![]() ![]() For example, say you fire two electrons at each other, and you want to figure out how they’ll interact (“scatter” off of each other). And it’s not just taking different paths, it’s every possible way for an event to happen whether that’s particles interacting, or a chemical reaction, or nuclear decay, or whatever. This property of light to take every path to a destination isn’t special to light. Both possible paths are necessary to the event, but neither of them are guaranteed. If it was on only one path we wouldn’t see interference effects, which require more than one path to be taken. It’s not “really” on one path or the other, it’s on a combination of both. But in between, when it could be taking either path, the question of its realness becomes a little muddled. Physicists always come back to this tremendously bizarre, brain-slapping many-path thing.įor an observer outside of the system (for the moment, don’t worry about what an observer is) the photon is real when it’s emitted by the light source and when it’s detected by hitting the screen. ![]() There have been a lot attempts to get around this weirdness, but none of them have panned out. This means that the photon (sorta) passed through both slits, and that to describe the event accurately you need to take into account both possibilities. (middle) the photon goes through the top slit or (bottom) it goes through the bottom slit. There are two possible ways this can happen. (top) The event is a single photon fired from a light source and detected on the far side of two slits. ![]()
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