Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Halc]

As I noted, we're not explaining how we're ruling out that perhaps we either emit 27 photons at the lowest output of none. We can't just assume that the lowest output must be just one photon and not some arbitrary number of them.

27 photons would put 27 dots on the detector for one thing.

I think it better to word it as they've experimentally observed the effects of superposition via measurements.

What is something you'd take to be an example of this?

The interference pattern in twin slit experiment, a effect of the photon being in superposition of going through the left slit and the right slit.

The quantum bomb detector would not work at all without superposition.

[Terrapin Station]

27 photons would put 27 dots on the detector for one thing.

There's no way to know that unless we know that we're emitting 27 photons and we then see it (consistently) produce 27 dots. Otherwise it's possible it only produces one, either because we only detect one for some reason (a s there could be many different reasons for this, including the possibility I suggested above, where, say we only detect the (strongest) peak in a wave), or if appears that we only detect one (what appears to be one isn't just one).

The interference pattern in twin slit experiment, a effect of the photon being in superposition of going through the left slit and the right slit.

For one, you're assuming that there's only one photon. But it makes much more sense to assume there's more than one and to not posit ontological nonsense like "superpositions."

the quantum bomb detector

Is a thought experiment.

[Halc]

27 photons would put 27 dots on the detector for one thing.

There's no way to know that unless we know that we're emitting 27 photons and we then see it (consistently) produce 27 dots.

The machine can beep every time it produces a photon, so it's pretty easy to count them. If it's putting out a continuous beam, they're probably not using an individual photon detector. A laser pointed at slits is a different experiment than a photon gun doing the same thing.

Otherwise it's possible it only produces one

Not if it detected 27 dots it isn't.

including the possibility I suggested above, where, say we only detect the (strongest) peak in a wave)

What are you talking about? Photons are detected as particles in such experiments. The detector outputs a position, and nothing to do with waves, amplitude, or peaks. I didn't read all the posts above, but you seem to be making stuff up.

or if appears that we only detect one (what appears to be one isn't just one).

You suggest that multiple photons all end up at the exact same place, consistently, and thus one photon cannot be distinguished from a group? That would violate all of a century of one of the most successful theories of all time. Let me know when you publish this rewrite of science.

The interference pattern in twin slit experiment, a effect of the photon being in superposition of going through the left slit and the right slit.

For one, you're assuming that there's only one photon.

No. One photon doth not an interference pattern make. It makes a dot in a semi-predictable location.

But it makes much more sense to assume there's more than one and to not posit ontological nonsense like "superpositions."

Superposition has been well verified from the beginning. I'm sorry you're in denial about this, but there has been no other explanation given for the experimental results seen.

the quantum bomb detector

Is a thought experiment

which has been demonstrated in reality, except without actual bombs since that's wasteful. I think a red light turns on to indicate 'bang'. Yes, you can detect a live 'bomb' without ever measuring it in any way.

[Steve3007]

Here's another thing to briefly consider:

As discussed previously in various posts, in the experiment described in the OP the pattern of flashes on the screen, which we hypothesise to be caused by the impact of particles that we might like to call electrons, builds into a series of maxima and minima that precisely resembles the series of maxima and minima that result from the interference of waves, such as ripples on the surface of the water in a ripple tank, when they either pass through two slits that are narrow when compared to the wavelength of the ripples or emanate from two separate sources (dippers). If a variable such as the gap between the slits is changed, the widths and distances between those maxima and minima also vary just as they do with classical waves such as those on the surface of the water in that ripple tank. So that wave model can be used to come up with predictions as to what will happen in various circumstances, and it also yields a proposed wavelength for the electron (the deBroglie wavelength).

One of the interesting consequences of that behaviour is this: There are some points on the screen - the middle of the minima - where no electrons hit (no flashes are observed) when both slits are open. But if one of those slits is closed, flashes are observed at those points. So closing one of the routes whereby cathode rays, electrons or whatever we want to call them, can get through but leaving everything else unchanged results in flashes where none were present with that route open. Perhaps the opposite the what we might expect if we think of those things as lumps of something that go through one slit or the other, but not both at the same time.

