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Double-Slit Experiment in Time, Not Space
TheMatt writes "Thomas Young's double-slit experiment is a classic experiment that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms, buckyballs, and biomolecules. It has even been seen in a single molecule, and the single electron version was voted the most beautiful experiment by Physics World readers (covered previously on Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a double-slit in time, not space. The "slit" was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles--say, two maxima and one minima--passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the electron."
Just today at lunch I was saying "Wouldn't it be cool to craft a femtosecond pulse consisting of 1.5 cycles, say 2 maxima and 1 minima, passed through argon gas? We could get electrons which could be accelerated then observe the resulting interference patterns!"
Well, that didn't fly. The guys got pissed off and yelled "Shut up and watch the stripper!" so I sheepishly went back to my titties and beer.
Trolling is a art,
I've been trying for years to do the double-slit experiment. Alas, the wife still won't go for it.
Maybe this conversation from the TFA will help:
So does it run on regular unleaded gasoline?
Unfortunately no, it needs something with a little more kick - plutonium.
Plutonium... wait, are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?
No no no, this sucker's electrical, but it requires a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need.
Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium... did you rip that off?
Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinball machine parts.
Do you guys get aspirine with your subscription? Cuz if you do, I'm signing up right now...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Not to mention flowers, too...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Heh, you said eksisterer hjemmesiden.
No.
"In the classic version of the experiment, electrons pass through a mask containing two parallel slits and produce a pattern of bright and dark interference fringes on a screen." Wasn't this called Pong?
Im going to need alot of pot to understand this one.
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
I can understand the use of a Maxima, it's a solid car. But pairing it with a Minima (I think it's Kia's Minivan model, not sure) is just silly.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Did they find out the result before they did the experiment?
There's gotta be a Bill & Ted quote in there somewhere.
--- This
...how can we turn this into some sort of weapon?
Proverbs 21:19
First there was Chinese relativity
"All of your problems, no matter how big or small, 1.2 billion chinese people could give a fuck"
and then there was relative relativity
"No matter what your achievements, your aunt will continue to tell your girlfriend/wife about the time when you ran nude in the garden aged 5"
and now I bring you the Scientific relativity theory
"No matter how smart you think you are, you still look smart to a time splitting physicist"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Just a randomly picked response to this thread.
Here ya go:
www.timecube.com
There's gotta be a second or fourth corollary to Goodwin's Law here somewhere... mentioning the time cube guy....
The "slit" was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles--say, two maxima and one minima--passed through an argon gas.
Anyone who has a femtosecond pulse generator should feel comfortable with this. If not, get access to a two-photon UV femtosecond pulse generator which uses nanosecond-time-scale infrared laser to deplete the terminal state of an F2 laser, based on F2 transitions.
Next, you'll want a healthy dose of argon gas. Argon is used to reduce heat loss in sealed units by slowing down convection inside the air space. You can get argon gas cartridges to prevent wine oxidation, which is a neat little side benefit. A 50L cylinder filled with argon gas to a pressure of 10130 kPa at 30C has approximately 201 moles of argon. Just remember that if you're going to lase with argon, its most efficient transitions are at 488 nm and 514.5 nm.
So now you'll need to create an ion chamber using the argon gas. You'll need a metal conducting can, and a wire electrode in the center which is well insulated from the chamber walls. The chamber, of course, will be filled with argon.
Next, you'll need to use your femtosecond pulse generator to apply a DC voltage between the outer can and center electrode. This will create an electric field, of only a few volts, that sweeps the ions to the oppositely charged electrodes. For some additional fun, if you apply a few hundred volts, the electron emissions will produce "secondary emissions", which amplify the results. I wouldn't recommend creating one of these by hand if you haven't already done so, but remember to use a 4.7uF capacitor with non-polar film, a 100,000 megohm resistor and a 2N4117A electrometer-grade JFET.
Anyways, generating a local maxima shouldn't be too difficult if you keep the phase dynamics of your pulse generator within one half delta of the wavelength propogation delay of your argon gas cylinder. This, as always, varies according to room temperature, so be sure to calibrate your scales before attempting the experiment.
The trickiest part of the experiment is to build a ray tube to display your intereference pattern. I suggest using a Tektronix Type 453 Oscilloscope, which may be hard to find but has the best bang per buck.
In no time at all, you'll be generating double slits in time!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Lunch time, doubly so.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Yes! It is! This is my theory, the theory being that is to say the theory that there is in fact, this theory being mine, the theory which states, if I may be so bold, this theory states, yes that there is in this theory, of which is mine...
one electron.
and you will know him by his proper name:
Bob.
Bob the electron. He is around you, in you apart of you are you are a part of him. Say hi Bob!
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Colin:
For the last time, System Restore and NTBackup are different programs for different purposes. Telling people that System Restore is junk and they should only use NTBackup is a disservice to the Win XP community.
Oh, wait, that's the other redundant and repetitive poster I saw today. Sorry.
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
Clearly you do not possess a mastery of the danish language (which I do):
Allow me to translate:
Adressen på den hjemmesideMark Andreesen takes a vacation to the seaside.
du ønsker at findewith his vacuum cleaner in his suitcase
er enten forkertwhich he uses for sexual gratification
eller også eksisterer hjemmesiden ikke længere.like his sister used to do, before she gave him all her lingerie.
Du kan prøve følgendeOn his way to the shopping mall, Mark fell down.
Tjekke om adressen er stavet rigtigt.And unfortunately broke his walking stick.
Bemærk at det har betydningThe passers-by had placed bets.
om du bruger store eller små bogstaver!They all went to the club to hear the Bogstavers, a hot new Danish band that performs live with pieces of cheese draped on their shoulders (a local custom).
See, Danish isn't so hard!
"Physics is cool and all, if you're not quite bright enough to make it in Math" "Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Interesting :) God has exceeded his 40 meg limit. I would never have thought of that myself.
Obviously only a Nazi would post a time cube link.
...
;)
(The real joke here will be clueless mods marking this as flamebait
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Mine smells like hydrogen cyanide. Or does it?
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible -W.B.