Patrick Elliott wrote:
> You know, I had a thought. What if electrons have no "fixed" path as we 
> would think of it. I.e., their position tends to fluctuate, similar to 
> what you get with the cloud of them around an atom (hint, they don't 
> form shells, its just a useful analogy).

Well, I'm not sure this is the right way of looking at it. Nobody knows 
what the electron is doing when you're not looking at it. Nobody knows 
if electrons have a fixed path or not. People only know that if there 
*is* a fixed path, you can't tell what it is without looking at it.

Nobody knows if electrons have a fixed position at any given time. 
Certainly every time you look, they do. Equally certainly, for the math 
to come out right, you have to assume they *might* be most anywhere.

> Then, if the slits are wide 
> enough and at a distance "equal" to the effective maximum distance of 
> displacement that can happen in these fluctuations,

There is no effective maximum distance. There are only "fluctuations" 
that are impossible, and "fluctuations" with very low probabilities. 
(It's the "impossible" bits that keep all the electrons from falling 
into the nucleus.)

> multiple electrons 
> fired in close proximity "may" find themselves in situations where their 
> positions must be logically coincidence with one of the slits, and they 
> "would" interfere and generate a pattern. Even a single one may do so, 
> since it "could" in such a state pass through "both" at the same time, 
> or near enough that similar coincident effects could cause it to pass 
> through one perfectly, vanish, then reappear too close to the other, 
> perturbing its path slightly, only to have its next "bounce" happen off 
> center of where it "should have" gone had it passed through both 
> perfectly, or missed one completely.

Yes, that's basically what the math says.

> I.e., maybe electrons actually act 
> like virtual particles in a vacuum. 

"Maybe"?

> Something makes them more "stable" 
> than those particles, but their position is inherently unstable, within 
> the limits of their known path, due to fluctuations similar to those 
> that cause virtual particles.

Yes.

> This would allow a particle to both "pass through" two slits at the same 
> time, and yet, *not* have done so, but only if the slits where within a 
> the maximum distance in which such fluctuations would allow the electron 
> to fluctuate.

I think you're looking at one experiment that gives very un-common-sense 
results, and trying to come up with a common-sense explanation based on 
popular understanding of what's known about how it works.

Any explanation you give for the "two slits" bit has to deal with 
quantum erasure and delayed quantum erasure, for example.

> The only question is then, what about diffusion? Would diffusion be 
> explained by an increase in the effective diameter of possible 
> fluctuations, as velocity is lost, kind of like bullets wobble more as 
> their spinning slows?

I'm not sure what you mean by "diffusion" here. Diffusion happens 
without wobble or loss of velocity, so you might be talking about 
something else.  There is no "effective diameter of possible 
fluctuations" if I understand what you mean by that properly.

-- 
   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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