This behaviour is consistent with the wave model - the one that physicists use to describe this experiment. You can demonstrate it happening in a ripple tank. But can anybody come up with another model that results in this particular behaviour and therefore removes the need to think of the stuff travelling through those two slits as if they were some kind of wave which represents the probability of finding a particle at a given point?

[Terrapin Station]

The machine can beep every time it produces a photon, so it's pretty easy to count them.

How would we know it's not beeping every time it produces 27 photons, where, at least given the apparatuses we have, we either put out 27 photons in a group or nothing?

Photons are detected as particles in such experiments. The detector outputs a position, and nothing to do with waves, amplitude, or peaks. I didn't read all the posts above, but you seem to be making stuff up.

Maybe read more of the above. You don't seem to even understand the gist of this, because you keep offering suggestions that don't really address the issue I'm getting at.

What I described, where just a peak of a wave would be detected, would be detected as a particle.

I'm asking an epistemological--a philosophical--question.

[Halc]

How would we know it's not beeping every time it produces 27 photons, where, at least given the apparatuses we have, we either put out 27 photons in a group or nothing?

I've answered this already. If you want to model a single quanta of light as an aggregate of 27 more fundamental things, you're welcome to do the rewrite.

What I described, where just a peak of a wave would be detected, would be detected as a particle.

This is word salad to me. QM theory models a photon in this case as a location where it is measured. That's it. It has no particular existence beyond that unless measured in a different way. There is no' peak of a wave' suggested by the theory or (to my knowledge) any valid interpretation.

[Atla]

Philosophers should indeed keep questioning science, but something like "But I'm telling you that there could be invisible pink unicorns on the Planck scale pushing things around, so what's your justification for going with the established physics?" doesn't quite cut it imo.

[Terrapin Station]

How would we know it's not beeping every time it produces 27 photons, where, at least given the apparatuses we have, we either put out 27 photons in a group or nothing?

I've answered this already.

No you haven't. You've only presented what follows from assuming that we're only releasing one photon at a time. If we assume that we're releasing one photon at a time, then the one "dot" we see is taken as evidence of the one photon we assumed we're releasing. (And then we simply extrapolate to assuming that if we were to release 27 photons at a time instead, we'd see 27 dots . . . because of course we necessarily detect everything that's there . . . meanwhile on other threads we're inundated with people insisting philosophical idealism and claiming that we can't really know that there even is anything other than mental phenomena.)

What I described, where just a peak of a wave would be detected, would be detected as a particle.

This is word salad to me.

It shouldn't be unless you simply can't read very well. It's a very simple sentence.

If we assume instead that a wave of particles is being released, and we assume that we'd only detect the strongest peak of the wave (if not the only peak, which is another possibility), then that would be detected as "one dot." We'd have the exact same observation. We're just assuming that something different is going on than what it's conventional to assume is going on.

QM theory models a photon in this case as a location where it is measured. That's it. It has no particular existence beyond that unless measured in a different way. There is no' peak of a wave' suggested by the theory or (to my knowledge) any valid interpretation.

QM conventionally assumes that we're dealing with a single particle. The epistemological question is how we know that our assumption that we're only dealing with a single particle is correct.

Again, I'm not assuming that at least the people who devised and who now build the apparatuses that supposedly release only one particle at a time have no justification for why they believe that we're only releasing one particle. I'd assume they have some justification. But obviously no one on this board knows what the justification is, and it's not very easy to find a reference to the justification by searching online.

[Halc]

You've only presented what follows from assuming that we're only releasing one photon at a time.

27 photons would have 27 times the energy, which can be measured. Or, if they're lower energy photons, they'd have a different wavelength and hence produce a different interference pattern. So no, it is not an assumption. Stop inventing the invisible pink elephant. You've no viable model to suggest 27 photons.

If we assume instead that a wave of particles is being released

That makes it sound like a wave of bombers. You mean a set of particles moving close to each other? Proximity has been shown to have zero effect in the double-slit experiment. It's why they performed one-at-a-time experiemts with photons, electrons, and much larger things like C60 mollecules: to demonstrate that the pattern is not a result of multiple objects interacting.

