Watch the video below and answer the questions below that:
Watch the video on YouTube found at this link: http://youtu.be/zDQH5x7svfg. Then answer the
following questions using complete sentences. Draw
pictures, too, if that would help.
What is the difference between a
particle and a wave?
What happens if two waves meet so
that their crests overlap?
What happens if two waves meet so
that their troughs overlap?
What happens if two waves meet so
that the crests of one wave overlaps the troughs of the
other?
Taking the last three questions
together, what is the idea of wave super-position?
How do the results of a
double-slit experiment differ when carried out with
particles vs. when carried out with waves? Why?
When the double-slit experiment is
done with electrons fired one at a time something strange
happens. Describe this weird result.
With ordinary objects at everyday
scales we assume that even when we’re not looking at
them they keep doing whatever they were doing when we
were looking at them. What does quantum mechanics
say about electrons when we’re not looking at them?
Ever since Isaac Newton’s
work in physics we have believed that chance had no role to
play in the actual behavior of matter. If we had to use
probability and statistics it was only because we
didn’t know the set-up of the situation or because
there are too many particles to keep track of them all. By
contrast, quantum mechanics uses a wave function to
describe the behavior of electrons (and other quantum
objects like atomic nuclei and photons). What does the wave
function tell you about an electron?
According to quantum mechanics it is not possible to
know the exact position of an electron and its velocity at
the same time. What can we know about electrons?