“If studying quantum mechanics doesn’t make you dizzy, you haven’t understood it” Neils Bohr, the father of quantum physics.
“If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it” John Wheeler.
“Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense” Roger Penrose.
“I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Nobody knows how it can be like that” the great physicist Richard Feynman.
That’s how the great physicists themselves had felt about quantum physics, and we could imagine what it would be like for the fresh science graduates and the lay people. Quantum physics is full of absurdities and counterintuitive notions. According to this weird science, a particle can exist at multiple locations simultaneously, a particle can travel via multiple routes simultaneously, a cat can be both dead and alive, a door can be both open and shut etc etc at the same time. And then wave-particle duality, quantum entanglement, superposition, multiple universes and so on and so forth… there exist so many mystical notions in quantum physics that defy our logic.
But why did our physicists come to those strange conclusions that made no sense, even to them? Well, apparently, that is what the results of the double slit experiment (DSE) implied. In this article we will take a relook at the Double Slit Experiment and see if we can make some sense out of this great historical experiment.
Thomas Young, a British physician turned physicist, conceived and devised this experiment in the early 1800s. When light photons were fired in this double slit experiment, they produced a wave-like interference pattern on the detector screen which implied that each photon was traveling through both the slits like a wave. But how can a particle pass through both slits like a wave? If we can solve this puzzle, we can dispense with all the absurd teachings of quantum physics.
Imagine that we are undertaking the double slit experiment and studying the behaviour of water molecules. For this, we have a water gun which can shoot water molecules at any desired rate i.e. it can shoot water molecules one by one or in a continuous shower like manner. And we have a screen with 2 slits in it and behind this we have a ‘hydrosensitive’ screen which records the impacts of water molecules at various points on it. Now we shoot showers of water molecules with our water gun towards the slits in the first screen. While most of the water molecules get stopped by the screen, some of them pass through the slits and go on to hit the detector screen behind. We study the distribution of the hits on the detector screen. It is no surprise that we see the following pattern (two bands corresponding to the slits).
Then we shoot water molecules one by one with our water gun. As our gun is not the best shooter in the world, it shoots the water molecules a bit randomly i.e. each molecule it shoots goes in a slightly different direction. So again, while most of the molecules get stopped by the first screen, some of the molecules pass through the slits and reach the detector screen. After a sufficient number of molecules have been shot, we study the distribution of hits on the ‘hydrosensitive’ detector screen. It is again no surprise that we see the same pattern (i.e two bands) as noted above. This is obviously what we would expect from particles in our everyday world. We may call this as ‘particle pattern’ of distribution in contrast to the interference pattern we get when waves are ‘fired’ in DSE. So far we have found nothing too exciting or weird.
Now let’s place our whole set up inside a large container (or a sea) of still water and repeat the experiment. Let’s presume that our ‘hydrosensitive’ detector screen, despite being surrounded by water, doesn’t record any ‘hits’ because the molecules are absolutely still and as such are not hitting the hydrosensitive screen. Of course in reality, water molecules will never be absolutely still (except probably at absolute zero temperature), so adjoining molecules keep colliding with the detector screen. But these random collisions by the adjoining water molecules will only produce a diffuse/uniform distribution of hits on the entire detector screen without any specific pattern or bands. We could ignore that as ‘background noise’ or set that as zero reading.
Now let’s ‘trigger’ our water gun to shoot water molecules one by one. After a sufficient number of molecules have been shot, we study the pattern of impacts recorded on the detector screen. What kind of pattern do you expect on the detector screen?
Interestingly, we don’t get the previously noted particle pattern (or two band pattern) now despite the fact that we have fired the water particles exactly as before. Rather we get interference pattern (or multiple band pattern) as shown below, which is characteristic of waves.
Of course it is not difficult to explain why the particle pattern vanishes here and gives way to the interference or wave pattern:- Each water particle that gets fired initiates a wave in the still water which travels towards the first screen. While most of the wave gets reflected back by the screen, a portion of the wave passes through each slit and emerges on the other side as a ‘daughter wave’. Because there are two slits, there are going to be two such daughter waves or wavelets. These two ‘wavelets’ spread and interfere with each other and result in the interference pattern observed on the detector screen.
So what made the particle pattern vanish here and give way to the interference or wave pattern? Obviously it is the water environment which is responsible for the appearance of the wave pattern. Outside the water tank, the water particles produced only two bands. Now the question comes, if water environment could make water particles to produce wave like interference pattern, what environment could make photon particles produce the same? It must be obviously a photon environment. So the fact that photons cause wave like interference pattern in DSE implies that our world is immersed in an ocean of photons.
So when we fire a photon, it would initiate a tiny wave in the ocean of photons, which would then travel through both the slits and produce the interference pattern on the detector screen. Now it is no surprise that photon particles produce wave like interference pattern in DSE if we propose that our universe is immersed in an ocean of photons. Thus double slit experiment provides a direct proof of the existence of cosmic ocean of photons (in other words ‘Ether’). And unlike what the quantum physicists believe, a photon as such doesn’t pass through both the silts but it is the wave generated by the fired photon which passes through both the slits.
I have explained elsewhere why Michelson’s experiment doesn’t disprove Ether and how it actually disproves the superstition that speed of light is constant. I have also explained elsewhere how the so called aberration of star light fits in with the Ether model and also talked about the ‘rain-umbrella story’ which the physicists are unduly fond of reciting while promoting their relativity ideology.
Apart from solving the DSE puzzle and demystifying the quantum mechanics, this Photon Ether model explains so many other mysterious phenomena in simple and clear terms.
Gravity – Whirlpool model: Just like how an object spinning in water creates a whirlpool around it and draws objects towards it, Earth spinning in the ocean of photons could be creating a similar whirlpool around it and dragging objects towards it. So gravity is no longer a mystery and no mythical and absurd concepts like bending of space or warping of space as suggested by Relativity theory. The whirlpools in the photonic ocean generated by the spinning celestial bodies also explains the so called gravitational waves.
Inertia and mass: Existence of Ether explains why there is something called inertia and thus explains mass. Ether is probably what represents the Higg’s field and photons the so called God’s particles. The funny thing here is that scientists have disproved Ether only to reintroduce it with a different name and flavor!
Next we can describe the so called electromagnetic waves in simple and clear terms. They are nothing but waves in the ocean of photons and they are no different from the water waves in an ocean of water. But our science text books describe them as ‘self propagating electric and magnetic fields oscillating in perpendicular planes in vacuum’ no one can understand what that really means. Finally we can explain the so called red shift and cosmic microwave background radiation etc and dispense with the theory of Big Bang.
Electrons and double slit experiment : To explain the interference pattern produced by photons, we have proposed the existence ‘photon Ether’ which is nothing but a sea of photons pervading this entire universe. But how do we explain the interference pattern produced by electrons? Do we need to propose now the existence of what may be called as ‘electron Ether’ in addition to the ‘photon Ether’ or ‘lumiferous Ether’ described above? Absolutely not. In fact, not only electrons but many other particles (even ‘clumps’ of carbon atoms called buckyballs) were observed to behave like waves in the double slit experiment and we can explain all of them by the same Ether model.
