Angel Art
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2016–2022
5:13 · 1.6M views · Dec 27, 2010
A short animated lesson, featuring Dr. Quantum, on the double slit experiment and how observing electrons seems to change their behavior.
Cited as a goofy layman's introduction to the double slit experiment in quantum physics threads.
3 comments from Hacker News
Does anyone have a link to a real world example of the double slit experiment where the photons are observed at the slits , causing the wave function of the light to collapse so the light acts as a particle beyond the slit, ending up in two piles on the detector screen, rather than the wave pattern. Every time I ask this, some do-gooder will not read a word I wrote and send me a video of the basic slit experiment and think they've somehow educated me. Every time. It's amazing. What I'm looking for is a photo or video of a real experiment showing just two groupings. There a million photos/videos of the wave pattern. I'm looking for an example with exactly two clumps of photons because the light is observed as it passes each slit. In real life, not a computer simulation. Watch this video if you're unclear what I'm asking: this video
When I watched a goofy layman’s explanation[1] about the double slit, it stressed the importance of the effects of observation on the behavior or nature of the electrons. When observed to see “which” slit the light passed through, they no longer created the interference pattern described by Duane’s law. And when left unobserved (at the slits) the interference pattern emerged even when shooting “one electron at a time” at the slits. Does this article or Duane’s Law cover or appreciate this? It seems like it only describes the interference pattern. 1. this video
> Only if you start by assuming that "free" will must, necessarily, be supernatural. But of course, if you start that way, you've started everything in bad faith, because you're going to reject any possible view of the world that relies on science instead of magic. I'm willing to admit there are parts of science we don't understand, and that people often label this as "magic". In my opinion, sometimes humans call it religion and use it as a form of hope as we continue in the quest to know the unknown. Admittedly, any tool can be used to do harm too, and clearly in 2016, many of us can see how many religions have been perverted. Yet at the same time I think religious folks tend to levy the same criticism of strict scientists. Anyway, I have no beef with either side, and I know I won't be able to convince anyone here that science can also be viewed as a religion with its own biases. Plus I believe that most of the time science is great. I just don't know about this quest for true AI. It feels religion-y to me. > No sensible definition of free will says that you can will yourself to desire slood (a substance you've never heard of because it doesn't actually exist and has no properties even as a hypothetical) or will yourself out of the influence of gravity. Right, no, I didn't mean it like that. The thing I wanted to share is that free will and determinism cannot co-exist, in my opinion, for the reason stated in my last comment. Say I have a choice - pizza or pasta. If I choose