Examining the Slit Experiment

[KickAssClown]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I must disagree that it is a “fact” that none of the interpretations provided in this thread, or, I gather KAC means, in the whole of physics literature, have a “real scientific basis”. If none of what most people have for centuries called “science” qualifies as “having a real scientific basis”, this meaning of “real scientific basis” seems so far from the usual one that it’s not useful.

I would warn, in a friendly tone , not to take what I have said outside of context. I only mean the interperation that the electron/photon/etc has passed through both of the slits and that it is "obvious" that this is the case. Now there are parts of the experiment, infact large parts of the experiment, that I will accept have a real scientific basis.

It is the conclusion that I have the issue with. The line of reasoning to me leads to a much different picture than what is given by the vast majority. Similar in vein as the interpertations of the CMB, and the Spiral Galaxy problem. True, a possible interpertation is that the CMB indicates a very large bang. However that is only one of the interpertations and given the parameters of that particular interpertation it would be one of the last on my list, next to "and god said let their be light".

Originally Posted by Erasmus00

the standard model does have a theory of mass based on the higgs/Anderson mechanism.

I fail to see, upon reading some literature about it, how this mechanism, by itself, amounts to a comprehensive theory of matter.

Originally Posted by Erasumus00

Of the force carrying bosons, only the W and Zs have mass.

This says very little considering that I don't even begin to fathom what you mean by mass. Surely they have been measured to possess the property of energy, that I can read for myself. Surely they have been measured to have a relative mass value, once again something I can read for myself. Even photons have a mass value, if only relatively.

Now I will point out further that you, Erasumus00, are the one whom has interjected that "not everything has mass" which is immaterial to my point of contention. Get it, immaterial?

My point here is that the entire experiment is material, irregardless of whether this or that thing has a rest mass property value. Being that the barrier, projectile, coverings, detector and source are all material there are effects, which I can fathom, that would be non-trivial in the interpertation of the outcome of this experiment.

It is in the ignorance of the very question of, what is matter? that I come to question the scientific validity of the interperation of this experiment, and by which I come to reject the very notion that the electron/photon/etc even went through one or both of the slits. I my view there is no reason why it has to, or even why the one projectile must remain the one and only projectile in the whole of the experiment.

The mechanism by which the projectile shot is not the projectile caught, or by which the projectile might find another path to it's target is a discussion for another thread. However, it is entirely possible, plausible even, that the projectile that is shot, is not the one caught. Likewise is it plausible that the barrier itself that may result in the pattern seen. How is it that we are to be sure that it is not the barrier, or the detector, or the box that the experiment is contained within, or the world upon which the experiment takes place does not interfer with the projectile?

Many of you see material as one whole piece, unmoving. I see material as aggregates and individuals constantly flowing, and exchanging places in between the ticks of the clock. The worst part about is that there is no experiment that could be done, as admitted by classical and quantum physics, to discearn between our original projectile and the projectile that is detected at the end.

So, ladies and gentlemen it is by the sleight of hand that I believe we get our seemingly miraclous results. Watch closely and you can see the swap.

[Erasmus00]

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

I fail to see, upon reading some literature about it, how this mechanism, by itself, amounts to a comprehensive theory of matter.

I would argue that quantum field theory/standard model IS the comprehensive theory of matter and the higgs/anderson mechanism is the part of the theory that deals with mass.

This says very little considering that I don't even begin to fathom what you mean by mass.

I mean mass in the very rigorous sense defined by any reasonable field theory.

It is in the ignorance of the very question of, what is matter?

I believe quantum field theories have a very rigorous deffinition of what we mean by matter- excitations of a background field.

I my view there is no reason why it has to, or even why the one projectile must remain the one and only projectile in the whole of the experiment.

There is no reason that we need assume that only one projectile is in the apparatus. In fact, we can to very good accuracy compute the effects of production of photons. We can show that this effect is negligble compared to the first order effect (photon travels through the slits).

How is it that we are to be sure that it is not the barrier, or the detector, or the box that the experiment is contained within, or the world upon which the experiment takes place does not interfer with the projectile?

Of course it does! The question is, can we show that this interference is small compared to the main effect, which we can also do.
-Will

[KickAssClown]

Will, much of what you have posted here is secondary or immaterial to the topic, and what appears to be round n of our verbal spats about how little the other knows about this or that minute topic that is increasingly tangent to the topic that was being discussed previously.

