones favorite
version of pixies. A charged particle cannot pass through a slit
without interacting with the material from which the slit has been cut.
Interference results.
A single photon is a spherical wave emitted from a molecule or atom. It
doesn't pass through a dormant slit either, but rather it passes through
the entire apparatus, agitating its electrons as it passes. It is only
destructive interference that casts the shadows, and it is constructive
interference that produces the bright bands.

Richard Perry


Not so fast. Consider the "Two Slit Interference, One Photon at a
Time" experiment. You arrange things so that you allow only one photon
to pass through the double slit setup at a time. Over time, the
interference pattern builds up. The photon appears to travel all paths
to the screen and in the process interferes with itself. This is
consistent with Feynman's sum over all paths approach.

See, for example,
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scdiroff/lds/QuantumRelativity/SinglePhotonInterference/SinglePhotonInterference.html

--Mike Jr.

Yep. Which I just explained in another thread. Again I'll state, without apologies "There has never been an experiment conducted using a single particle ". It is quite an impossibility. Feynman's version of the explanation called sum-over-histories is identical in its results to classical spherical em wave interference. One photon at a time is a bull*** mantra that gets repeated way too often. You should read the details of the actual experiments. Besides, there is no way in hell to get one photon at a time, period, unless you take time to freeze everything around you down to absolute zero over many parsecs, all of them actually.

Richard Perry

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