A quantum theory of light: the Double Slit experiment explained.

[Pyrate Jim]

Correct. They do not apply to the uncertainty principle.
My claim was that they apply to Plancks Constant.

And yes, I do mix paint. Or more specifically, stains and lacquers which are chemically worlds apart from ordinary latex paint. (covalent bonding instead of ionic)

And why do you assume I've never studied? I spent three years researching radionucleides at Stanford and another year and a half in DeKalb at FermiLab. I even allowed to attend a lecture by Richard Feynman at the Lawrence Hall of Science at Berkley. That may have been in the '70s but I doubt the laws of physics have changed much since then.

Did you know that the Stanford Linear Accelerator is seven miles long and three miles of it sit right on top of the San Andreas fault?

[Pyrate Jim]

Did you know that the Stanford Linear Accelerator is seven miles long and three miles of it sit right on top of the San Andreas fault?

They won't admit it, but I suspect the squirells had something to do with influencing the original design plans for their own amusement. I think they're waiting for a coincidental earthquake at precisely the moment we get a heavy particle up to maximum mass via acceleration.
How much damage can a single particle do if it escapes containment? After all, we accept the equations that state the mass of a particle is determinate on velocity - if that particle is moving fast enough it's mass could be considerable.

I remember having to calculate that as a first-year student. The answer might surprise you.
I've long since forgotten the math involved, I'd have to back to school to recall the numbers which involved matrix mechanics, But it doesn't change the theory those numbers are based on (or equated to) and that's what this discussion is about, Right?

YOU claim (and I mean halb since no-one else seems interested enough to feed the squirells) that light is a particle, not a wave. Yet I claim this to be preposturous based on my own interpretation (outdated and fossilised as it is).

Show me ANYTHING about quantum that the squirells won't laugh at and then I'll give you credit. Little bushy-tailed buggers have been manipulating humans for centuries.
It was a squirell that dropped that apple on poor Isaac, and they've been laughing since.

Have you been hit in the head by an apple recently?

[Pyrate Jim]

How much damage can a single particle do if it escapes containment? After all, we accept the equations that state the mass of a particle is determinate on velocity - if that particle is moving fast enough it's mass could be considerable.

I remember having to calculate that as a first-year student. The answer might surprise you.

Sorry, I need to redefine that a little.
Instead of the word "damage" ~ insert "interaction with other particles in surrounding matrix".
The calculated answer is not quite zero, The math states it can NEVER be zero.
The surprising part is that it that the odds of entanglement are equal to the shortest distance to any other particle, which is the distance given by Plancks Constant.

[Pyrate Jim]

Y'know, there are about as many people posting here as there are employers looking to hire someone who knows this stuff.
That's why I "mix paint". It's economically more employable, and as close as I can get to actually using what information I've accumulated concerning atomic structure and molecular compounds.
Plus it's fun to watch the reaction when you overload a catalyst, the whole thing bubbles up and the surface membrane resembles a living mandelbrot set just before "accidentally" causing spontaneous combustion in a measuring cup.
(at least, that's what I told the insurance agent at my last job)

Perhaps I should have given myself the label of "industrial chemist", since mixing this paint and making the chemicals work is dependant on how the outermost electron shell of each molecule, the "valance level" of a particular chemical, will combine with with others.
Those accessable electrons of each atom of that molecule is dependant on not only it's number of electons actually in that atoms shell (which themselves depend on the combined number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus), but also to prior ionic bonds within the molecule itself.
Some of these compounds penetrate cellular structures, some don't. Some are benign and others go boom. Their observed properties are easily explained by quantum mechanics and the associated mathematical descriptions of particles we can never actually observe, merely speculate about. The truth remains that these speculations actually work in everyday reality despite the inconsistant logic from which it is derived.

Information is not Knowledge.
Knowledge is not Wisdom.
Wisdom is not Truth.

I've accumulated a lot of information over the past half century, even a little knowledge.
I don't claim to be wise, and probably wouldn't recognize truth if it left teeth marks in my backside.

I'll give this another week before losing interest if there are no replies.
I'm not trying to turn halb's thread into my own personal blog.

