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Aug 12 2011 10:58pm
Can someone explain this to me in 'relatively' everyday terms? Trying to understand this experiment, but its pretty thick.
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Aug 12 2011 11:11pm
2 User(s) are reading this topic (0 Guests and 0 Anonymous): skyeye, bentherdonethat




yeah... your about to get a good answer ;)
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Aug 12 2011 11:14pm
Wow, that's a bit heavy for 1am...

Basically with the Young's Double Slit experiment, when you fire photons one at a time at a double slit, they produce a wave-like interference pattern because the photon simultaneously passes through both slits and interferes with itself.

If you set up a way of measuring which slit the photon goes through (obtaining the Which Slit? information), then instead of seeing an interference pattern, you instead see two discrete lines where the photons hit, because it definitely went through only one slit or the other (like throwing tennis balls through two open windows).

Here's the tricky part that I don't know if I'm understanding correctly... It sounds like if you destroy the Which Slit? information before you look at the collected interference patterns, then it will exhibit an interference pattern as if you never obtained the Which Slit? information at all. However, I'm probably misunderstanding that part, and I'll end up being corrected soon (or correcting myself at some point tomorrow)
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Aug 12 2011 11:52pm
Quote (bentherdonethat @ Aug 13 2011 01:14am)
simultaneously passes through both slits and interferes with itself



It makes a little more sense now
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Aug 13 2011 11:57am
i watched this to learn about the double slit experiment



This post was edited by Beowolfknight on Aug 13 2011 11:59am
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Aug 13 2011 02:14pm
Benther,

You pretty much layed it out in its simplest terms. Just to add to what you stated, the idea of the Quantum Eraser is to try and demonstrate a "Delayed Choice - Double slit". Again to oversimplify it, whenever you try and measure which slit the photon goes through it makes two descrete lines (aka behaves like a particle), whenever you dont try and measure it creates the interference pattern (aka behaves like a wave). The Delayed choice concept trys to create a situation where you measure which slit the photon goes without looking at the data. Then AFTER the experiment is complete, you decide to either keep the data or delete it before you look at the result. If you look at the result before deleting the data, you get the Descrete lines, if you delete the data first, you get the interferrence pattern. So somehow the photon behaves one way or the other based on whether you know what it did, but you didnt decide to know or not know until the experiment was already over......

The Delayed choice Quantum Eraser does not measure the photon (since the act of measuring it is suspected to be the cause of the behavior change) instead you create an Entagled Pair and either measure or dont measure that. The Data for the Entagled partner arrives nano seconds before the original photon and yet the original photon still behaves in the same manner. If you know what happened it behaves like a particle, if you don't know it behaves like a wave.

Crazy cool shit, the biggest mysery in Quantum Physics :)


Watch this one first, then go Watch the Quantum Eraser Vid in his link

This post was edited by FullArcFG on Aug 13 2011 02:25pm
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Aug 14 2011 02:47pm
Quote (FullArcFG @ Aug 13 2011 04:14pm)
Benther,

You pretty much layed it out in its simplest terms. Just to add to what you stated, the idea of the Quantum Eraser is to try and demonstrate a "Delayed Choice - Double slit". Again to oversimplify it, whenever you try and measure which slit the photon goes through it makes two descrete lines (aka behaves like a particle), whenever you dont try and measure it creates the interference pattern (aka behaves like a wave). The Delayed choice concept trys to create a situation where you measure which slit the photon goes without looking at the data. Then AFTER the experiment is complete, you decide to either keep the data or delete it before you look at the result. If you look at the result before deleting the data, you get the Descrete lines, if you delete the data first, you get the interferrence pattern. So somehow the photon behaves one way or the other based on whether you know what it did, but you didnt decide to know or not know until the experiment was already over......

The Delayed choice Quantum Eraser does not measure the photon (since the act of measuring it is suspected to be the cause of the behavior change) instead you create an Entagled Pair and either measure or dont measure that. The Data for the Entagled partner arrives nano seconds before the original photon and yet the original photon still behaves in the same manner. If you know what happened it behaves like a particle, if you don't know it behaves like a wave.

Crazy cool shit, the biggest mysery in Quantum Physics :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB443oLE22w
Watch this one first, then go Watch the Quantum Eraser Vid in his link


Ok, great explanation. So, at its core, this experiment flaunts the dual particle-wave nature of matter and makes necessary the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It also suggests the universe isn't continuous and operates on 'plank's time' values. And, the big mystery is how the entanglement of the particles before and after measurement bypasses all of our current models of physics.
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