Hi all, I've started a new YouTube series on the ontology and physical basis of Quantum Mechanics with Episode 1 on Wave-Particle Duality and the Single Slit experiment, would love your feedback!
https://youtu.be/r9C6STg8HI0
Episode 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and cover the Double Slit experiment with observation (my favourite experiment of all time!) Hope it's of interest.
Firstly please note that this is not just about interpretation. Wave-particle duality is a fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics.
David Deutsch, author of "The Fabric of Reality", is one of the leading proponents of the Many Worlds Interpretation. He holds that in the double slit experiment single photons interfere with photons from another world, rather than also being waves that can cause interference even if there is only one photon.
He seems not to believe in wave-particle duality.
https://www.bretthall.org/david-deutsch-mysticism-and-quantum-theory.html
David: Yeah. “Particle-wave duality.” Unfortunately, from my perspective, “particle-wave duality” is part of the equivocation and nonsense that was talked by the early pioneers of quantum theory in an attempt to avoid the parallel universes implications. And in fact there is no particle-wave duality.
I am astonished to discover this, and seek confirmation from others that this is really the case.
How can he explain interference patterns if particles cannot act like waves?
Are there other quantum physicists who take the same position?
I'm sure there are droves of these kinds of questions on here; thanks for answering.
When we talk about wave/particle duality, do we mean
- Things (everything??) are waves, but when we observe them, they collapse to particles. (This would suggest W/P is a dichotomy.)
- Everything is a wave, but the wavelength is often so small that we can safely treat it like a particle. (This would suggest W/P is a spectrum.)
- Other?
So I had a discussion a couple weeks ago with someone on the physics forum about the nature of the uncertainty principle. They were adamant that it's fundamental to the math (which I don't dispute) but were also insistent that it has nothing to do with statistics or repeated measurements, which is nonsense. It did get me thinking though - if we interpret the math of QM to mean that particles literally ARE waves (as opposed to simply behaving in ways that are well modeled by wavefunctions) then that means the HUP is a fundamental limit, which seems to be the most common interpretation and I tend to agree with it.
Nonetheless, we don't actually know for sure (or even beyond a reasonable doubt) if the wavefunctions correspond to physical waves of some sort of if they're just useful mathematical abstractions. In fact, since the wavefunctions are inherently unobservable (at least that's my understanding anyway; someone please correct me if I've misunderstood) the only way the HUP is relevant outside of theoretical discussions is if we repeated measure the same particle's position and momentum (or some relevant pair of variables) ("resetting" the system prior to each measurement) multiple times or multiple particles in identical states and take the standard deviations of the data sets. What HUP actually says is that the product of the standard deviations must be at least hbar/(2) (or a similar constant, depending on which pair of variables we're discussing). That's all we actually KNOW from experimental evidence. We actually haven't even ruled out the possibility of it being due to hidden variables.*
And yet, the idea of wave-particle duality and hence the idea that HUP is a fundamental property of all particles is so commonly taught without making it clear that we don't actually if it's true. To be clear, it may well be true; my point is that we don't actually know. I think the main reason it's taught that way is because it's just the easiest way to conceptualize it for most people and it certainly seems a plausible interpretation. Yet, by presenting it as if we know for sure that HUP really is fundamental and as wave-particle duality is definitely a physical thing, we gloss all the unanswered questions there still are about QM. Currently they're usually considered philosophical questions because no one's come up with a way to test them empirically. But how can we expect anyone to do so if we don't even teach that there ARE still so many questi
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I was thinking about the double slit experiment, specially the variation with the measurement device observing the particle before it passes through the openings, wouldn't the the measuring device influence the particle's trajectory? The device must interact with the particle to receive information, right? The interaction could be simply an invisible field that the particle travels through or the device could be sending out some sort of beam of sorts to interact with the particle. Wouldn't this instant interaction still effect the particle and its trajectory? Lets say for instance that the measurement device is producing an invisible energy field between two points. The particle has to also interact with this field so the measuring device can detect it. This interaction in turn forces the particle into one trajectory a.k.a through one of the two slits, therefore the reason we don't get an interference pattern. This would prove that everything is a wave and as Einstein proved with light, come in "packets" that we label as particles.
Shouldn’t this mean everything is always a wave all the time? The wave function can collapse but it’ll never collapse completely to a particle due to the uncertainty principle. Does this mean what we call a particle is just a highly localized wave function?
Mathematically this must also mean the eigenspace must have at least 2 state vectors since there’s always a superposition. Is this true? Do particles actually not exist?
Is there any explanation as to how the interaction between atom components then atoms then molecules and then macrostructures like a tree are so different from one another even though they have the same components?