[Dark Side]

Y'know, there are about as many people posting here as there are employers looking to hire someone who knows this stuff.
That's why I "mix paint". It's economically more employable, and as close as I can get to actually using what information I've accumulated concerning atomic structure and molecular compounds.
Plus it's fun to watch the reaction when you overload a catalyst, the whole thing bubbles up and the surface membrane resembles a living mandelbrot set just before "accidentally" causing spontaneous combustion in a measuring cup.
(at least, that's what I told the insurance agent at my last job)

Perhaps I should have given myself the label of "industrial chemist", since mixing this paint and making the chemicals work is dependant on how the outermost electron shell of each molecule, the "valance level" of a particular chemical, will combine with with others.
Those accessable electrons of each atom of that molecule is dependant on not only it's number of electons actually in that atoms shell (which themselves depend on the combined number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus), but also to prior ionic bonds within the molecule itself.
Some of these compounds penetrate cellular structures, some don't. Some are benign and others go boom. Their observed properties are easily explained by quantum mechanics and the associated mathematical descriptions of particles we can never actually observe, merely speculate about. The truth remains that these speculations actually work in everyday reality despite the inconsistant logic from which it is derived.




I've accumulated a lot of information over the past half century, even a little knowledge.
I don't claim to be wise, and probably wouldn't recognize truth if it left teeth marks in my backside.

I'll give this another week before losing interest if there are no replies.
I'm not trying to turn halb's thread into my own personal blog.

I believe you have made an eloquent and well thought out number of posts; sadly however they will go ignored in the direction you have intended for them. The answers you gave are not the ones sought. Anyhoo, squirrels aside I'll give in to your whims and continue to read what you may post. It is (at least to me) insightful and somewhat fulfilling to know there are others with the same tactless measures of persuasion that I hold dear.

[Pyrate Jim]

The answers you gave are not the ones sought.

Wait....There was a Question?
I wouldn't go around belittling squirells. In the ongoing battle of squirell vs human-designed birdfeeders, the humans have lost every time. Proving the squirells' intellectual mastery & evolutionary superiority over homo sapiens.
And They're everywhere! I'll bet you have one peeping in one of your windows right now as you read this.

As far as the direction of my posts ~ So far we've brought up:
Wave/Particle Duality & the double slit experiment,
Frequency & the Electromagnetic Spectrum,
Polarization & Spin,
Entanglement & Interaction,
Heisenbergs' Uncertainty Principle, Paulis' Exclusion Principle & Plancks' Constant.

With hints at Schroedingers Cat, magnetic monopoles, singularities, logic theory & propositional calculus, plus recursive sets & formalised systems.

....I'm not really seeing any intended direction here. (other than avoiding subjective matter)
I believe everything I've posted can be researched and verified, I'm not just pulling it out of my panties. Most of it has a direct bearing on the topic of quantum behavior & halbs' assertion that photons are particles - not waves, due to superluminal influences called "KA".

"Tactless methods of persuasion"
If I weren't such a misanthropist and had a touch more sympathy, I coulda been a politician.
Then I realized that Sympathy is in the dictionary between $hit and syphillis.

[Pyrate Jim]

I believe you have made an eloquent and well thought out number of posts

I have yet to reconcile that with my own description.
A lot of rum has passed while typing here, the idea that I've actually thought anything out is a compliment.
Eloquence is merely having a basic understanding of language and its use. The "language" of mathematics is not much different from english ~ they are both capable of babbling nonsense.

[Dark Side]

Most of it has a direct bearing on the topic of quantum behavior & halbs' assertion that photons are particles - not waves, due to superluminal influences called "KA".

KA is a wheel or so I have read.

[Pyrate Jim]

KA is a wheel or so I have read.

Hardly eloquent, but intriquing. I used the word in the context of halbs' description in the very first post:

all the energy the sun produces travels at an infinite speed (since we know now that light, since it lacks mass, does not experience time). This energy shall be called KA (which is roughly the japanese symbol for power, this label being used since energy is used for other things in formulas).

I'll admit, I have not looked up that word for the definition. I'll do that before my next post.
Actually, I've discovered "tabs" which means I can give the Random House Dictionary description right now;
If you can direct me to a different description, I'd welcome it.