[Drum]

Originally Posted by silverslith

Love to hear you describe the delayed choice experiment Drum.

SilverSlith ...... Will try to condense it so that it will fit in a Post. give me a little while. perhaps I will start a new thread ..... bit smartass seeing as this is only my third post

CraigD .... You obviously know your s*** ... enjoy your posts

KickAss ... This is a simple example .... Your TV screen is the target ... The gun is the cathode-ray-gun in the rear of your tube ... This gun fires electrons under orders from the TV producer. If each electron didn't go EXACTLY where he tells it to, it would hit some other part of the screen. Your picture would appear as Garbage. As you read these words, even on an LCD monitor, electrons are striking your screen and delivering photons to your eyes ...



drum

[KickAssClown]

I do understand the mechanics behind these things, I really do. What I have here is not a misunderstanding, but a disagreement. For you Drum, I would suggest you taking a look at the posts that I have made in the near past, particularly regarding the nature of photons, and matter. You can do that by clicking on my name next to my post and clicking the option "Find More Posts by KickAssClown".

Now to the simple reason why I should believe that the projectile went through the slits, as given by Boer. That if you cover the slits no pattern shows up on the otherside. It is not sufficient, in my view, to prove that the projectile went through the slits just because the coverings have an effect on the outcome of the experiment. Once again the reason comes from the structure of the experiment itself, and the structure of the coverings themselves.

I would acknowledge that the projectile get's detoured by the coverings, they create a new path of resistence and force the projectile to follow a path of least resistance. No interferance pattern on the otherside, because the projectile doesn't make it to the otherside.

That still does not prove that the projectile went through both, let alone one of the slits. As I said intially, there are other explanations for the outcome of the experiment. Just as there are other explanations for the CMB, and the Spiral Galaxy problem.

[arkain101]

Possibly I could add to this with a bit of a philisophical insight.

In past deep contemplation I have been forming a relative perspective theory. Some details are as follows.

Every thing (such as an object) that we know and that makes sense to us is not an actual object. On the contrary everything that we know of that exists is a mental construct. It may have mass, it may have energy, but there is no such thing as an actual particle or wave other than in the concept of the mind, which of course, is not part of physics. Yet, this is what physics has long been studying, the mental constructs we call our world.

As for the objects or 'things' that truly exist outside of a mental construct, such as the near core quantum wave functions, they are on the contrary, non-things relative to what our mental construct refers to what a thing is.

Therefore, each realm or reality if you will, them being, the mental macro interpratatoin and the micro quantum measuremental, are non-existent relative to each other.

That is, to our mind, the quantum wave functions are non particle and not wave, yet either, or both.

To the quantum wave functions, our macro world is unrelavent, non-required or existent.

Therefore, when we apply this to such things as what is a particle? or what is matter, mass, energy or any of those things, we find that anything we know is a mentally constructed thing.

But here is the duality of this situation. Even though this hypothesis is theoretically correct and legal, it is the very things that we turn to and reflect upon as to what is real, and what is observable.

For example the moon circles the earth. Yes, surely it does we can observe this mentally.

But the moon is not a thing, nor does it contain a particle. The moon as all material things are is a series of observable and measureable levels of confident reality. Patterns if you will pieced together to form reason out of.

We have levels of such like; Moon body, moon dust, moon atoms, moon electrons, moon gravity, moon mass, etc.

Though non of this is physically true relative to the quantum matter perspective. Rather the moon is a density of time and thus, a concentration of mass-energy. Apply much more than this description would be to apply the now so called rediculous idea that the moon is actually made of something.

So where does this rabbit hole lead? It takes you deep into no mans land. Precisely where science has found itself. Full of grand and fantastic, imaginative ideas and theories of strings and endless dimensions of foundationless reason. So this rabbit hole which I bring forth infact leads you to a mirror. This is the as if the mobius loop of your mind meeting matter. This being a 1/2 twisted strip with 1 side required to make two trips around to make a full rotatoin. You may put mind on one side of the strip and matter on the other side, but you will find that as you move along the strip, they are on the same side. Mind stuff and matter stuff being intwined if you will.

The rabbit hole tells you, you've met your maker, something entirely non-existent relative to existing 'things'.

Thus you must bounce back to the macro world and conclude, that self, your own aware self of being, is the deepest and most fundamental aspect of reality.

