Re: Quantum Rebel

From: Russell Standish <R.Standish.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 16:29:06 +1000

It has nothing whatsoever to do with finite width of the
absorber. Adding an infinitesimally thin wire into the experiment is
sufficient to destroy "which way" information.

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 11:24:06PM -0700, Fred Chen wrote:
> Yes I think this is correct.
>
> The theoretical zero amplitude region in the interference plane of the
> wires is also of zero width, while on the other hand the wires are
> obviously finite width. The wires do interact with the photons in
> reality, or equivalently, diffract the waves coming from the slits. So
> in the end each detector will detect photons coming from both slits. If
> you covered up one of the slits, but left the wires in place, both
> detectors will detect photons originating from the slit.
>
> So complementarity (if defined as exclusive particle/wave observation)
> has not been disproven. The particle-tracking information from each slit
> is destroyed by interaction with the wires.
>
> Fred
>

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Received on Sat Aug 14 2004 - 02:31:00 PDT