Two-slit experiment and fields

[StringJunky]

Is it ok to think of a field as passing through both slits when a single particle passes through; the particle field is always connected in both slits but can interfere when they reconnect the other side? I'm thinking like a flow of water passing around a rock both sides

[Mordred]

It is the assigned values or state of the field at each coordinate that in essence flow. The geometry coordinates doesn't flow.

 

Other than that detail your correct. The flow of water analogy in essence describes Young's double slit interpretation.

 

http://web.mit.edu/viz/EM/visualizations/coursenotes/modules/guide14.pdf

[StringJunky]

It is the assigned values or state of the field at each coordinate that in essence flow. The geometry coordinates doesn't flow.

 

Other than that detail your correct. The flow of water analogy in essence describes Young's double slit interpretation.

 

http://web.mit.edu/viz/EM/visualizations/coursenotes/modules/guide14.pdf

Yes, I wasn't implying the field is a physical medium but moving values through the field co-ordinates. Cool. I just asked because it's easier thinking of particles as excitations in a field than discrete little balls when applying it to things like Young's experiment. This way it's not counter-intuitive or mysterious. Thanks.

Edited May 22, 2017 by StringJunky

[swansont]

One of the takeaways from Young's experiment is that these are not discrete little balls.

[StringJunky]

One of the takeaways from Young's experiment is that these are not discrete little balls.

Yes. The problem for me was visualising how single objects could split and still make sense. Best to just forget about the Bohr model..

[StringJunky]

Reading the Art Hobson paper, it's interesting that Faraday was already on the right track in the 1800's with his field theory: It's not a hard conceptual leap to see those "convergences" as excitations in a field. Could have saved a lot of conceptual hassle later if this had come to the fore earlier, it seems to me.

 

 

The shift was largely due to Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Working about 160 years after Newton, he introduced the modern concept of fields as properties of space having physical effects. 25 Faraday argued against action-at-a-distance, proposing instead that interactions occur via space-filling "lines of force" and that atoms are mere convergences of these lines of force.

 

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4616.pdf

Edited May 23, 2017 by StringJunky