Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   You are the one saying that wave interference somehow must imply that
>>> sometimes it cancels itself out. That's just not true. Basic math.
> 
>> Except there *are* spots in the interference pattern between two slits 
>> (if you place them properly) where no electron lands.
> 
>> The electron isn't interfering with itself (or other electrons) in the 
>> same way a wave interferes with itself.
> 
>   I honestly don't understand. It looks a lot to me like your two
> consecutive paragraphs are saying the exact opposite things.

A wave interferes with itself by being in multiple places at the same 
time, and it generates an interference pattern by having different 
magnitudes at different places.

An electron "interferes with itself" by modifying the probability of 
where it will be detected. It's always detected in a single place, and 
it always has the same intensity.

A polynomial "interferes with itself" by doubling the number of tangents 
of zero derivative when you convolve it with itself. A polynomial 
doesn't need a medium in which to wave either, and isn't a "wave" in any 
but the most informal sense of the word. But the same math applies to 
waves of water as applies to the sine function multiplied by itself.

You're confusing "the electron is a wave" with "the probability that the 
particle that is an electron is in a particular place is a wave." The 
electron isn't a wave any more than a molecule of water in the ocean is 
a wave. The wave describes where you'll find the molecules of water. 
That doesn't make the molecules of water waves.

Does that help?

>> And there's no medium to be waving.
> 
>   Medium? Are we back to the luminiferous aether era? I thought it was
> demonstrated almost a hundred years ago that waves don't necessarily
> need a medium.

No. It was demonstrated that wave-like effects (i.e., actions whose 
measures are isomorphic to waves mathematically speaking) can occur 
where there isn't a medium. *If* you think light is waves, then it 
doesn't need a medium. (More precisely, if it needs a medium, that 
medium will be undetectable by virtue of Lorenz contraction.)

If you mean "in some cases, the same math describes both waves and 
probabilities" when you say "the electron is a wave", then I'll agree 
with you, but point out that you're oversimplifying.

>> You're looking at a pattern of events, seeing that its mathematical 
>> equation matches in some ways the mathematical equation of the height of 
>> a wave, and you're saying "hence, the phenomenon must be a wave."
> 
>   Actually no. What I'm saying is "it behaves like a wave".

The *probability* behaves much like a wave. The individual eletrons 
don't. There's a resultant pattern of locations where the electrons land 
which is different based on how you measure their path. That density of 
electrons landing in a certain place is similar to the height a wave 
would be there, were there a wave. But the *electron* isn't a wave - the 
probability of it behaving in a particular way is wave-like.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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