Sunday, June 5, 2011

Geeky Post - Fun With Quantum Mechanics

Watching Photons Interfere: "Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer" : Uncertain Principles: "The more orthodox approach to quantum mechanics holds that the photons do not have well-defined position and momentum before they are detected at a particular position or with a particular momentum. In this version, the particular results of a given measurement of position or momentum is picked at the instant of measurement from a probability distribution determined from the wavefunction at that position at that time. If you repeat this process lots of times, you'll get a different position and momentum every time, but those values will follow a particular pattern. If you average together a whole slew of these measurements, you can come up with an average momentum and average position, which is what they've done here."

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