There's no problem reconciling the quantum with the Newtonian. Quantum mechanics recovers Newtonian mechanics in the appropriate limit. The problem is reconciling the quantum and the Einsteinian.
I think neither analogy is correct. We're using macro metaphors (real world things at human time and spatial scales) to explain microscopic phenomena that may not correspond to anything that we find familiar.
The way I've always thought of this is there are potentials for interactions and interactions.
Interactions act like point particles and potentials for interactions act like waves.
Arguing over the distinction is a bit like debating whether people are the things they do, or the thing that does things. There is some philosophical discussion to be had, but for the most part it doesn't really matter.
It still interferes with itself, and that interference affects the pattern of detections. It's as if the photon were a wave right up until the moment of detection, at which points it's forced to “particalize” and pick a spot to be located at — but it's the amplitude of the wave it was just before detection that determines where on the detection screen the photon is likely to show up. If you send many photons through one at a time, the detections (each just a point on the screen) will fill out the expected double slit pattern.
As the other comments have already mentioned, it interferes with itself, so you still observe the same interference patterns [0] [1]. Which admittedly seems impossible at first, but so does the rest of quantum physics.
I've always wondered what degree of confidence exists amongst the cogniscenti that a single photon event happened. I tend to think the criteria of measurement here would suggest the most likely outcome was a shitload more than 1 photon, and that all the "but we measured we can see one only" measurements are themselvs hedged by a bunch of belief.
That said, I do like the single photon experiment, when it's more than a thought experiment.
It's a wave of probability, that interferes through the slits and then collapses into a probability of one somewhere along the wavefront at the point of detection. Whatever that means :-)
> To quantify this influence, the team applied their model to Terbium Gallium Garnet (TGG), a crystal widely used to measure the Faraday effect. They found that the magnetic field of light accounts for about 17% of the observed rotation at visible wavelengths and up to 70% in the infrared range.
Nearly 20% seems already significant, but 70%?! that's massive.
We intuitively think in particles and see a world of billiard balls colliding with one another.
But actually everything is merely waves and fields.
There's going to be a time where humans finally reconcile the quantum with the newtonian -- and I can't wait for that day
There's no problem reconciling the quantum with the Newtonian. Quantum mechanics recovers Newtonian mechanics in the appropriate limit. The problem is reconciling the quantum and the Einsteinian.
But there’s no quantum explanation of gravity, right?
At this point we have several
They’re all largely untestable though
String theory, LQG, half a dozen others
Classified
I think neither analogy is correct. We're using macro metaphors (real world things at human time and spatial scales) to explain microscopic phenomena that may not correspond to anything that we find familiar.
That we're just collections of wave interference is wild.
I don't have the math, but doesn't quantum field theory say this?
> But actually everything is merely waves and fields.
The two-slit experiment says otherwise.
It does not. It shows that individual photons self interfere, so they cannot be idealized particles.
The way I've always thought of this is there are potentials for interactions and interactions.
Interactions act like point particles and potentials for interactions act like waves.
Arguing over the distinction is a bit like debating whether people are the things they do, or the thing that does things. There is some philosophical discussion to be had, but for the most part it doesn't really matter.
Hmm? The double slit experiment definitely shows that particles are waves—weird quantum waves, but still waves.
what happens when you only send a single photon down the line though?
It still interferes with itself, and that interference affects the pattern of detections. It's as if the photon were a wave right up until the moment of detection, at which points it's forced to “particalize” and pick a spot to be located at — but it's the amplitude of the wave it was just before detection that determines where on the detection screen the photon is likely to show up. If you send many photons through one at a time, the detections (each just a point on the screen) will fill out the expected double slit pattern.
It's worth reading about, but it's kind of wave-like even then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment#Interfe...
It would be going too far to say it's only a wave though. It's both wave and particle.
The way I read GGP was as contradicting the assertion that everything is just waves and not at all particles.
As the other comments have already mentioned, it interferes with itself, so you still observe the same interference patterns [0] [1]. Which admittedly seems impossible at first, but so does the rest of quantum physics.
[0]: https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html#Ch1-S5
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality#...
I've always wondered what degree of confidence exists amongst the cogniscenti that a single photon event happened. I tend to think the criteria of measurement here would suggest the most likely outcome was a shitload more than 1 photon, and that all the "but we measured we can see one only" measurements are themselvs hedged by a bunch of belief.
That said, I do like the single photon experiment, when it's more than a thought experiment.
It's a wave of probability, that interferes through the slits and then collapses into a probability of one somewhere along the wavefront at the point of detection. Whatever that means :-)
do it once, it looks like one particle.
repeat the single photon launch many times, and you see a wavelike distribution of photon strikes
Are you getting confused with the photoelectric effect experiment?
> To quantify this influence, the team applied their model to Terbium Gallium Garnet (TGG), a crystal widely used to measure the Faraday effect. They found that the magnetic field of light accounts for about 17% of the observed rotation at visible wavelengths and up to 70% in the infrared range.
Nearly 20% seems already significant, but 70%?! that's massive.
Seems to be a minor typo . Paper:
>17.5% of the measured value for Terbium-Gallium-Garnet (TGG) at 800 nm, and up to 75% at 1.3 µm.
Here's what the crystal looks like
https://www.photonchinaa.com/tgg-terbium-gallium-garnet/
Here's transmission plot (UV-IR)
https://www.samaterials.com/terbium-gallium-garnet-crystal.h...
Note there's almost no effect on transmission
Relevant? https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/51819
Nice to see a graph of % magnetic priportion and log wavelength going from radio to gamma.
How did no one notice that before, and what else have they (we) missed?
If I'd to guess: all that exp. characterization to-date has revealed no anomaly (See my other comment)
This team might have looked at bandstructure. or not (they didn't say, & I'd guess not)
Obviously hindsight is 20/20 but this sentiment just reeks with comical levels of hubris
> However, the new research demonstrates that the magnetic field of light, long thought irrelevant,
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People in countries you don't like can still do valid science.
But do they understand how magnets work?