Problem with the two slit experiment, Observing later

Good Elf,

My "beliefs/opinions" (and they are subject to change...): Call me "old fashioned"!


1. The universe is finite and infinite, because it warps back on itself. My personal
opinion is that the universe is an electro-magnetic based energy "entity", and
all "discrete" forms of energy follow the same fundamental EM rules or universal
EM constants. It is a matter of scaling.


2. At the atomic level, all matter has its basis in the "evolution" of the primordial
hydrogen atom thru nuclear conversion. ( I won't touch fundamental particles,
because I don't understand enough about them)

3. The "fundamental" frequency of the universe has its roots in the oscillating
EM frequency of the primordial hydrogen atom.

4. There is an "aether", it is the cosmic microwave background radiation and
serves as a "conduit" for the transfer of all free EM energy (photons) in the vacuum of space. All higher levels of energy are "superimposed" on some lower level of "carrier" energy.

5. Absolute zero temperature is an impossibility due to the influence of ubiquitous
background IR radiation.

6. Gravity is the result of the concentrated "available" energy of mass. Mass
"radiates" energy. The greater the mass the greater the amount of energy
it "radiates". The displacement (radiation) of energy produces a counter
force (backwash) which is gravity. They are inversely proportional.
(my unscientific opinion)

7. The "big bang" was a change of energy states, cause unknown. Energy
"morphed", perhaps inter-dimensionally, perhaps electromagnetically.

8. Light propagates, as a higher form of EM radiation, along the "ubiquitous"
ambient (lower) EM energy fields that exist everywhere. Energy fields act as
a "conduit" for other energy fields. The interaction of those fields are
self sustaining. (Think of superimposing/modulating signals on top of one another.)

Maybe a bit unconventional....

LL

LL,

Hey a bit unconventional (excellent ) ... Have a look at my weird hotchpotch of ideas, some I believe good and others crap:
Spacial Vacuoles

Atheists don't belong in science.

Hi Fivedonut,

Not sure that I quite understand your interpretation of vacuoles?

Perhaps a better description is low energy points in the universal energy field
density or EM field "dislocations".

Branes are an interdimensional "membrane" or dimensional "junction"?
Couldn't they be interpreted as intersections of EM energy fields?

Just asking. I'm not much into string theories since I'm "locked" into a
4D universe. Imagination is a wonderful thing, but reality can be measured.

Regards,
LL

Good Elf and all!

The bottom line..... I don't know! .... I'm still looking.

Many great minds have looked into the abyst .... some have gone in and never returned.
What can be found at the edge of the abyst are some gems of truth mixed with the isms, para, psudos, mystics, magic etc.
I have pointed out the gems that I found. (my model)
TRoc is working on an other gem. (harmony)

Your link to Does Light Exist Between Events does not further our ability to make a search.
It removes all distances and all space.
It removes your "expanding spheres".
It removes all "connecting" forces.
It removes all approaches to find out how the universe is made.
It removes ALL.
jal

Hi LL,

Metaphor. Everything is a metaphor.

Just because you open the bottle doesn't mean you have to drink all of it. (OK this may not be true in practice but I'm trying to establish a principle )

Two slits .. one equation .. find the best metaphor .. that's all.

Going back to your post here..
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtop...ndpost&p=154926

There is clearly a bit of a problem with the meaning of mixing/adding. I get the impression that when you hold your hand like this it means a linear superposition and when you hold your hand like that it means a non-linear process .. and when your hand waves (like this) .. it means something else. We only see what you write .. not what your hand is doing. If you ADD two waves of the same frequency and phase you get a bigger one of the same frequency and if you add them out of phase you get a smaller one (or nothing) of the same frequency. LL 'mixing' (hand doing this) remains undefined.

Setting up the ripple tank ( http://www.echalk.co.uk/Science/Physics/ri...Tank/ripple.htm )
'Double slit' .. make new slits as far apart as possible (so wonderful!) .. stretch the tank as far as possible and select maximum frequency. We see (hopefully) the classic DSE result.

Classically (I think) we'd say the wavefront hits the barrier with the two slits in .. the two slits act as spreading points for the wave on the other side of the barrier and we get constructive/destructive interference (addition/cancellation) where the difference in paths length is a whole/half wavelength.

Moving on to the LL description..

The photon is split into to halves of opposite phase by the slits .. if one half goes through there are a gazillion places for the other half to go which don't include the other slit so maybe some clarification is required. The ripple tank suggests that what spreads from the slits is roughly in phase .. but this is a minor point. Randomness in introduced at the slit. After the slit we have hands here mixing. One of the more difficult points to understand seems to be that the bright bits are not just where the path lengths are the same .. that would be one bright bit in the centre. There are bright bits where the path lengths differ by an integer number of wavelengths .. one half of the LL photon has travelled say N wavelegths in time time t and then mixes (hands here) with the other half that has travelled a different number of wavelengths in the same amount of time. Clarification of this process requested.

