• Nougat@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    The double slit experiment demonstrates the wave-particle duality of light.

    You shoot photons at a barrier that has two slits in it. The pattern on the backstop appears as in the top right panel: an interference pattern, because light is behaving as a wave.

    Next, you set up a detector at the slits, so that you can determine which slit each photon passed through, one photon at a time. Now the pattern on the backstop appears as the lower right panel, not an interference pattern, because each photon is acting as a particle.

    Not looking: wave. Looking: particle.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Exactly. The issue is that you can’t detect photons without interacting with them. So it isn’t observation like so many people think. It’s that if you interact with subatomic particles you change their state.

      • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        The issue is that you can’t detect photons without interacting with them.

        Can’t…So far, right? Like there hasn’t been a method developed to somehow detect indirectly without interaction? I don’t know enough about this to know how one might go about that, but I imagine those that know more might love to given whatever knowledge may be gained.