- #1
mintparasol
- 78
- 0
Hi all,
I'm not trained in physics beyond high school but have a healthy interest and understand a little quantum physics and special (still grappling with general!) relativity.
Here's a quick question on a pop.science book I'm reading at the moment. The book is by Marcus Chown, it's called 'Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You.'
In the book he makes an example of the double slit experiment we all did in high school and says that if we fire one photon at the slitted screen, we'll get an interference pattern on the rear screen. So far, so good. He then goes on to say that if we can detect the photon going thru one slit rather than the other(i.e. detect which slit the photon passed thru), that we can't possibly pick up any interference pattern at the 2nd screen due to wave/particle duality.
Is he serious? Are there experimental results that show this?
I'm not trained in physics beyond high school but have a healthy interest and understand a little quantum physics and special (still grappling with general!) relativity.
Here's a quick question on a pop.science book I'm reading at the moment. The book is by Marcus Chown, it's called 'Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You.'
In the book he makes an example of the double slit experiment we all did in high school and says that if we fire one photon at the slitted screen, we'll get an interference pattern on the rear screen. So far, so good. He then goes on to say that if we can detect the photon going thru one slit rather than the other(i.e. detect which slit the photon passed thru), that we can't possibly pick up any interference pattern at the 2nd screen due to wave/particle duality.
Is he serious? Are there experimental results that show this?