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Double-Slit Experiment in Time, Not Space

Posted by timothy on from the that-young-guy-did-a-bunch-of-stuff dept.

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."

8 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. huh?! by Dues · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Adressen på den hjemmeside, du ønsker at finde, er enten forkert, eller også eksisterer hjemmesiden ikke længere. Du kan prøve følgende:
    Tjekke om adressen er stavet rigtigt. Bemærk at det har betydning, om du bruger store eller små bogstaver!"

    that may as well have been the writeup, because i don't understand a word of it.

  2. Re:Great minds think alike. by ettlz · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The guys got pissed off and yelled "Shut up and watch the stripper!" so I sheepishly went back to my titties...

    Ever read a biography of Feynman?

  3. "Whoa." --Neo by game+kid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The very thought of making 5-femtosecond laser pulses (0.000 000 000 000 005 sec, right?) leaves me feeling dumb and slow.

    That aside, someone please clue me in here:

    The team was able to control the output of the laser so that all the pulses were identical. The researchers could, for example, ensure that each pulse contained two maxima of the electric field (thatis, two peaks with large positive values) and one minimum (a peak with a large negative value). There was a small probability that an atom would be ionized by one or other of the maxima, which therefore played the role of the slits, with the resulting electron being accelerated towards a detector. If the atom was ionized by the minimum, the electron travelled in the opposite direction towards a second detector.

    So if the electrons hit the laser when the pulse was at maximum strength they would hit the detector, like the two "beams" of light passed through the slits in Young's experiment? and the ones that pass "between" the maxima and minima get distorted like the blurry edges of the light? thus making "slits" of electrons but at instants in time instead of separate points? (I'm no physics expert but I'm sure you guessed that by now...)

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. Re:Ah yes... by El_Smack · · Score: 3, Insightful


    "I've been trying for years to do the double-slit experiment. Alas, the wife still won't go for it."

    "That's a pity because your nanoscale penis is probably about the right size for quantum effects to be significant. "

    That burnination was worthy of Trogdor himself.

    --


    There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
  6. Re:So is this saying ... by Husgaard · · Score: 4, Insightful
    No, their experiment rather suggests that time is just another dimension like Einstein said.

    The experiment is the same as a known one, with a single difference: In the traditional experiment the slits are separated by a difference in the normal 3d space, But in this experiement the slices are at the same place in the normal 3d space but separated by a difference in time.

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Time is an illusion? by Nicky+G · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This seems pretty significant to me, as a layperson. I always personally interpretted the classic double slit experiement as indicatiing "time" as we know it -- linear time, from moment to moment... Is BS. And perhaps, all time exists simultaneously, and it is the singularity of our consciousness that focuses it into a linear progression.

    It's too bad more laypeople don't get into quantum physics, string theory, etc. The implicatisons are pretty amazing on both scientific and spiritual levels, and I have chosen to read much of what this science tells us as: The Universe (Multiverse) is One and Many simultaneously, we are all a part of it, and in essence, are all One. Time is an illusion on the ultimate level, as is the notion of our matter and energy being separate from every other element of the universe. Thus, death as we know it does not truly exist, when what you are is a focal point of the neverending Multiverse (God, if you wanna put it that way -- but that's up to you).

    Gee... I wonder why they don't teach any of this stuff in the school system, unless you happen to go into phsyics?

    I highly recommend The Tao of Physics by Capra (which I'm sure many scientists loathe). Also writings by Nick Herbert are pretty interesting. A lot of the stuff we are finding equations for now is what many indegenous cultures have taught for thousands and thousands of years. They may have communicated the ideas differently, but they strike me as having the same message.

    ---

    The techno-mediated cultural conspiracy

    http://thewired.blogs.com/teotwawki/