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Einstein and
Quantum Mechanics - Part 2
a World
Without Einstein
Series
Our
bizarre Quantum Mechanical tour concludes,
exploring what is reality in
the micro-world.
Click here for Broadcast.
After
you have enjoyed the broadcast, get the book! All of the information
presented here, and more, can be found in World
without Einstein
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#1
Is
it possible to know where an electron “really” is?
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#2
Waves can interfere constructively (left) or
destructively (right), but only if they have the same frequency and a
constant phase shift.
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#3
The most famous experiment in QM: the two-slit
experiment. Source at bottom emits photons toward a barrier with two
slits and doors that open and close. A detector records photons that
pass through the barrier and hit the upper plane. With both doors open,
the photon waves interfere producing “fringes”.
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#4
Two-slit
experiment done with electrons.
Left, interference fringes prove electrons are waves by passing through
both slits simultaneously. Right, point impacts prove electrons are
also localized particles.
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#5
A
politically incorrect thought experiment that was never actually done
on a real cat. Cat is in asealed box with a detector that releases
poison gas when a radioactive source decays. Is the cat Alive, Dead, or
Both?
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#6
Quantum uncertainty allows (indeed requires)
particle pairs to spontaneously appear from nothing (borrowing energy
from the Bank of Heisenberg), lead the briefest of lives, and then
disappear. This effect is precisely confirmed and does affect the
properties of real particles.
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#7
Quantum uncertainty allows particles to pass
through barriers, including zones where the energy would be negative.
Examples are the superfluid helium “climbing” out of a bowl, and
radioactive decay of unstable nuclei.
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