I think you are wrong to break down “wave particle duality” into a particle that passes through a single slit and an associated wave. The particle itself is both particle and wave.
Forget about a double-slit experiment. Consider a single slit. And let’s talk about light waves and photons, which exhibit the same wave-particle duality. Light passing through a single slit does not create a “bell shaped curve”, as you say above – it creates an interference pattern with well-defined zeroes. If the slit has sharp edges, the pattern is a “sinc squared” pattern. (Look it up). This is true for non-photon particles, as well. The zeroes are caused by interference phenomena of the light wave with the sharp edge. The narrower the slit, the wider the pattern is, and vice-versa.
You can say that a photon is really small, and so has plenty of room to fit though that slit (which is small by human standards, but many wavelengths of light wide), but clearly the light ‘senses" the edges of the slit, if that width affects the overall pattern. Moreover, you can filter down the intensity of the light so that you’re certain that only single photons pass through at a time, but over time, you’;ll get that same diffraction pattern, with its associated width and zeroes. Pretty clearly, the photon must in some way “extend” the entire width of the slit.
If you get that effect with a single slit, why even speak of a photon passing through one slit or the other in a double-slit experiment? You see the diffraction pattern on your detector just as in this case. The photon is acting like a wave, not a particle. Why separate the behaviors in this case?
What happens with a three-slit experiment? You see the effect of all three slits being present, and it’s different from either the one-slit or two-sli case. The particle must somehow “sense” the presence of al three slits. It makes sense to speak of it as a wave in such circumstances, rather than as a narrowly localized particle.
Just like in a boat double slit experiment where the boat goes through one slit and the bow wave goes through both so does the particle go through one slit and its associated wave goes through both.
Aether is just a label used to describe the mass which fills the space unoccupied by particles of matter.
Don’t get hung up on the term aether. You can call the mass which fills ‘empty’ space plenum, quintessence or whatever you are comfortable with.
The notion of dark matter as a clump of stuff that travels with the matter is incorrect.
‘Empty’ space has mass and is displaced by the particles of matter which exist in it and move through it.
Think of a submarine moving through and displacing the water. This is analogous to what is occurring in a double slit experiment.
In a boat double slit experiment the boat travels through a single slit and the bow wave passes through both. If the bow wave was out ahead of the boat far enough and large enough it would exit both slits and knock the boat off course as it exited a single slit.
In a double slit experiment the associated wave exits both slits and creates wave interference. As the particle exits a single slit the direction it travels is altered by the wave interference. This is the wave guiding the particle. Strongly detecting the particle destroys the cohesion between the particle and its associated wave, the wave continues on the trajectory it was traveling and does not form an interference pattern.
I recommend you watch all of the following video. The part having to do with the double slit experiment is at the 2:43 mark.
“Yves Couder . Explains Wave/Particle Duality via Silicon Droplets [Through the Wormhole]”
Aether is the mass which fills the space unoccupied by particles of matter.
If you create a vacuum in a container here on Earth and remove the particles of matter from the container the space within the container has mass.
There are no such things as virtual particles popping into and out of existence out of nothing. In the following video, at the 1:52 mark, what is described as virtual particles popping into and out of existence out of nothing is actually the aether which fills the space unoccupied by the quarks. Where the quarks exist the aether is displaced from that location.
I’m saying in a double slit experiment the particle is always detected traveling through a single slit because it always travels through a single slit. It is the associated wave in the hidden subquantic medium which passes through both.
Could you tell me, a non-physicist, how this relates to my life? I think I’m beginning to get that in a double slit experiment the particle is always detected traveling through a single slit because it always travels through a single slit.
However, what I’m not seeing is how this affects me personally. How does this knowledge apply to me and in what ways should I be changing my day-to-day outlook as a result of information?
How it changes your day-to-day outlook is up to you, if you choose to allow it to change your outlook at all.
It does help you understand what is occurring physically in nature. The space unoccupied by particles of matter has mass which is displaced by the particles of matter which exist in it and move through it.
When you get to something as massive as the Earth, the aether displaced by the Earth which is pushing back and exerting inward pressure toward the Earth is gravity.
Since you are responding to this thread I’m guessing you are interested in understanding what occurs physically in nature.
Correctly understanding the aether is displaced by the particles of matter which exist in it and move through it allows you to understand what is occurring physically in nature in both a double slit experiment and in terms of gravity.
Not good enough, you start threads like this one by declaring that scientists are not dealing with “the truth”. As it turns out in the end it is clear that you are only fighting semantics as science is moving on.
It is like a farmer that goes to an agronomy message board and goes for ages ignoring bannings and closed threads just because he is obsessed in condemning all farming advances because the “unreasonable” biologists that work with the new crops are pronouncing Po-tay-to instead of po-tah-to.
