Revolutionary Experiment Confirms Incompleteness of Quantum Mechanics

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In summary, the conversation revolves around the Afshar experiment, which claims to refute the completeness of quantum mechanics. The experiment involves producing an interference pattern and then using wires to determine which slit the photons came through. However, there is debate over whether this actually answers the "which way" question or simply creates a new uncertainty. The conversation also discusses the possibility of defining "which way" without relying on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The poster plans to email Dr. Afshar to clarify this issue.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.5079"

V. Jacques, N. D. Lai, A. Dreau, D. Zheng, D. Chauvat, F. Treussart, P. Grangier, J-F Roch

(Submitted on 31 Jul 2008)


Abstract: A recent experiment performed by S. S. Afshar et al. has been interpreted as a violation of Bohr's complementarity principle between interference visibility and which-path information in a two-path interferometer. We have reproduced this experiment, using true single-photon pulses propagating in a two-path wavefront- splitting interferometer realized with a Fresnel's biprism, and followed by a grating with adjustable transmitting slits. The measured values of interference visibility V and which-path information, characterized by the distinguishability parameter D, are found to obey the complementarity relation V^2+D^2=<1. This result demonstrates that the experiment can be perfectly explained by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
 
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