Quantum Physics Photon Test Part 2

Factual Questions
1

I know of the existence of this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=81066, but I had additional questions and did not wish to add to an existing thread. Getting to what CurtC was talking about with the detectors at the slits:

"It gets down to the point where you put a detector at the slits to observe whether it went through one or the other, and this causes it to be a particle go through one or the other and not be a wave. Then there are variants:

  • If you turn off the detectors but leave them in place the electron acts like a wave.

  • If you leave the detectors turned on but don’t record the data, the electron acts like a wave.

  • Record the data from the detectors, but erase it before analyzing it. The electron will have acted like a wave. "

In the first example, with the detector at the slits turned on and capturing data, the light acts like a particle and not like a wave. Does this mean you do not get the banding effect on the receiving material? Instead, would you get two bands where the single particles of light passed through the two slits?

The second part of my question is whether it is possible that the photon is emitting tiny particles itself? It seems like it could be possible if you still get the banding according to the first example, but forget about it if you just get a couple of slits just because you have a detector turned on capturing data.

Lastly, in the Discover Magazine that originated this question, the scientist interviewed said that all possible outcomes of events could possibly exist. However, while I can envision mirror universes because of this, I do not understand how he came to the conclusion of all possibilities being played out. The example I think of is when you hold a mirror up to another mirror, and you seem to get an endless hallway of mirrors in the reflection. Anyone have thoughts/answers on this?

The first two questions are the ones I would like to see some input on. Thank you.

M.E.

2

It might or might not matter whether the detectors are turned on, or whether they’re recording data, depending on the way they’re set up. There’s nothing magic about human observers in QM; if the apparatus writes everything to a file, and then automatically deletes it, it still counts as an “observer”, and forces the photons to act like particles. If this happens, you don’t get an interference pattern on the screen, just a shadow (more or less).

3

Well I will give it a try:

Q1 Does this mean you do not get the banding effect
on the receiving material?

As far as I know you just get a line of sight blob/band on either side.

Q2 The second part of my question is whether it is
possible that the photon is emitting tiny particles
itself?

NO, there is good theory explaining these results and this happening wouldn’t make any sense and would have been measured by now.

Q3 infinite universes

Well it seems pretty amazing to me that there is a universe where I am not incredible good looking, rich and i don’t spend my time with a different girl every night (-:
I wonder with these universes whether for instance i could make a different decision or is it just QM things that get changed which effects things such as a block of radioactive stuff could give off a particle at a different time which hits me and gives me cancer and i die. When in a different universe i had moved by the time this decided to happen.

Andy