As long as the wires interact with the photons, the information is destroyed. I made the nonzero width reality comment to further build up the case. And you are right, a single wire should also do the trick.
A better (and far simpler) way to challenge complementarity would be to use a low-intensity interferogram in a photographic film or CCD. At first the photons being detected are few so the shot (particle-like) aspect is more obvious. As more photons are integrated, the classical interference pattern is observed. Can there be a transition region where both aspects are observable? -----Original Message----- From: Russell Standish [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 11:29 PM To: Fred Chen Cc: 'Everything List' Subject: Re: Quantum Rebel It has nothing whatsoever to do with finite width of the absorber. Adding an infinitesimally thin wire into the experiment is sufficient to destroy "which way" information. On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 11:24:06PM -0700, Fred Chen wrote: > Yes I think this is correct. > > The theoretical zero amplitude region in the interference plane of the > wires is also of zero width, while on the other hand the wires are > obviously finite width. The wires do interact with the photons in > reality, or equivalently, diffract the waves coming from the slits. So > in the end each detector will detect photons coming from both slits. > If you covered up one of the slits, but left the wires in place, both > detectors will detect photons originating from the slit. > > So complementarity (if defined as exclusive particle/wave observation) > has not been disproven. The particle-tracking information from each > slit is destroyed by interaction with the wires. > > Fred > -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (") Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----