Best wishes,

-C2.

Ripple tank..
http://www.echalk.co.uk/Science/Physics/ri...Tank/ripple.htm

Thank you, Good Elf, for your continued thoughts on this subject and for your pointings to further readings. Very delightful ! All things considered, it occurs to me that we are indeed lucky - in a way - to HAVE to finally confront these problems in physics, to wit : the random probabilities of QM which are seemingly inherent in the Universe AND to the metaphysical barrier of measuring single, fundamental entities with single entities thereby losing information. We are SO used to inferring literal continuity in all things and as Jim Walker points out, we simply can't see - and therefore can't imply - that a photon exists in flight. Conundrum on top of conundrum ! And yet, in the limit of fundamental entities, are we so surprised that the Universe agrees with metaphysical uncertainty ?

Nonetheless, as things scale up and become larger physical systems, we are able to imply the apparent existence of continuity. And it's a good thing, too, isn't it ! As I look at my cup of coffee (now that my power is back on where I live in the Northwest and those electrons are moving according to QM), I keep asking : Is it still there ? Is it still there ? ... And I imagine the sum of all difficult-to-predict events leading to the continuum mechanics in which I am trained and am embedded.

The mystery of how the transition occurs from the unpredictable to the predictable must be as interesting as Quantum Mechanics. ~Jim

Good Day Confused2
I keep playing with Ripple tank..
http://www.echalk.co.uk/Science/Physics/ri...Tank/ripple.htm
If I was a student wanting to work with the "wave formulas", then this would give me a good visual representation of what is happening.
It even visualizes the problems that we are discussing.
I cannot find an inspiration.
I'm still searching for understanding of the "weirdness".
jal

Hi Laserlight, Yquantum, Jal, Confused2, Aerohead, TRoc, "THEY", Fivedoughnut et al,

That is interesting about your beliefs and thanks for your input Confused2 and Jal. Also the input by Aerohead. But what about
Does Light Exist Between Events?
That page tells me more about what you "really" think about all those issues you have raised. How "real" is this Universe and where does everything "go" when we are not looking at them? Were they ever there in the first place? There really is no particle description when there are no interactions. Yet it is absolutely necessary to have those particles having some independent existence in order to calculate these interactions in the first place. In between events particles were formerly one place and now they are at another... do they go there by "magic" or do "fairies" carry them there? Suddenly, "by slight of hand" out of sight the particle is just where we now want it and it "collapses" from a "superposition of states" which are waves of "nothing" to become 'something"... the particles interacting.

When it becomes necessary to call attention to the fact that a "trick" has been performed, everyone cries "foul" and say I am the one to blame in trying to discover this trick. Good magicians admit a trick and within their guilds they will eventually reveal them. Scientists owe their "audience" more than this... Our belief systems and even our very religions would cut us all down if a "foul" was detected.

Quantum Theorists have couched the problem in a fashion that puts them in a very favorable light but they themselves never state that this really is the ultimate outcome of the linguistic or semantic trap. They have reduced the problem to one that cannot be solved by human argument. It is like the age old question "Answer yes or no... are you still beating your wife?" Well and good if you are the one asking the question but not so good if you must answer it. Turn this problem around and ask the Quantum Mechanist what does he believe about the world and he can them have 2 cents either way and the problem can never be answered by way of experiment since no experiment is enough to disprove this proposition.

I am "compelled" to say that I firmly believe matter is just what we call the interaction of virtual photons in the context of "particle fields", what you "feel" when you press your fingers together is almost 100% electromagnetic in origin and has noting to do with "solidity" in any abstract sense. When I am pushed I will say there are no such things as particles, but there are fields. This is because between "events" involving particles Quantum Mechanics has no description of the particle, if there was a description that would be called Bohmian Mechanics.

We have "quantum interference" or the "quantum superposition of states" ... when pushed this is the same entity as "optical interference" except this is for particles and we use probability instead of Electromagnetic Waves. But as Yquantum has said these are waves of "nothing". I tend to agree with that idea since it is little different from my own theories and I must admit while I "believe " that space is filled with a geometric property that varies "something" in the space in which things exist I am not able to hang my beanie on it! There is nothing actually "marked out in space" and what is there really relates the "beginnings" and the "outcomes" to the space it is inhabiting. This is the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment. The instant in time can even be spatially re-entrant.

