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Unexpectedly, the results discovered were that if anything is done to permit determination of which path the photon takes, the interference pattern disappears: there is no interference pattern. Each photon simply hits the detector by going through one of the two slits. Each slit yields a simple single pile of hits; there is no interference pattern.
It is counterintuitive that a different outcome results based on whether or not the photon is constrained to follow one or another path well after it goes through the slit but before it hits the detector.
Two inconsistent accounts of the nature of light have long contended. The discovery of light's interfering with itself seemed to prove that light could not be a particle. It seemed that it had to be a wave to explain the interference seen in the double-slit experiment (first devised by Thomas Young in his classic interference experiment of the eighteenth century).
In the early twentieth century, experiments with the photoelectric effect (the phenomenon that makes the light meters in cameras possible) gave equally strong evidence to support the idea that light is a particle phenomenon. Nothing is observable regarding it between the time a photon is emitted (which experimenters can at least locate in time by determining the time at which energy was supplied to the electron emitter) and the time it appears as the delivery of energy to some detector screen (such as a CCD or the emulsion of a film camera).
Nevertheless experimenters have tried to gain indirect information about which path a photon "really" takes when passing through the double-slit apparatus.
In the process they learned that constraining the path taken by one of a pair of entangled photons inevitably controls the path taken by the partner photon. Further, if the partner photon is sent through a double-slit device and thus interferes with itself, then very surprisingly the first photon will also behave in a way consistent with its having interfered with itself, even though there is no double-slit device in its way.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
I see no other reason for that besides it having a direct relation with the consciousness of the experimenter.
An international team of researchers has, for the first time, mapped complete trajectories of single photons in Young's famous double-slit experiment. The finding takes an important first step towards measuring complementary variables of a quantum system – which until now has been considered impossible as a consequence of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
False. Your consciousness has nothing to do with the pathing of light. Light takes a path into your eyes, not the other way around.
Another experiment was done which tries to measure where a photon is at a given time that shows even if you observe the experiment the interference pattern still exists.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
There have been many threads before about quantum experiments such as the Double Slit experiment and many have hinted at the role human consciousness plays in quantum physics, but I´ve never seen a thread that actually proves it based on the experiments.
I have done quite some research and I´m convinced it has been proven, but somehow noone, at least noone in the scientific community, has publicly drawn the conclusion that human consciousness directly influences the behavior of particles, based on these experiments.
At least not to my knowledge.
All they say is that the results are remarkable and counter intuitive yet noone has claimed absolute proof for the role of consciousness, not even the experimenters themselves. Again, as far as I know.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by NorEaster
It doesn't matter. Single particles are fired, and if the debrees are interfering you would always get an interference pattern, however you only get one when the wich path info is not available.
This weak momentum measurement does not appreciably disturb the system, and interference is still observed.
By combining the positions measured imprecisely at multiple points and the momentum precisely measured at the end for each photon, the researchers were able to accurately construct an entire flow pattern for the photons. "This weak momentum measurement does not appreciably disturb the system, and interference is still observed.
They haven't done anything to prove orthodox quantum mechanics wrong, though I can predict with confidence that there will be at least one media report about this that is so badly written that it implies that they did. In reality, though, their measurements are completely in accord with ordinary quantum theory.
In the double-slit experiment, a beam of light is shone onto a screen through two slits, which results in an interference pattern on the screen. The paradox is that one could not tell which slit single photons had passed through, as measuring this would directly distort the interference pattern on the screen.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by NorEaster
There are multiple variations of these experiments done over the span of hundered years, and they are all peer reviewed. If this was an issue, I'm sure someone would have destroyed every single one of them.
This is not the case.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by AlchemicalBinoculars
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by miniatus
Scully and Drühl found that there is no interference pattern when which-path information is obtained, even if this information was obtained without directly observing the original photon, but that if you somehow "erase" the which-path information, an interference pattern is again observed. In the delayed choice quantum eraser discussed here, the pattern exists even if the which-path information is erased shortly later in time than the signal photons hit the primary detector.However, the interference pattern can only be seen retroactively once the idler photons have already been detected and the experimenter has obtained information about them, with the interference pattern being seen when the experimenter looks at particular subsets of signal photons that were matched with idlers that went to particular detectors.
Apperently the experimenter's consciousness is clearly part of it.
Any thoughts on this?
My point being that the accepted wisdom isn't universally accepted.