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Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Ilyich
This is absolutely amazing imo. The fact that erasing the information after the experiment can change something which happened in the past is mind blowing. I mean how far can this concept be extended. What if the information was kept for years and then deleted? Would the experiment be able to "know" the information was going to be deleted? If so, that has some staggering implications. I need to think harder about this and get back to this thread with some of my thoughts. This is astonishing. Thanks for sharing.edit on 25-4-2012 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
So when the slits are not being observed, and one particle at a time is fired at them, in this case an elektron, you get counter intuitive results.
An interference pattern is created, when this should not be possible, since we are firing single particles, so they somehow form a wave, which is an interference pattern.
This is known as Wave/Particle duality. A commonly known term, but it is just a description of the phenomenon without a real explanation.
So when they measure with slit the particle actually goes through, it goes through only one of the slits, and the interference pattern is no longer there.
You could say, that because of observing, the particle has to go through one of the slits, because we are looking, the wich path information is present.
Originally posted by miniatusThey are referring to erasing the information from the measuring device.. this tells me that the mere act of measuring has altered the state of the photon .. erasing that information from the measuring device allows the state to return to as it was before it was measured.. I don't see how that has anything to do with human consciousness.. it seems to have everything to do with the act of measuring..
That's because the observation is done by the person/consciousness that observes the results, even if those results are observed after the experiment already happened. The machine itself doesn't "observe"... at least not yet.
Originally posted by zayonara
Agreed that there is something else at play here. Obviously, something we don't know. Imagine that for a second!
Nonetheless, at this point we have created something that switches states, based on, information/observation. Hmm, sounds vaguely familiar. Good news is that is seems predictable and repeatable.edit on 25-4-2012 by zayonara because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by jiggerjIs it confirmed that electrons switch states? I mean, do we really know what an electron is made of? What if it's not a particle at all, and just a wave compacted into a tiny ball? Like a drop of water, or ball lightning. I dunno. I love this stuff, but I can't absorb half of it.
Originally posted by Cecilofs
Originally posted by jiggerjIs it confirmed that electrons switch states? I mean, do we really know what an electron is made of? What if it's not a particle at all, and just a wave compacted into a tiny ball? Like a drop of water, or ball lightning. I dunno. I love this stuff, but I can't absorb half of it.
From what I understand, they thought they knew what an electron was, but these experiments proved that they didn't. The current theory is its both a particle and a wave depending on the situation.
i.e. They don't have any idea
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by jiggerj
The fact that you can see cars and other people is because photons are bouncing off of them towards your eyes.
Originally posted by RandomEsotericScreenname
reply to post by queenannie38
This is what I've been saying too, it's not so much the knowing, but more the availability of the info.
It is a bit confusing though.
It might be not such a desirable term, anymore, since it appears that it is more about DETERMINING the paths taken rather than OBSERVING those paths...
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.