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Double Slit Explanation Overdue!

Toontown said:
Why not just be a damn particle all the time if you will have to be one every time you interact? What's with all the switching back and forth?
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They don't actually switch back and forth. They're neither waves nor particles, but something in-between (wavelike particles). It's simply convenient for us to think of them as waves in some situations and particles in others.
 
Toontown said:
All of which strikes me as rather odd, bordering on arbitrary complexity and Einstein-despised dice-throwing. Why not just be a damn particle all the time if you will have to be one every time you interact? What's with all the switching back and forth? Can they not move as particles? Do they have to switch to particle mode, stop, interact, switch back to wave mode, and move on?
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There's no switching going on. A "wavicle" is what it is. You might as well ask, why does water "switch" to being hard when you jump off a high bridge into it. (Seriously, that stuff will break your legs.)

Water, of course, doesn't switch states when you hit it at a sufficiently high velocity. It's soft and easily penetrable at low velocity, and hard as a rock at high velocity because that's its nature.

In fact, it may be easier to understand the dual-nature of a wavicle if you think of something like surface tension. Of course, the exact way it operates bears no real resemblance to surface tension, but surface tension does provide a sort of apparent-duality that isn't really a duality, just like the particle-wave nature of an electron.

There's no paradoxes at all here; just stuff that operates differently from anything we're directly familiar with.
 
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my OP.

Just to clarify, yes, I am asking as to the reason "why" the double slit experiment is the way it is, not "how" it works. I believe I could have made myself clearer by referring to it as the "interpretation".

Im not able to post links yet but the youtube video Quantum Mechanics (an embarrassment) - sixty seconds video - this video pretty much sums up what I was trying to ask and pretty much gave me what I was looking for ie more "interpretations" to research. So, it's not just me who is asking why we don't seem to be making any progress here :)

I have found the responses to my post quite interesting though, some examples below:

It's just the way the Universe is made
Are you asking why physics are the way they are?
There is no 'why' in physics. There is only 'how'
What's to explain?
and that's all the answer you will ever get from physics about anything.

Is this part of the problem? Too many people who are not interested or dismissive of any proposed "why". The "why" for me is much more important than the "how". I assumed the point of working out the "how" was to eventually get to the "why"?

With regards to Tom Cambell's My Big TOE. Should we be dismissing all of any scientist's work because some parts of it are a bit non-mainstream? Was Isaac Newton not some kind of bible bashing alchemist or something?

Some of Tom Cambell's Virtual Reality theory is not too dissimilar to this Google Maths genius guy's own "interpretation" of our reality: Youtube Video "The Quantum COnspiracyy: What Popularizers of QM Don't Want You to Know).

For me personally, some kind of "virtual" reality seems a better option than a multi universe or Copenhagen interpretation. Id be interested to know how some of the "It's just the way the Universe is made" people go about thinking about the "why" ? Do they have no opinion at all, or are they also inclined to favour one explanation over another, based on their own intuition? After all , it seems that the scientists themselves (including the ones who are working out the "how"! ) do indeed have their own (and very varied) favourite "interpretation".
 
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I'm sorry if we came off as dismissive, many people come here peddling their kooky QM-feelgood-new-age ... or claim that QM is wrong because they don't understand it.

You seem to be neither and are actually engaging in a discussion and listening to responses. Thanks and welcome! :)

Behind the 'dismissiveness' is also a deeper point that I think you are not fully appreciating. Science is a truly different (and successful) way of looking at the world and that perhaps those sorts of "why" questions are a (historically, ...ahem, less-successful) legacy of per-scientific philosophy. Philosophy that matches human intuitions rather than how the world actually works.

I'll try to find some good references ...

Cheers,
Jeff
 
Ultimately, science really only deals with the 'how'; the 'why' can be whatever you like.

Why are things the way they are?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
I don't know, and I'm not even sure they're meaningful questions.

What do things do, and how do they do it?
How is there something rather than than nothing?
Try science; although the answer to that last one may be tricky...
 
AlfieGee said:
Its not just about light. From electrons, all the way up to 114 atom molecules, have been used in double slit experiments.

In normal life, things more or less our own size are made from small things that behave like this?. Yes... that is why this is hugely important... I dont get your point?
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The random stuff averages itself out. That's why we don't see a difference at our scales, basically.
 
AlfieGee said:
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my OP.

Just to clarify, yes, I am asking as to the reason "why" the double slit experiment is the way it is, not "how" it works. I believe I could have made myself clearer by referring to it as the "interpretation".
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Then, there is no answer to your question unless you posit an intelligence behind the universe.
 
