Warp wrote:
>   I'm wondering: Then why didn't they fix the defective slit and start
> over?

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because it wasn't until they analyzed the 
results that they realized the slit was broken, at which point they didn't 
have time to repeat the experiment before the paper publishing deadline.

Me, I'm more surprised that nobody before this had ever *actually* tried it 
with three slits.

I also discover I no longer understand how QM works nearly as much as I 
thought I did. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Well, they're electrons. QM describes how they behave. They don't behave 
> like anything else.

  Given that electrons are fermions and that electrons are not the only
fermions, I wouldn't say that's true.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Well, they're electrons. QM describes how they behave. They don't behave 
>> like anything else.
> 
>   Given that electrons are fermions and that electrons are not the only
> fermions, I wouldn't say that's true.

I think you know what I'm saying.  They don't behave like anything 
non-quantum. The difference between electrons and other fermions is the 
numbers you plug into the same equation.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4c4aa2da@news.povray.org...
> Le_Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:
> > Le 24/07/2010 07:57, Warp nous fit lire :
> > > Neeum Zawan <fee### [at] festercom> wrote:

> > >> Electrons aren't waves. They aren't simple particles either. Why
can't
> > >> they just teach it that way?
> > >
> > >   It would be nice to know what they are, not only what the aren't.

> > They are electrons. Now, you wanted a seizable simile... sorry, no such
> > thing at your scale.

>   You can't use the word being defined in its definition. That's a
> circular definition.

You don't. Much as you observe an orange and call it an orange, you observe
an electron and call it an electron. The "problem", if any, is with our
insistence that an electron should behave like an orange, or anything else
from our macro world. It doesn't have to and it doesn't: It behaves like an
electron.

IOW, there is no such thing as wave-particle duality, or rather, the term
should not have survived once the scientists got over their initial shock
and realized the implicit assumption that an electron should behave either
like an orange or a guitar string was unwarranted and ultimately false.

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somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
> news:4c4aa2da@news.povray.org...
> > Le_Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:
> > > Le 24/07/2010 07:57, Warp nous fit lire :
> > > > Neeum Zawan <fee### [at] festercom> wrote:

> > > >> Electrons aren't waves. They aren't simple particles either. Why
> can't
> > > >> they just teach it that way?
> > > >
> > > >   It would be nice to know what they are, not only what the aren't.

> > > They are electrons. Now, you wanted a seizable simile... sorry, no such
> > > thing at your scale.

> >   You can't use the word being defined in its definition. That's a
> > circular definition.

> You don't. Much as you observe an orange and call it an orange, you observe
> an electron and call it an electron. The "problem", if any, is with our
> insistence that an electron should behave like an orange, or anything else
> from our macro world. It doesn't have to and it doesn't: It behaves like an
> electron.

> IOW, there is no such thing as wave-particle duality, or rather, the term
> should not have survived once the scientists got over their initial shock
> and realized the implicit assumption that an electron should behave either
> like an orange or a guitar string was unwarranted and ultimately false.

  Why is "it would be nice to know what they are, not only what the aren't"
being interpreted as "I want electrons to be compared to oranges or to
guitar strings"? That's not what I'm saying.

  You are also telling me what electron's aren't, not what they are.
And "electrons" is not the answer because, as I said, that's a circular
definition (which is what I was objecting to above).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   You are also telling me what electron's aren't, not what they are.

This is what they "are" as best as anyone can tell:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> writes:

> Neeum Zawan <fee### [at] festercom> wrote:
>> Electrons aren't waves. They aren't simple particles either. Why can't
>> they just teach it that way?
>
>   It would be nice to know what they are, not only what the aren't.

Well, they're entities governed by a wavefunction.

I can't tell you what they are with respect to *macroscopic* notions,
because they don't behave like any macroscopic object.

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And lo On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:43:53 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake thusly:

> Me, I'm more surprised that nobody before this had ever *actually* tried  
> it with three slits.

I think this is the first *successful* attempt, I think the problem lay in  
the complexity of the analysis.

> I also discover I no longer understand how QM works nearly as much as I  
> thought I did. :-)

Who does :-)

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Darren New wrote:

> I also discover I no longer understand how QM works nearly as much as I 
> thought I did. :-)

If learning about quantum mechanics does not deeply shock you, you 
really haven't learned it.  (Some physicist said this a long time ago.)

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> I also discover I no longer understand how QM works nearly as much as 
>> I thought I did. :-)
> 
> If learning about quantum mechanics does not deeply shock you, you 
> really haven't learned it.  (Some physicist said this a long time ago.)

Well, I thought I had a decent surface-level understanding of what the 
predictions would be in a particular case, without the ability to do the 
actual calculations.  Now I find out that my naive understanding of how to 
do the calculations is wrong, as I have no rule that says anything about two 
slits being more privileged than three slits.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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