[Pyrate Jim]

"Description & Definition" ~ is there a difference?
To describe something is to put it into words, to define something means to use those same words to put the description into context relevant to the perciever.

Kinda like radio waves. They can be amplitude modulated or frequency modulated and if your cars radio is set to one, it ignores the other. Similar to the double-slit experiment.

I'm making the attempt to define what quantum describes. It's as if I'm broadcasting definitions in FM and most recievers are set to AM picking up descriptions, ignoring whatever I post - which is probably a good thing.
(with squirells laughing at all of us...)

Next on the hit parade, Carbon has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons.
OMG! Thats 666!
All Carbon-based Life-forms must be the work of Satan!

Yes, I know I'm being a facecious SOB, but I gave up hypocrisy for Lent.
At least I didn't attend FSU.
You'll just have to deal with the acerbic pathos ad interim...

[Dark Side]

Hardly eloquent, but intriquing. I used the word in the context of halbs' description in the very first post:


I'll admit, I have not looked up that word for the definition. I'll do that before my next post.
Actually, I've discovered "tabs" which means I can give the Random House Dictionary description right now;


If you can direct me to a different description, I'd welcome it.

I can direct you in a different direction. KA is something used in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series referencing fate.


And since everything that exists has some measure of mass, using KA for a measurement of something that does not exist in the way one thinks is a very silly thing indeed.

[Pyrate Jim]

I can direct you in a different direction. KA is something used in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series referencing fate.

A piece of fiction I am happily unfamiliar with. I guess fiction is as good a direction as any in the search for descriptions & definitions of quantum reality.

And since everything that exists has some measure of mass, using KA for a measurement of something that does not exist in the way one thinks is a very silly thing indeed.

Rule 34, dude.

Mass has attraction properties. The larger the mass, the more attraction it has and we use the word Gravity to describe this attraction.
So we can agree that Gravity exists, but does "gravity" have mass? It's certainly an effect of mass, but does it have any of its own?
The same can be said for the Strong & Weak nuclear forces, we're using words different from KA in an attempt to measure something that may not exist except in the way we think.
Isn't that the description of 'fiction"?

And yes, it is a silly thing. It's babbling nonsense whether the author is Stephen King or Stephen Hawking.

I would apologise for perpetuating theories that are filled with discrepencies and contradictions, but I find the silly things in life to be the most entertaining. The more I discover about it, the sillier it gets.
If I were a squirell, I woulda laughed my tail off by now...

<edit> I am my own grammar-nazi. I don't care about how anyone else types, I can usually decipher it. But I won't suffer seeing my own posts contaminated by mis-use of punctuation.

[Pyrate Jim]

I found some silly physics online:

[Pyrate Jim]

Wow.
I had thought that bringing something as insulting as "yo mama" jokes into a discussion about quantum physics would have resulted in a least a hint of righteous indignation.
I guess not.

This leads me to one of two conclusions. Either no-one cares, or no-one knows. The squirells insist that only the correct choice is the path to wisdom, the wrong choice leads only to the aqusition of more information which may or may not result in knowledge.

[bjjb99]

A thought...

Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle states that you can never accurately measure both momentum and position of a particle. The more you know about one aspect, the less you can know about the other.

In his book "Stalking the Wild Pendulum", Itzhak Bentov pushes this to an extreme using a swinging pendulum analog:


His words, not mine. And mathematically correct according to current theory.
Of course, the squirells are laughing. (I suspect them of drinking all the rum)

Doesn't Bentov's pendulum analog fail so long as the pendulum is a collection of particles? It's been somewhat less time for me since having taken quantum mechanics, but I seem to recall that in some theories, the interaction of the particles with each other forces the collapse of their individual wavefunctions to some mean of the collection, preventing the "ballooning" described in Bentov's analog.

Replace the pendulum with a single particle, say, an electron oscillating in a time-varying electric field, and compare the observed results with that of a macroscopic pendulum.

How does one measure the position and/or the momentum of an electron? With what mechanism is either measurement performed? What effect does such a measurement have on the particle itself?

BJJB