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The Wall Street journal (Eastern ed. : Online)/The Wall Street journal. Eastern edition

‘Through Two Doors at Once’ Review: Interfering With Reality

Andrew Crumey

Published Aug 3, 2018• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Richard Feynman said that the double-slit experiment seemed to have been ‘designed to contain all of the mystery of quantum mechanics.’

Related papers

Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality

Anil Ananthaswamy

The intellectual adventure story of the "double-slit" experiment, showing how a sunbeam split into two paths first challenged our understanding of light and then the nature of reality itself--and continues to almost 200 years later.Many of the greatest scientific minds have grappled with this experiment. Thomas Young devised it in the early 1800s to show that light behaves like a wave, and in doing so opposed Isaac Newton's view that light is made of particles. But then Albert Einstein showed that light comes in quanta, or particles. Quantum mechanics was born. This led to a fierce debate between Einstein and Niels Bohr over the nature of reality--subatomic bits of matter and its interaction with light--again as revealed by the double-slit experiment. Richard Feynman held that it embodies the central mystery of the quantum world. Decade after decade, hypothesis after hypothesis, scientists have returned to this ingenious experiment to help them answer deeper and deeper questions about the fabric of the universe.How can a single particle behave both like a particle and a wave? Does a particle, or indeed reality, exist before we look at it, or does looking create reality, as the textbook "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics seems to suggest? How can particles influence each other faster than the speed of light? Is there a place where the quantum world ends and the familiar classical world of our daily lives begins, and if so, can we find it? And if there's no such place, then does the universe split into two each time a particle goes through the double-slit?Through Two Doors at Once celebrates the elegant simplicity of an iconic experiment and its profound reach. With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world, through history and down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have yet fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.

•Aug 7, 2018•19 citations

Two paths, diverged

Tushna Commissariat

In Through Two Doors at Once: the Elegant Experiment that Captures the Enigma of Quantum Reality , author Anil Ananthaswamy dives into the 200-year history, science and legacy of the double-slit experiment, which forms the backbone of quantum mechanics.

Physics World•Sep 1, 2018•0 citations

Quantum interference of molecules -- probing the wave nature of matter

Anu Venugopalan

The double slit interference experiment has been famously described by Richard Feynman as containing the "only mystery of quantum mechanics". The history of quantum mechanics is intimately linked with the discovery of the dual nature of matter and radiation. While the double slit experiment for light is easily undertsood in terms of its wave nature, the very same experiment for particles like the electron is somewhat more difficult to comprehend. By the 1920s it was firmly established that electrons have a wave nature. However, for a very long time, most discussions pertaining to interference experiments for particles were merely gedanken experiments. It took almost six decades after the establishment of its wave nature to carry out a 'double slit interference' experiment for electrons. This set the stage for interference experiments with larger particles. In the last decade there has been spectacular progress in matter-wave interefernce experiments. Today, molecules with over a hundred atoms can be made to interfere. In the following we discuss some of these exciting developments which probe new regimes of Nature, bringing us closer to the heart of quantum mechanics and its hidden mysteries.

arXiv:1211.3493•Nov 15, 2012•0 citations

The double-slit experiment

What is the most beautiful experiment in physics? More than 200 readers replied when Robert Crease asked this question in May, and their top five choices include classic experiments by Galileo, Millikan, Newton and Thomas Young (see pp19–20). But uniquely among the top 10, the most beautiful experiment in physics – the double-slit interference experiment with electrons – does not have the name of an individual associated with it. Most discussions of double-slit experiments with particles refer to Feynman's quote in his 1963 lectures: "[It] is absolutely impossible to explain in any classical way and has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery." But who actually carried out the experiment? Standard reference books offer no answer to this question but a search through the literature does reveal several unsung experimental heroes.

Physics World•Sep 1, 2002•12 citations

Time to Stop Believing in Fairytales: A Possible Solution to Quantum Mechanics Most Daring Problem, the Doubleslit Experiment

Uroš Šinigoj

I come from a medical background. I haven't seriously studied physics since high school but I like to observe things and I like the mysteries of quantum mechanics. Solving mysteries is one of the most important approaches to the development of humanity. With that said I would like to propose here where to look for solutions for one of the most important mysteries of quantum mechanics. The double-slit experiment.

