FTL - New Thoughts and Questions

[mlorrey]

A better explaination of the double slit experiment is that each EM wave splits into two waves, splitting the quanta of energy of the original wave between them (with odd quantities of quanta, you get 1/2 quanta virtual photon for the remainder photon) and exhibiting the same sort of interference pattern you get with ocean waves.<br /><br />A single photon doesn't just interfere with itself in a double slit interference pattern, because each wave peak interferes with other waves ahead of and behind it in the original beam.<br /><br />That being said, interference patterns do not just happen with double slits: they happen with coherent light beams from different sources.<br /><br />If this isn't so, then it is impossible for "light pressure" used by solar sails to exist.<br /><br />Actually, a real scientist wouldn't take anyone's word for it, they'd devise an experiment from first principles and test it for themselves. Taking someone else's word for it is an appeal to authority and is therefore a logical fallacy.

 

[yevaud]

Nor did I in school. We actually had to reproduce this experiment (edit: I should have been more specific, and when I stated "photon," I meant in it's wavelike mode).<br /><br />If you look on the 'net, there are any number of sites that will provide either diagrams to build a double-slit interferometer, or purchase the device in it's entirety.<br /><br />PS, my former advisor now runs his own company - building custom Fabry-Perot interferometry devices. So I'm not unfamiliar with this.<br /><br />Where we shared space with MIT at Millstone Hill <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>