Einstien has a famous quote I am sure many of us are familiar with, that goes along the lines of;

"I want to know how god thinks, the rest...they're just details."

I presume to explain, that in the context of his statement, he answered his question without realising it. How god thinks if you will (understanding how this all works), is the macroscopic world you see before you, the oneness of all stages and levels of understanding.

Neither macro or micro are material, nor mind or awareness, the entire thing is an enigma.

Which is why I think many of us naturally cling to a god or spiritual handle of support.

Because the macro world is the only world for us to wisely call the place of focus and understanding however facinating and useful it is to understand internal mechanisms.

So, it would be wise to be questionable of the so called written in stone conclusions science beleives it has made throughout its history in order to have science leap forward with guidence and understanding in its future persuit.

[arkain101]

Just to make doubley sure that it is clear for the purpose of my above post I will make an addition.

The post was aimed at supporting Kickassclowns motive to his beef related to this experiment and science in general.

Also, I intened to try and merge the readers differing persective to his perspective to some degree in order to get everyone looking in the same direction.

This is because, like two people looking at an image of a man with a brief case running away from a rugged and criminal looking man who is chasing him.

One might say, look he is being mugged, while the other will say no look, there is a thing falling from that tall building next to them, the rugged man chasing the man with the breif case is trying to save him by getting him out of the way.

I sensed there was a situation like this where the readers are viewing one scenario perspective, while clown is trying to merge the readers into his and metaphorically point to the thing falling down in order that you can grasp why he is proposing and speculating what he is.

[Drum]

Akrain ..... OK .. I am with you (I think)

Its possible that I mis-intrepreted KickAss's idea. Mind you, I do not really understand yours.... But I do understand your drift ... That is .. your analogies do not ring a bell with me, but the point your trying to make with them does.

I suppose this is even more confusing now.

I will try to think of an analogy that links to your main idea ... give me a little while ?

Drum

[Drum]

Arkain101 ... Just give me a little hint here ...

Is your (and possibly KickAss) idea more related to the MetaPhysical as opposed to Strictly Scientific explanations ?

[arkain101]

No, its entirely scientific, but there is mystery meeting mechanistic now in science.

In a blunt way, I am pointing out, that kickassclown's beef is a righteous beef.

I believe this is so, because entry level science teaches you a view of the world that is purely is mechanistic (mechanical like).

Although the equations show there is laws that uphold, this does not exclude other avenues.

For example.

There is laws of newtonian truth.

There is laws of Einsteinian truth.

There is laws of quantum field truth.

My most important point is that, with the mind removed, there is theoretically only one level of truth, and it must be somewhere in the reaches of the core basics of reality, which I propose is in the quantum realm.

All other sciences work with compound interactions, our mind combines a series of individual yet similar events (singular frames) and paints a concept on them.

Such as a basket ball is orange, and round, and pretty well holding still. The model of the atoms in the ball is absolutely nothing like the model of the atom in a text book and infact it isnt even a comprehensible model. Atoms are like temporary states. An electron changes orbits but it doesnt move from orbit to orbit the cloud so to speak becomes orbit to orbit, no space, it just instantly becomes a new state, which is wave-like, and particle like, but also neither, or both.

So, I am daring to say you can not exclude the mind from physics, since up to this date all physics has yet studied is patterns the mind puts together.

You can't exclude mind from physics. I am not suggesting metaphysical, I am saying, think outside of sciences current box, for the very reasons I explained, science's box is and has been the study of the mind.

The fact light is the same speed to each individual observer, regardless of the speed either is going, is a powerful suggestion that, the mind is intwined with your reality and your physics. That is, your universe is unique and seperate to mine, for as long as special relativity stands up to its postulates.

For a simple example. If you can observe from space my clock to run slower than yours, while my clock runs the same as usual and physics laws uphold, then our universes are not in direct connection, they include mental aspects along side physical aspects. It comes down to relativeness, and a duality between matter and mind.

So, when I read kickassclown, saying, how should I be limited to the suggestions of possibilites that science is currently able to give, and why should I not investigate out of this box? Then I think as we re-read his thread, we can get his inquiry.

It's because he and I have dicussed our comman view on science and its range from outside of the box that this followup, and sort of introduction is I think required to begin grasping the scientificly catagorized methods being discussed.