•Jan 1, 2020•0 citations

The Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics

Partha Ghose

A critical re-examination of the double-slit experiment and its variants is presented to clarify the nature of what Feynman called the “central mystery” and the “only mystery”of quantum mechanics, leading to an interpretation of complementarity in which and description rather than a wave or particle' description is valid for the same experimental set up, with the wave culminating in the particle sequentially in time. This interpretation is different from Bohr's but is consistent with the von Neumann formulation as well as some more recent interpretations of quantum mechanics.

NeuroQuantology•Nov 24, 2009•0 citations
The intellectual adventure story of the "double-slit" experiment, showing how a sunbeam split into two paths first challenged our understanding of light and then the nature of reality itself--and continues to almost 200 years later.Many of the greatest scientific minds have grappled with this experiment. Thomas Young devised it in the early 1800s to show that light behaves like a wave, and in doing so opposed Isaac Newton's view that light is made of particles. But then Albert Einstein showed that light comes in quanta, or particles. Quantum mechanics was born. This led to a fierce debate between Einstein and Niels Bohr over the nature of reality--subatomic bits of matter and its interaction with light--again as revealed by the double-slit experiment. Richard Feynman held that it embodies the central mystery of the quantum world. Decade after decade, hypothesis after hypothesis, scientists have returned to this ingenious experiment to help them answer deeper and deeper questions about the fabric of the universe.How can a single particle behave both like a particle and a wave? Does a particle, or indeed reality, exist before we look at it, or does looking create reality, as the textbook "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics seems to suggest? How can particles influence each other faster than the speed of light? Is there a place where the quantum world ends and the familiar classical world of our daily lives begins, and if so, can we find it? And if there's no such place, then does the universe split into two each time a particle goes through the double-slit?Through Two Doors at Once celebrates the elegant simplicity of an iconic experiment and its profound reach. With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world, through history and down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have yet fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.
The double slit interference experiment has been famously described by Richard Feynman as containing the "only mystery of quantum mechanics". The history of quantum mechanics is intimately linked with the discovery of the dual nature of matter and radiation. While the double slit experiment for light is easily undertsood in terms of its wave nature, the very same experiment for particles like the electron is somewhat more difficult to comprehend. By the 1920s it was firmly established that electrons have a wave nature. However, for a very long time, most discussions pertaining to interference experiments for particles were merely gedanken experiments. It took almost six decades after the establishment of its wave nature to carry out a 'double slit interference' experiment for electrons. This set the stage for interference experiments with larger particles. In the last decade there has been spectacular progress in matter-wave interefernce experiments. Today, molecules with over a hundred atoms can be made to interfere. In the following we discuss some of these exciting developments which probe new regimes of Nature, bringing us closer to the heart of quantum mechanics and its hidden mysteries.
What is the most beautiful experiment in physics? More than 200 readers replied when Robert Crease asked this question in May, and their top five choices include classic experiments by Galileo, Millikan, Newton and Thomas Young (see pp19–20). But uniquely among the top 10, the most beautiful experiment in physics – the double-slit interference experiment with electrons – does not have the name of an individual associated with it. Most discussions of double-slit experiments with particles refer to Feynman's quote in his 1963 lectures: "[It] is absolutely impossible to explain in any classical way and has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery." But who actually carried out the experiment? Standard reference books offer no answer to this question but a search through the literature does reveal several unsung experimental heroes.
A critical re-examination of the double-slit experiment and its variants is presented to clarify the nature of what Feynman called the “central mystery” and the “only mystery”of quantum mechanics, leading to an interpretation of complementarity in which and description rather than a wave or particle' description is valid for the same experimental set up, with the wave culminating in the particle sequentially in time. This interpretation is different from Bohr's but is consistent with the von Neumann formulation as well as some more recent interpretations of quantum mechanics.