Rath said:
Yeah. I still can't get my head around how an electron in the double slit experiment can go through both slits at the same time and interfere with itself. I definately can't get my head around why observing it stops it from happening. |
This is why I love physics! The electron is a wave function, until you 'break' the wave function by observing it. Crazy.
Diffraction is an example of the Uncertainty Principle. The more accurately you know the position of the electron as it passes through the slit (by making the slit the same size as an electron), the less accurately you know where it will end up on the screen (a bigger diffraction).
Also, if you use an electron detector that is only 50% reliable, you will observe a pattern that is halfway between an interference pattern and the 2 peaks you would expect from a particle.