[Steve3007]

I don't suppose anyone's interested in considering the experiment, and the results, that are actually mentioned in the OP by any chance?

[Terrapin Station]

27 photons would have 27 times the energy, which can be measured.

For one, we've had to have measured the energy of a single photon, where we know that we're measuring the energy of a single photon. How did we do that?

Or, if they're lower energy photons, they'd have a different wavelength and hence produce a different interference pattern.

To know this, we need to have (a) knowledge of how many photons we're looking at (how do we have this knowledge), so we can know their energy (as above), and then knowledge of the wavelengths of different energy photons (how do we have this knowledge)?

So no, it is not an assumption. Stop inventing the invisible pink elephant. You've no viable model to suggest 27 photons.

You don't actually know the answer to the question I'm asking, but you're going to continue to try to answer it so that I have to keep reminding you that you're not really answering it. It would be better to talk to someone who knows the answer to what I'm asking. I'm assuming that someone must. They just must not read this board much or they must not be interested in answering.

That makes it sound like a wave of bombers. You mean a set of particles moving close to each other? Proximity has been shown to have zero effect in the double-slit experiment. It's why they performed one-at-a-time experiemts with photons, electrons, and much larger things like C60 mollecules: to demonstrate that the pattern is not a result of multiple objects interacting.

The only way to know that something isn't the result of particular numbers of objects moving in particular ways with respect to each other, we need to know how many of x we're releasing, in what dynamic relationships to each other. And that's what I'm asking, how we know that. Someone must know the answer, where the answer really is a justification for how we know this, and doesn't start with an assumption such as "we know the energy of a single photon" without explaining how we know that (how we knew we were looking at a single photon to determine its energy, etc.) Unfortunately you do not know the answer, but you want to answer anyway.

So next round of this never-ending game with you.

[Halc]

I don't suppose anyone's interested in considering the experiment, and the results, that are actually mentioned in the OP by any chance?

It's pretty much a description of the early discovery of the double slit experiment and how it rocked everyone's intuitions.
Not sure what comments you were expecting. It doesn't mention the effect of putting polarizing filters at the slits, which is a measurement of sorts but not one that tells you which slit it went through. The nature of the interference patter then depends on the relative orientation of the polarization.

[Steve3007]

It's pretty much a description of the early discovery of the double slit experiment and how it rocked everyone's intuitions.
Not sure what comments you were expecting...

My original intention with the topic was to concentrate first on properly understanding exactly what is observed in the experiment where cathode rays, a.k.a. electrons, form interference fringes. Hence several subsequent posts in which I discuss the simple mathematical description of interference in classical waves in the "ripple tank" experiment. It's my view that anybody considering this topic needs to first understand that, in more than just vague terms. They need to see exactly the sense in which the interference fringes created by electrons resemble those created by classical waves.

But I understand that having created a topic doesn't give me the right to dictate the direction in which the conversation goes. So obviously I'm happy to let it go where other posters find it interesting to go.

[Terrapin Station]

It's pretty much a description of the early discovery of the double slit experiment and how it rocked everyone's intuitions.
Not sure what comments you were expecting...

My original intention with the topic was to concentrate first on properly understanding exactly what is observed in the experiment where cathode rays, a.k.a. electrons, form interference fringes. Hence several subsequent posts in which I discuss the simple mathematical description of interference in classical waves in the "ripple tank" experiment. It's my view that anybody considering this topic needs to first understand that, in more than just vague terms. They need to see exactly the sense in which the interference fringes created by electrons resemble those created by classical waves.

But I understand that having created a topic doesn't give me the right to dictate the direction in which the conversation goes. So obviously I'm happy to let it go where other posters find it interesting to go.

You're not saying that we observe something mathematical though, are you?

[Atla]

You're not saying that we observe something mathematical though, are you?

Mathematics this mathematics that. Just look at the core issue.
You do the experiment without a detector at the slits: you get a wave pattern. You do the experiment with a detector at one of the slits: you get two bands. That should be impossible, or so people thought. Yet it's just how the world works, even without involving mathematicians.