Re: Double Slit Puzzle Explained (?)


"Benj" <bjacoby@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d78e32e2-3848-4fae-aa8c-9cdfa41784e7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On May 22, 3:35 pm, "Bill Miller" <billmillerkt...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

TILT! Please remember that we are dealing with the same lab setup
whether
we are studying light (where the anomoly was discovered) or electrons,
atoms, molecules and perhaps according to Fred) Bricks. So the detection
mechanism MUST be detecting radiation. (Unless you want to slide down the
slippery slope of saying that light passing through a slit changes into
particles. I'll be waiting at the bottow with the ambulance!)

Actually Fred is correct about about the fact you are detecting
particles and not radiation, which is exactly what I've said as well.

Fred made a similar comment, so rather than repeating it, I ask you to take
a look at my reply. I'm not saying he and you are wrong, but I REALLY
distrust coincidences!

As for "bricks" that's mostly physics bull***.

Yeah. In that comment, I was being silly.

It's in the same class
as stupid statements about bowling balls having a finite chance of
"reflecting" back from a table edge. These people never actually
calculated the quantum mechanics for a bowling ball and table and if
they did (and did it correctly) they find the wave functions were
smooth curves with no reflections in sight.

So if you are hurling photons or electrons or neutrons or neutrinos at
a slit setup, I suggest that particles are going toward the slit and
then through them and finally on to the detectors where they make
little flashes (see the nice images in Wikipedia on this subject)
Sorry, there is NO diffuse "radiation" interacting with the detectors
here.

OK then why are diffuse patterns from the LIGHT double slit experiment
identical with those for electrons?

But you do have a point. Lets do another experiment! Let's beam
microwaves at the dual slot antenna. Here waves go to the antenna,
they interact with it (waves hit both at once and represent currents
in the apertures) and then proceed onto the detector (radio) which is
picking up waves. These "waves" it has been argued are ALSO
"photons"! Can that be true? Something here needs looked into!

Agin, please recall that this works with radiation or with particles. You
don't get to pick one vs the other.

I don't quite know what you mean. Electrons are particles radio waves
are waves. You certainly can pick which one to use.

I'm kinda repeating myself, but we are seeing identical results with waves
and particles. So we need to identify why two items with different
properties are acting exactly the same way. One solution is that they ARE
exactly the same. But that doesn't explain the double slit anomaly. Another
solution is that their interaction with one slit couples to the other slit.
And THAT idea does explain the anomaly.

There may be other solutions, but it seems to me that some form of coupling
between slits holds the key to the enigma.

As for electrons
you are detecting flashes as they land. No radiation is being
detected. And it gets still better. One can measure the ENERGY of the
landing electron. No significant amount is lost in the slit as you
suggest.

This is not necessarily a "deal killer." As I noted elsewhere, in Transition
Radiation, involves about 1 photon for about every 1,000 electrons. Thus the
energy loss will be on average about 0.1%. That's kinda below the threshold
of error for most experiments!

Yes, the electron will likely impact the detector. But as it passed
through
the slit, some of its energy was lost as it induced Transition Radiation.
That Primary radiation does two things.

First, it radiates energy onto the plate.

Second, it interacts with the second slit/slot causing the second slot to
re-radiate energy.

Both of these radiation sources impact/interact at the plate.

No they don't! UNLESS you are doing the radio wave version of this.

No that's not what is happening. The electron's trajectory is not
severely
influenced. The primary pattern is radiation caused. The secondary
pattern
is the electron(s) splatting into the plate.

You mean not happening according to your theory! Unfortunately for
your theory, the pattern produced is by ELECTRONS not waves!

But the two patterns are essentially identical. That's one of the baffling
things about this whole issue!

Again I
refer you to the fine wikipedia electron build-up images.

I agree. I am ASSUMING that in all these experiments, the slit was in
metal.
(After all, at least the vacuum and atom/molecule tests must be done in
vacuum. And outgassing from plastics would destroy the integrity.)

Nice try! Sorry there ARE opaque insulators that do not outgas. Black
glass for example.

I'm not suggesting that there are no opaque insulators. I'm suggesting that
they were not used. Why? Because it's a heckuva ;ot easier to work with
metal than with anything else!

But I really don't KNOW what material was used to support the slits. Does
anyone on list KNOW?

Yes. But the experiments I have read about seem to be quite physically
symmetrical. Also, what I have seen from the somewhat fuzzy blob-patterns
that have been published seems to suggest that the patterns are not
IDENTICAL -- just very similar.

Nope. It is even WORSE than you think! The patterns of aperture
antennas are EXACTLY those of slit diffraction. Antenna theory goes
like this. The pattern of an aperture antenna is formed by a 'source"
which is the current distribution in the aperture. That current can be
a 'real" current or and "equivalent" current which is formed by waves
incident upon the aperture. One can show that the antenna pattern in
the far field (for rectangular apertures in Cartesian coordinates) is
the Fourier transform of the current distribution. This is identical
with the diffraction case. And is advanced up a level from the
simplified dual slit mathematics assuming line sources and the like.
However, it can be shown that the SAME transforms also work for light
incident upon apertures. But as we know these transforms are built up
one photon at a time! Tough nut to crack, eh?

Well... the transforms may be EXACTLY the same, but the measured patterns
are never coing to be exactly the same. Also, my antenna experience tells me
that the patterns of REAL driven arrays vs "identical" parasitic arrays will
be similar but not identical.

Yes. This is a good point. WRT light waves/photons, there is a huge
amount
of lore associated with what happens when light waves graze an edge --
whether the edge is metal or dielectric -- and go off at an odd angle. We
even see this happening at UHF/VHF frequencies when radio waves graze the
top of a mountain. Re-radiation is the key there-- even though the
mountain
is not a conducter.

Re-radiation is indeed the key to your theory which we all like.
Namely it offers some kind of mechanism to "explain" how an electron
or photon which obviously has tiny physical dimensions can "sense" a
second slit so far away! I think I might suggest on further
refinement. Namely that you give up on the idea that pattern is formed
by "radiation" [it is not] and consider that there just might be some
OTHER kind of radiation forming in the "slot antennas" and that this
very short wave radiation doesn't interact with anything except the
trajectory of the particle after leaving the slit.

That's an interesting alternative approach. I can see it maybe working with
particles like electrons. But my imagination isn't good enough to explain
how such a mechanism is going to provide identical results with electrons
(light weight), atoms (massive), molecules (even more massive) and photons.

WRT the other items, like atoms, molecules (and neutrons?) I can't help
but
wonder how those get accelerated without accumulating some kind of
charge???

Atoms and the like can be ionized for acceleration and then
neutralized before ejected into the neutral beam. Also neutrons are
often ejected from radioactive substances with some considerable
velocities.

Yes, they CAN be. But, in the experiments that were made, WERE they
neutralized? Why would they do that?

YEAH! I used slot antennas and arrays as a model because these items
generate patterns that are a LOT like the patterns associated with double
slits. I'll be perfectly happy with an alternate coupling method between
the
slots. But it seems very logical that the slits are coupling to each
other.
I like that idea a LOT better than sentient particles and intelligent
seeing-eye waves!

So do I!

Thanks for taling an interest in this, Benj. This is fun!

Bill



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