I see a picture of what I am trying to convey and these represent "solutions" to psi squared in space. The numbers are time independent and the patterns are the same as the ones Schrodinger would associate with "probability"... yet this is like "dusting for prints". You must fill the space with something before you can see the pattern...


Confused2 has understood the problem but asks..

We are dealing with two questions when we are speaking in these terms. A circularly polarized wave can be considered as two plane polarized waves with a 90 degree phase difference and a plane polarized wave can be considered as a two opposite circularly polarized waves. This does not mean they are two separate waves but only one wave with two ways we can consider the intrinsic spin. This is isospin. A quick totting up of interior dimensions indicate 6 dimensions for a wave that can spin in all these ways at once. For a photon to self interfere and to be self reentrant and form standing waves the "patter" is just more complicated if you want to understand it...
Optical Activity and Light Polarization
The internal spin quanta do really exist on the action space of the surface of a sphere and it is truly higher dimensional. These patterns are the projections we have when we take a six dimensional object and project it into only thee dimensions. Check out Isospin it is most certainly a spin since it can cause the physical spin of particles but it is certainly NOT planar spin when considered in its pure essence. The wave motion of electromagnetism is actually a spin in higher dimensions and that is why it conforms to the Complex Maths of Euler's Equations. It is not a simple "undulation". We have discussed this all before.

Then there is all these quantum interferences which I want to deal with as realistic phenomena and yet every starting point in space for a quanta and every exit point in a fixed cavity will have different standing waves even at he one frequency. These standing wave patterns are unique and calculable as you can see in the simplified case of a double slit. The truth is if you have ever been inside a camera obscura (I have) what you find is the viewer becomes part of what is being viewed because "the box" is not empty with you in it. You are a new emitter-absorber. The simplified double slit experiment is a similar "box" in which objects inside distort the image on the screen. This is even when you are not standing in the way of the direct beams. Your very presence does "stuff" to the internal space. The addition of additional "sources" or "sinks" inside the cavity really does have a direct though subtle influence. Test this yourself if you like. C2's simplified double slit equation will not adjust for that but it is a measurable influence. If you really want an answer to the double slit you must account for all of it and that includes the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment.

The difference between the camera obscura and the double slit is only of degree... the double slit's physical shape and the superposition of two Fraunhofer Diffraction "slits" correlated patterns of the one source. You are easily able to replace the slits with tiny apertures, each one an ideal Fraunhofer "source". The lines on the back screen are replaced with the same lines in the direction of the separation on the front apertures but Airy disks in the direction perpendicular to the separation. Of course our Universe in reality is filled with a great many "sources" some are correlated and others are not.

I was taken by the very interesting paper that Confused2 presented recently...
On the role of Planck’s oscillator in the construction of Heisenberg’s mechanics: Budh Ram
I liked what he was saying and I was able to follow a bit of the discussion. It drew me to this reference...
http://xray1.physics.sunysb.edu/~jacobsen/...51f2006/l10.pdf
By Professor Chris Jacobsen. A quick read will convince you that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle was arrived at via "semi-classical" means. Translation... Quantum Theory is not really a quantum theory but a continuum theory...

Maybe this reference as well...
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS THE ORIGIN OF QUANTUM VARIABLES: EDWARD G. EFFROS

The argument about the nature of the quantum is the same argument about the nature of "Earth and Hades". Here are two separate realms where passage one way is easy and the other way is hard. At the doors to Hades is Cerberus who will not let any denizens of Hades leave but will happily allow any to venture into the "pit" unopposed wagging its tail happily. The cleaver "subterranean traveler" offers Cerberus a "sop" when he wants to leave... a trifle like a cake or a bun and Cerberus will allow a denizen of the nether world to leave while it munches on the "sacrifice". Our world and our Universe is a closed energy system like Hades.However the barrier may be passed if you offer an appropriate "gift" to that which bars our way... a "sop" if you will of "resonance". The quantum exits our Universe and its dimensions not without some special conditions. The return is "easy" through quantum demolition.

Is it Cerberus with its three heads or is it the Angel of Death with its shining sword that turns in all directions that guards the way back to Eden? "The lamb was laid upon the altar, and fire flashed from the shining sword of the cherubim guarding the way to the Tree of Life, and the sacrifice was consumed." and "So he drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Or is this the legend of the sword Excalibur and of Arthur? He he he! There is always a little truth hidden among our legends. Anyone coming with me... this is a prison break and I am about to bribe the Jailer?

Cheers

Ahoy LL,

A vacuole is simply what I call a closed n-dimensional wave trap; the wave propagates from high to zero dimensionality and visa versa via the 'magic' of event reversal tachyonics, courtesy of endo event horizon transit; the membrane is visualized as the wavefront in this process.

