They must feel guilty about their behaviour if they act differently when being observed.
The duality of particles
Submitted 9 months ago by HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c68405d9-5935-4fa9-a03b-246d68ea7425.jpeg
Comments
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 months ago
Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 9 months ago
code switching goofy ass electrons and atoms
OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Maybe particles are Catholic. Science can’t explain that.
frostysauce@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The only time Baptist particles don’t drink is when they are being observed by another Baptist particle or other Baptist particles.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 9 months ago
lol this is the most creative use of this meme I have seen so far
Splatterphace@lemm.ee 9 months ago
candyman337@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
That’s such a clever joke lmao, man I have to finish futurama
Zerush@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This is great
veniasilente@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I hate that I understand all the layers of this one except the duality one.
cynar@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Light (in fact everything) is a wave, with some traditional particle properties added in. It’s relatively easy to wrap your head around the weirdness from that point of view. It’s almost impossible to make sense of it from a “particle with wave properties” view.
It’s also worth noting that it is not observation, but measurement that matters. All observation is measurement but not all measurements are observations.
Basically, to measure something, you need to hit it with something else. Using a particle analogy (since the wave version is FAR less intuitive), imagine a pool ball, rolling down a table. You can only detect balls hitting the cushions. To measure where it is, in between, you need to roll additional balls across the table. In traditional physics, these balls can be thrown as lightly as you like, as accurately as you like. Unfortunately, the wave nature of the system imposes lower limits on this. When you throw a ball, it changes the ball it hits. To gain information, you end up damaging or destroying the system you are measuring.
In quantum mechanical terms, the wave function is collapsed. In fact, it’s combined with the new particles you used to measure things.
In the original post. When you’re not looking, the wave of the photon passes through both spits, it then interferes with itself. Only when it reaches the detector is it collapsed (by interacting with the atoms of the detector). When you try and measure which slit it went through, you introduce a new wave. This changes the shape of the original, and makes it appear like a particle.
This is quite a fun way of making yourself think in terms of waves. www.andreinc.net/2024/02/…/the-sinusoidal-tetris
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s almost impossible to make sense of it from a “particle with wave properties” view.
“I want to emphasize that light comes in this form-particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I’m telling you the way it does behave- like particles.”
Richard Feynman, “QED The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.” Introduction, Page 15.
veniasilente@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I think this is the part I’ve always have had issue trying to understand, thanks for helping clarify with an example.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
A photon is both a particle and a wave, maybe?
Enkrod@feddit.de 9 months ago
Most particles are, researchers have shown that even macro-molecular objects like buckyballs behave like a wave in the double slit experiment.
Sciaphobia@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Last I read about this was years and years ago, and the claim at the time from the source I learned about it from was that the cause of this behavior is unknown. Is it known now?
yuri@pawb.social 9 months ago
I vaguely remember an explanation that whatever device/mechanism is actually used to “observe” the experiment was affecting the behavior of the light. Boiling it down to “observation changed the outcome” makes you picture something that changes depending on whether you look at it with your eyes, but there’s a lot more moving parts to the whole thing.
200ok@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Exactly. The apparatus used to take measurements slightly alters the thing being measured. It’s not the act of looking at it with our eyes that causes any change.
An analogy that I find easier to understand is the tool used to measure tire pressure releases a small amount of air, thus changing the tire pressure (albeit negligible).
underisk@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
It’s just proof that light behaves as a wave. The second picture is how it would theoretically behave if it was (only) a particle, which it isn’t. The proof that light is a particle comes from a second experiment proposed by Einstein dealing with the photoelectric effect. This article is meant for kids but it explains things pretty plainly. The duality is unexplained, but the experiment is well understood.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 months ago
It actually does behave like a particle in this experiment if you use a measuring device to see which slit it went through. It’s also enough to turn the heat up in the room. Then random air molecules take on the role of a measuring device.
Dasus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Idk, but you might find the answer to that question from one of these
cynar@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Its source is known. Unfortunately, it requires a different way of looking at everything. (It’s all waves, even if it looks like a particle most of the time). Wrapping this up as simple pop science, that can be digested by most laymen, is difficult.
What we don’t actually know is why everything is made of waves. We know the rules it follows, but not the underlying cause. Figuring that would would likely require an understanding of quantum relativity, something we only have a very weak handle on.
blargerer@kbin.social 9 months ago
Depends on what you mean by unknown. The meme (and a lot of common understanding) doesn't know what it means to be observed. There is a leading theory, the Copenhagen interpretation. The biggest theory in opposition would be multi-world.
jerrythegenius@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If it goes back to just two lines when you look at it, how’d they figure out there’s more of them when you’re not looking?
IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Measure, not look. Measure implies interaction. That’s why the result changes.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Hard to explain (in part because I’m not a scientist) but it isn’t when you look at it, it’s when the photon interacts with something. I’m gonna do my best, and if I’m hard to follow, that’s because I suck at writing
Before interacting with something, a photon acts like a wave, kind of like a wave in water, or a sound wave. The wave goes through both slits at the same time, and causes an interference pattern on the other side of it. The pattern of stripes is caused by destructive interference—basically, waves have peaks and valleys. In places where two waves meet, their magnitude is added together. That is, where the peaks of those waves meet, the peak gets higher. Where the valleys meet, they get lower. Where a peak meets a valley, they cancel each other out. The empty parts on the detector are where peaks met valleys, and there was no measurable wave in those parts.
When a photon interacts with something, it collapses from a wave to a particle. I’ve seen it compared to a speck of dust in a raindrop. Before that raindrop hits the ground, you know that the speck of dust is somewhere in the drop, but not where it is in the drop. When it hits the ground, the speck can only end up in one spot. When the rain drop splatters, the speck of dust is more likely to be found in areas where more of the water went. That’s all the dots on the detector.
If the photon interacts with something at the slits, like a polarizing filter, it collapses before an interference pattern is able to form. No interference pattern means it ends up interacting with the detector in one of the two areas.
jerrythegenius@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Thanks!
EchoCT@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Look up the double slit experiment. Then consider the characters pov.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s not just looking. The implication of the person looking is he’s looking at which path the light took through the slit. If you measure which slit the particle of light went through, the pattern disappears.
pantyhosewimp@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Look at the PBS Spacetime link someone else provided, but in this case the looking is knowing which slot individual electrons or photons go through. Thus, wave pattern when which slot is not known; random scatter pattern when you know which slot.
Tehgingey@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
This is one of the best memes I’ve ever seen in my life. It reminds me of the quantum race in Futurama, and the professor says “no fair, they looked at it” (maybe not exact words but the sentiment is there)
Dalvoron@lemm.ee 9 months ago
youtu.be/ia4YrCShFrQ?si=w5OYNEaNRpG8QvMZ for reference
Tehgingey@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
This exactly! Thank you for posting ahahah