Two slit experiment : question from my 12 year old

[Halmyre]

67Dino said:

I had a conversation once with an alien who landed his UFO on my lawn. I asked him what was going on here and he said our problem is we can’t see most of what is happening. When we roll a dice, all 6 results occur, but we only perceive one. The results also exist before we roll the dice, but we can’t see that either. I said, “No, I mean what is going on with you landing on my lawn. Now get off it”.

Oi! You want this thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Dr Jekyll]

Halmyre said:

For what it's worth, Schroedinger postulated the cat in a box experiment to illustrate the absurdity of trying to apply quantum theory to the 'real' world.

+1

[tbourner]

Halmyre said:

For what it's worth, Schroedinger postulated the cat in a box experiment to illustrate the absurdity of trying to apply quantum theory to the 'real' world.

Exactly. So the entire cat in a closed system that we can't "observe" should behave the same as a single particle, and be in both states at once. It's nothing to do with the decay of the radioactive particle, it's purely a 50% chance of the cat being dead after an hour. The particle was only included as a nod to the quantum physics being mocked.

[Pobolycwm]

otherman said:

Can I just say this has been the most enjoyable PH threads I've ever encountered. I'd be interested to hear what the assembled think of V8 manual cars, Punk Rock and pre-Raphaelite art also. Because I believe there could be a Venn diagram overlap area there with the cool people in it.

At the risk of falling for your irony only if I can swap pre-Raphaelite art for classic Russian literature, the venn diagram a much underrated tool, possibly because it’s so easy and intuitive, unlike QM.

As for the most interesting science thread, need to go back to when Gene Vincent stalked these pages, I say stalked .....hunted more like

[Halb]

deckster said:

The long answer is that if your son can spend the next forty years studying subatomic physics and come up with a way to unify quantum theory and relativity, then we'll be a good way towards explaining everything, he will get several Nobel prizes and as much physics totty as his slide rule can handle.

And make most of fantasy/sci-fi books/telly a reality