Science Forums 2

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

That would seem to be the easy answer, but if you ask the question of if the barrier is massed, and mass is 90% empty space, then why doesn't the photon merely pass through the barrier?

Sure, especially if you use a barrier made of glass!

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

Perhaps there are reasons other than the possibility that the photon travelled through the slit, but then why would the presence of a slit have an effect?

Excellent! This is exactly the matter of the whole issue: If we hypothecically consider that the particle went through one of the slits, then why does the other have any effect?

Essentially, what the experiment shows is that there is something non-local about how the outcome is determined for each single particle. Quantum formalism describes this with great success but we don't understand exactly how the observable outcomes are determined.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

What I want to know, seeing as we're discussing this particular experiment, is how on earth do they guarantee that a single photon was released in order to produce the results? Who counts photons? How do you count photons?

Basically, knowing the nature of the source and the typical duration of each emission, it's enough to have few enough emissions per unit time so that, given the length of the apparatus and therefore the time of transit, the great majority of them won't be overlapping. It's a statistical consideration. Today there's a variety of possible techniques for counting photons, when I was in fourth-year lab we used an old photomultiplier tube cooled with liquid nitrogen and a spectrometer to cast away most of the "noise" i. e. triggerings not due to a photon coming in. Technology does however offer some more refined things today.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I think there's a lot to the physical structure and properties of light that we don't fully understand yet. I'm actually of the opinion that light is completely different than what we think it is. But that's just me.

It isn't just a matter of light, it's about anything. Quantum formalism describes the way reality is, when things are in a coherent state.