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Elderly Physicist Euthanastic Diffraction

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It has been said that the twin-slit experiment really embodies all the wierdness of the quantum world. Single photons (or electrons, or other small things) passing through the twin slit diffract and interfere, as though they went through both slits and interacted with themselves. Yet, if you add sensors to see which slit a particle passed through, you abolish the interference.

This is all very well and good, but, I mean, what?? It has never made any intuitive sense, and old physicists have frittered away their sunset years trying to show that there's some underlying mechanism that makes it all Make Sense. To date, of course, they have failed and it has even been proven that there cannot be an underlying "common sense" mechanism. But some people just won't be told.

Fortunately, MaxCo. has found a way to cater for these elderly physicists. Our set up consists of a trebuchet, and a large brick wall with a couple of slits in it. Another wall, without gaps, is somewhere off in the distance. Our customers - the aforementioned elderly physicists - first organise themselves into groups of at least 500 individuals, and are then fired toward the twin-slit wall one at a time, trebuchetally.

Many, of course, will miss both slits and simply hit the nearest wall. Too bad. The remainder, however, will sail through one, the other, **or both** of the available slits, and thence on towards the distant final wall. Shortly before impact, each elderly physicist will know (unless they blinked - again, too bad) whether they passed through the left slit, the right slit, or **both** slits. For a brief moment, they will have a direct first-hand experience of quantum wierdness - the universe's frilly underwear will be revealed to them in a moment of transcendent glory.

Of course, one of the criteria for successful diffraction is that you can't ask the diffractee which slit(s) he went through. This is where the euthanasia bit comes in, since impact with the final wall will, alas, happen at an inescapably terminal velocity, meaning that nobody can ask them "did you really go through both slits at once?". (Well, someone can ask them, but they will be in no position to answer.)

MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 16 2019

Yes, for reals https://thenextweb....-objective-reality/
[theircompetitor, Nov 16 2019]

[link]






       to do this properly, put the physicists into properly gyroscopic Schrödinger boxes (spheres if you like), so they couldn't tell even if they have been launched, of course, and prevent any observation of the launch or flight of the boxes, and then measure the scatter pattern on the first and second walls
theircompetitor, Nov 16 2019
  

       We tried, but we couldn't get the insurance for that.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 16 2019
  

       <Suspicious>   

       Who are you, and what have you done with the real [MB] ? Is this a policy change ? Since when does any Buchanan prefer insurance to bluff, bluster, and threats of immediate physical violence ?   

       </Suspicious >
8th of 7, Nov 16 2019
  

       Well, OK, to be precise - we couldn't find a lawyer who was prepared to draw up a convincing-looking document that appeared to give the appearance of appearing to be insured.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 16 2019
  

       Ah, now it makes sense ... carry on.
8th of 7, Nov 16 2019
  

       Carry On Diffracting didn't get the box-office returns it deserved.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 16 2019
  

       //link// So BEC is just an exuded container from the fabric of space-time that we need to get an observer behind?
wjt, Nov 17 2019
  

       Think of a Dewar flask, constructed of folded spacetime, but made like a five-dimensional Klein bottle with a knot in it, mapped to an n-manifold interlinked torus with a fractal perimeter.   

       Have you got that clearly visualized ? Good. Now, that's exactly what BEC isn't.
8th of 7, Nov 17 2019
  

       Nope, visualization justly goes to a blurry goo.
wjt, Nov 17 2019
  

       I love this idea, by the way. +   

       In particular the question of “who is the observer” in the collapse of the probability function- this is a solution where the experimenter can observe the result first-hand, without the external observation of the collapse of the wave function.
Frankx, Nov 18 2019
  

       //“who is the observer”// I think the main problem is that people assume that a quantum wavethingy either collapses or it doesn't, which flies in the arse of modern physics.   

       In fact, quantum collapse is a relative phenomenon - it may have happened for one observer, but not yet for another observer.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 18 2019
  

       Now days, all observers have cellphones. But really I want data on the un-collapsed, from the inside.What's the dance of the quarks inside a BEC?
wjt, Nov 21 2019
  

       //What's the dance of the quarks inside a BEC?//   

       Yes.
Sgt Teacup, Nov 21 2019
  

       //What's the dance of the quarks inside a BEC?//   

       Very much like the Dance of the Ewoks in ROTJ; it's not big and it's not clever.
8th of 7, Nov 21 2019
  

       The shiver dance. There going to be some waiting for the chill to get to the quark energy level.
wjt, Nov 22 2019
  

       Call me boring, but two very large slots which identical twins simultaneously walk through might get you more data?
not_morrison_rm, Nov 22 2019
  

       Sturton has a large collection of videos on a similar theme. Not much physics in them. Very ... physical ... certainly, but not much Physics.   

       <Wonders what "Elderly Physicist Enthusiastic Diffraction " might turn out to be/>
8th of 7, Nov 22 2019
  

       // Sturton has a large collection of videos on a similar theme// Not since he lent them to you he hasn't.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 22 2019
  

       I'm just wondering two things:   

       1. What kind of porn is being discussed immediately above?   

       2. Is 'euthanastic' really the adjectival form of 'euthanasia'? Chrome gives it a red underline, and that's with the Google-enhanced spelling thing enabled.
notexactly, Dec 04 2019
  

       Well, I can't be held responsible for Chrome or Google's vocabulary. In fact, given that Google is a madey-uppey word, I don't think they can quibble about "euthanastic".
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 04 2019
  
      
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