If we did discover an answer to any of our "why" questions concerning any basic physical phenomenon, we would then ask why that answer and not some other. We end up with an endless sequence of why questions. That's why physics successfully deals with "how" but not so well with "why."
 
"Why" has two possible meanings.

If our Universe had been designed, then the "why" would be the intentions of the designers.

Or,

The "why" could be what causes it, even if the cause is impersonal.

As to what causes wave-particle duality, I don't think that we have much of a clue. It's a result of quantum field theory, and that's as far as we can go, at least at the present time.
 
lpetrich said:
The "why" could be what causes it, even if the cause is impersonal.

As to what causes wave-particle duality, I don't think that we have much of a clue. It's a result of quantum field theory, and that's as far as we can go, at least at the present time.
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That's how I read the "why" question.

What bugged me about the OP is the assertion that an explanation is "overdue". We get explanations when theoretical and experimental advances allow us to, and not a minute sooner. I'm sure we have a lot more to learn about the nature of wave-particle duality, but an explanation will not be forthcoming just because we think it's an important question.
 
Mathematically, quantum field theory is more-or-less the theory that the laws of nature can be described by a path integral:

Z = integral of exp(i*action) over X(x1), X(x2), X(x3), ..., all the points in space-time x

for fields X(x) at each space-time point x.

The action, in turn, is the integral of the fields' Lagrangian over all of space-time:

action = integral of Lagrangian(X(x)) over x

The fields' Lagrangian is a summary of their equations of motion, and many theories have Lagrangians, including general relativity and the Standard Model.
 
The equations represent QM unequivocally. When you move away from the equations, you're changing from physics to philosophy ("what is real..." etc).
 
Belz... said:
smartcooky said:
BASIC is the analogue of "quantum physics for the layman"

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE is the analogue of quantum physics for the quantum physicist
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I love you. ;)
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Smartcooky forgot the final part of the analogy...

BASIC is the analogue of "quantum physics for the layman"

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE is the analogue of quantum physics for the quantum physicist

BRAINF--K is the analogue of how quantum physics actually works
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A "Hello, World!" program in this language: ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

ETA: What the commands mean:
> Move data pointer one place right
< Move data pointer one place left
+ Add one to byte at the data pointer
- Subtract one from byte at the data pointer
. Output the byte at the data pointer
, Input to byte at data pointer
[ If byte at the data pointer is zero, move instruction pointer one place right, else move instruction pointer forward to the command after the matching ] command
] If byte at the data pointer is zero, move instruction pointer one place right, else move instruction pointer backward to the command after the matching [ command

:)
 
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models

My (nonphysicist) take on the matter is that waves and particles are models that we created, based on macroscopic phenomena. There is no reason why atomic-scale particles need to conform to our models.
 
Actually, I'm still confused about what AlfieGee is asking?

Is it:

1) What are the hypothesized mechanisms that can explain what we see in the strange results of the double slit experiment. But no deeper "what do these hypothesized mechanisms tell us about ..."

2) What do these hypothesized mechanisms tell us about how reality works and how this contrasts with previous and specific physics.

3) What do these hypothesized mechanisms tell us about how reality works and how this contrasts with how humans perceive reality.

4) What sort of global physics philosophy develops from the results or the hypothesized mechanisms or both

5) How do the old philosophies fit with the results or the hypothesized mechanisms or both

6) What new old-style philosophies fit with the results or the hypothesized mechanisms or both

...

420) Sh, shn, shnick ... crackle, [slow inhale], ... cnk ... cnk ...cnknnnnknnnnnnk .... [fast exhale], cough , cough ... cnk ... cough "Dude, we create reality with our minds!" ;)

Cheers,
Jeff
 
halides1 said:
My (nonphysicist) take on the matter is that waves and particles are models that we created, based on macroscopic phenomena. There is no reason why atomic-scale particles need to conform to our models.
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That's what I was trying, and failing, to express.
 
What bothers me a lot of the time about these questions isn't that they're asked, but that the questioners then demand the answer be broken down for their understanding to a point where it no longer has any relation to the reality of the situation. At a certain point, a mature person should just be able to say "Oh, someone else understands it. Maybe I should trust them."

I don't know exactly how my computer's hardware works, but I'm reasonably certain I can rely on the person I bring it to to get it repaired.

Similarly, I don't understand (or like) Quantum Mechanics or the Double Blind experiment, but when a few people infinitely more qualified and interested than I am take the time to try to explain them to me, in a variety of different ways, my reaction, if I don't understand, isn't to blame them.

Guess what I'm leading up to is, the explanations and whatnot provided in here haven't made me understand much more of these theories, but I appreciate the effort taken.
 
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