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Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

quantamagazine.org

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#12

Could this method be used to image exoplanets or is that still in the theoretical realm of the Solar gravitational lens[1]? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens

I believe this would be able to provide at least low resolution images of earth-sized exoplanets.

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#13
post #2

I'm certainly interested in this, but for different reasons. Over the years, several people have bent my ears about Duane's theorem that suggests the double-slit experiment is not demonstrating quantum effects at all. It strikes me that this could help establish or overturn such claims. https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/double-slit-exper... Any thoughts? Could it help to test it on a planet-sized scale?

This has been previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21352239

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#14
post #10
post #4

That animation at the top of the article of the possible locations of the photon is very cool. Quantum behavior seems so counterintuitive to us because we're just apes who evolved minds to survive in the macroscopic world of the African savanna. But I wonder if we perhaps taught quantum behavior to kids from an early age, whether they could get an intuitive understanding for it, in the the same way that I can, like,…

It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…

what is configuration space

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#15
post #10
post #4

That animation at the top of the article of the possible locations of the photon is very cool. Quantum behavior seems so counterintuitive to us because we're just apes who evolved minds to survive in the macroscopic world of the African savanna. But I wonder if we perhaps taught quantum behavior to kids from an early age, whether they could get an intuitive understanding for it, in the the same way that I can, like,…

It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…

I’m not sure I’m following… are you saying that the wave functions are just a yaml for the behavior in physical space?

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#16
post #8

You can simulate quantum effects with just polarized glasses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs

You can't. This is just covered by classical electrodynamics. Of course in a sense you can say anything is quantum, but then the stability of a table is quantum (which it is). If you were to have a single photon source and avalanche detector, ok now you are talking quantum.

I'm curious, can you detail how classic electrodynamics covers this?

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#17
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…

what is configuration space

"Configuration space" means that the state of the world is described by some list of numbers that don't actually correspond directly to locations in space or time. Or even mass or energy.

It means that those things aren't really fundamental. What's fundamental is some other set of things that aren't too difficult to work with mathematically, but which don't correspond exactly to anything you're familiar with. The best you can do is to add in "probability functions", such that "state of the world X" means that you'd have some chance of detecting a particle here, and some chance of detecting a particle there, and so on.

It's that jump from one to the other that's awkward, and to be honest not 100% understood. But it's actually better understood than a lot of the woo-woo descriptions of quantum mechanics make it out to be.

Now, when I said that the math isn't too difficult to work with, that's a bit of a lie. It's all about Simple Harmonic Oscillation, except using complex numbers. That's really not too bad, but it's definitely new.

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't. This is just covered by classical electrodynamics. Of course in a sense you can say anything is quantum, but then the stability of a table is quantum (which it is). If you were to have a single photon source and avalanche detector, ok now you are talking quantum.

I'm curious, can you detail how classic electrodynamics covers this?

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.4943751

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#19
post #2

I'm certainly interested in this, but for different reasons. Over the years, several people have bent my ears about Duane's theorem that suggests the double-slit experiment is not demonstrating quantum effects at all. It strikes me that this could help establish or overturn such claims. https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/double-slit-exper... Any thoughts? Could it help to test it on a planet-sized scale?

Such claims have already been overturned - and that blog post is _very_ light on details.

Re: Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope

#20
post #8

You can simulate quantum effects with just polarized glasses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs

You can't. This is just covered by classical electrodynamics. Of course in a sense you can say anything is quantum, but then the stability of a table is quantum (which it is). If you were to have a single photon source and avalanche detector, ok now you are talking quantum.

The first 2 minutes of that video make it clear that they think it is "real" quantum effects (e.g. at 1:34 entanglement > EPR paradox > Bell's Theorem > local realism). Those are pretty quantum-y imo.
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