Hi, Im aware that experiments have verified the wave like nature of atoms and molecules with double slit experiments. Im willing to accept that the wave function collapses (or perhaps the actual waves in quantum fields if you like Objective Collapse theory) A detail I dont understand is, how do you 'fire' a molecule through the slit? Is the molecule 'real' at the point of firing it, then becomes a wave, then becomes 'real' again when measured? i.e, popping into and out of existence pretty on repeat? Or does the experiment simply set up the 'conditions' for the creation of the molecule which initially exists as a wave, and once observed, it 'stays real' from that point on?
Im also a bit iffy on the term 'observation'. Does that mean 'interaction with anything'.?
thanks
Sorry if I sound dumb but does looking at a monitor doing any sort of computation with collapsing the particle wave duality?
Okay I know this is going to sound crazy but humor me here. I was talking with a friend of mine about the double slit experiment*.
His theory was that the idea of a particle was an artificial construct built to sync with how we perceive the world macroscopically. Maybe we were trying force a discrete interpretation into a continuous universe.
After some discussion this is how I interpreted the world he was describing. Instead of a discrete bit of mass maybe each particle was really probability distribution and itself simply a perturbation (wave) of the interstellar medium a continuous field.
In this interpretation when one particle is attracted to another particle it's because their probability waves overlap. Since the particle is the probability wave it means the particles are really already touching and 'smashing them together' doesn't mean anything except that the crest of their waves will interact.
In the macroscopic world the waves are localized at the atomic or sub-atomic level by balancing destructive particle/waves.
Mass would either be located at the crest of the probability wave or just itself be a reflection of amount of sub-atomic wave activity (the more sub-atomic wave activity = more energy to 'move' = more inertia & mass).
So that's about it. I know it sounds crazy but I was interested in what real scientists thought about this.
'* specifically the version where a single electron is shot through the slits repeatedly and over time the electron still acts like a wave interfering with itself until you put a particle detector on one slit and then they act like particles.
Intuitively it seems like they should be somehow related because they are both fundamental to quantum mechanics (right?) and they both deal with objects that are simultaneously both one thing and another, but I have never read anything that directly connects the two or refutes a connection.
Hi all, I've started a new YouTube series on the ontology and physical basis of Quantum Mechanics with Episode 1 on Wave-Particle Duality and the Single Slit experiment, would love your feedback!
https://youtu.be/r9C6STg8HI0
Episode 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and cover the Double Slit experiment with observation (my favourite experiment of all time!) Hope it's of interest.
Hi all, I've started a new YouTube series on the ontology and physical basis of Quantum Mechanics with Episode 1 on Wave-Particle Duality and the Single Slit experiment, would love your feedback!
https://youtu.be/r9C6STg8HI0
Episode 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and cover the Double Slit experiment with observation (my favourite experiment of all time!) Hope it's of interest.
Hi all, I've started a new YouTube series on the ontology and physical basis of Quantum Mechanics with Episode 1 on Wave-Particle Duality and the Single Slit experiment, would love your feedback!
https://youtu.be/r9C6STg8HI0
Episode 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and cover the Double Slit experiment with observation (my favourite experiment of all time!) Hope it's of interest.
Hi all, I've started a new YouTube series on conceptualising and making accessible Quantum Mechanics and Episode 1 is on Wave-Particle Duality and the Single Slit experiment, would love your feedback!
https://youtu.be/r9C6STg8HI0
Episode 2 will be out in a couple of weeks and cover the Double Slit experiment with observation (my favourite experiment of all time!) Hope it's of interest.
David Deutsch, author of "The Fabric of Reality", is one of the leading proponents of the Many Worlds Interpretation. He holds that in the double slit experiment single photons interfere with photons from another world, rather than also being waves that can cause interference even if there is only one photon.
He seems not to believe in wave-particle duality.
https://www.bretthall.org/david-deutsch-mysticism-and-quantum-theory.html
David: Yeah. “Particle-wave duality.” Unfortunately, from my perspective, “particle-wave duality” is part of the equivocation and nonsense that was talked by the early pioneers of quantum theory in an attempt to avoid the parallel universes implications. And in fact there is no particle-wave duality.
I am astonished to discover this, and seek confirmation from others that this is really the case.
How can he explain interference patterns if particles cannot act like waves?
Are there other quantum physicists who take the same position?
I was thinking about the double slit experiment, specially the variation with the measurement device observing the particle before it passes through the openings, wouldn't the the measuring device influence the particle's trajectory? The device must interact with the particle to receive information, right? The interaction could be simply an invisible field that the particle travels through or the device could be sending out some sort of beam of sorts to interact with the particle. Wouldn't this instant interaction still effect the particle and its trajectory? Lets say for instance that the measurement device is producing an invisible energy field between two points. The particle has to also interact with this field so the measuring device can detect it. This interaction in turn forces the particle into one trajectory a.k.a through one of the two slits, therefore the reason we don't get an interference pattern. This would prove that everything is a wave and as Einstein proved with light, come in "packets" that we label as particles.