Imagine that our universe is a such a wavefront inhabited by innumerous children resulting from parental 'decay', creating matter with every singularity condensation. We look at the universe .... it appears huge .... well it would indeed from the singularity's perspective, as it looks through hyperspace via photons that are carried, embedded on there own parental wavefronts ( electrons). This is how I see the multiverse, one big family, existing eternally. .... how very sweet 5-D

Hi C2-

Signal mixing......adding.......same thing. The result can be positive or negative.

Perhaps I was too ambiguous, not plain spoken enough.

I'm suggesting that photons enter the cavities of the slits at different point of
their sine wave rotational phase. The reason being that they are generated by
different atoms, with a different discrete distance between their origin and the
slits. This means their time of flight along the flight path to the slits is different,
and their "phase" upon entering the slits is also different.

Different phase angles also suggests a different "amplitude" power level
at the instantaneous point of entry into the cavity. Upon entering the cavity,
considering that each photon is at some different point in its sine wave phase,
there is interference induced by the geometry of the cavity. How they add
constructively and destructively past this point depends upon the phase angle
at which they entered the slits. Where their energy lands on the screen
depends upon which part of the sine wave cycle they were in.

In a single cavity we normally see this as simple diffraction interference since there are
phase shift distortions introduced by the slit cavity. The distorted sine wave
energy is trying to reassemble (mix) to maintain the perfect phase relationship of all components of the sine wave, but there has been a phase shift (delay) to part
of the wave energy. The component parts (phases) of the sine wave either
add or cancel according to their phase relationship as they disperse past the slit.

The centerline of the waveform on the screen is the 2D representation of the
distorted sine wave.


In the 2 slit argument, photons still arrive at different phase angles, but now
the results are doubled.


2 slits

Some references:

Phase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_%28waves%29

instantaneous phase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instantaneous_phase

Instantaneous frequency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instantaneous_frequency

Nothing up my sleeve!

LL

This post has been edited by Laserlight on Dec 16 2006, 07:43 PM

Laserlight
With our inputs ... something/better understanding may come out of what we are saying.
Good Elf

Warning! ... Arrange your affairs first ... find a cult or ism to take care of your corporal need and those of your loved ones ... preferably one which will try to interpret your babbling as inspirations.
You will be a burden to those left behind.

The only thing that you will have as an acceptable bribe will be your sanity.

I recommend staying HERE and evaluating the gems that have already been discovered.
Going down YOUR probability path without investigating the other paths cannot yield substantive rewards for THOSE LEFT BEHIND.

Be a good boy... Open your mouth and eat this piece of bread. ("sop" )
jal

Hi GE and All,

The article titled "Does Light Exist Between Events" was interesting, but seemed
to ignore other, similar, natural phenomena. I could use the same argument
that he used with light but replace light with sound. We can't see sound either,
as it makes its way from source to detector, but that doesn't mean it propagated
across a distance without actually "existing" in some form in time and space.
A shadow cast upon a wall doesn't have real form, but it was projected from a
source of origin and arrived and was detected at a point in time....I think you see
my point.

Philosophical arguments are great for expanding our inner "depth" or
comprehension to explore alternatives, but they really never solve anything.
They are meant to stimulate the concept of "possibilities". The difficulty is
separating the possible from the impossible and assigning reality in the
form of "absolute" solutions.

Regards,
LL

Aerohead .. Welcome!

LL,

I agree to a local definition of 'mixing' as being the same as (vector addition) .. no new frequencies generated. If we want to suggest that new frequencies are involved we'll have to find a new word (later).

So we explain single photon interference using two photons. Novel. I'm tempted to write 'Next'..

Looking at the drawing you reproduced we can see that there is a phase difference introduced by the difference in path length. If the phase relationship between the inputs at the two slits was random thare would be no dark bits .. for every phase cancellation due to path length there would be a phase addition due to a compensating phase mismatch of the two inputs.

A wave that is more than 360 degrees phase shifted ahead or behind another is normally considered 'out of range' for interference .. the one has already happened before the other gets there .. if you see what I mean. A phase shift of 360 degrees corresponds to a time shift of T where T=1/f. In the DSE We certainly observe interference where the phase shift is many wavelengths (time difference is many T's).... and if the time difference is many T's for the same source then the propagation speed of the 'whatever' is clearly not as well defined (eg not 'c') as we might have liked it to be. This (and other points) fall into the category of that which is (still) to be explained.

GE.. response will follow

jal .. I share your doubts/worries.

Best wishes,

-C2

I'm with Good Elf; might get shot in the back by those damn guards ..... but basically I feel he's on the righteous path.