>> ^messenger:

Such fast cameras could be used to determine which slit a photon goes through, no? I mean, in a single frame, not a composite shot, obviously. And used with a photon pump laser, not a photon clump.


The short answer, no. In short, you wouldn't be able to see a single photon, because it can only detect light that strikes the camera itself. the case you see in this clip is a pulse that is very dense with photons, and that are flying everywhere. Consequently, the light you see is not light that is actually going forward, and therefore, not light that is going through the slit.

If you positioned the camera on the other side of the slit, you would see light that has recently passed through the slit, but that wouldn't tell you anything about which slit or slits the photon passed through.

Also, its worth noting that monochromatic light does not need two slits in order to exhibit a diffraction pattern. However tech such as this could definitely be re-purposed similarly to an SEM in order to accept electron emissions rather than photons, which would make some interesting vacuum electron scattering experiments.

looks like distortion caused by some liquid near the camera (on lens or window). Some sort of light diffraction is happening like when you look out your wet windshield and see how the little mounds of water on the windshield distort the image.

-karl

Well, de Broglie couldn't get past the fact that in Quantum mechanics, the wave-particle behaves differently if there is an observer. Schrodinger's cat confused a lot of physicists, but it was there to prove a point. When people conducted the double-slit experiment, they confirmed Schrodinger's theory, de Broglie's wave theory, and Heisenberg's theory. Here's the cartoon version of the double-slit diffraction experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc&feature=related

Several people have mentioned the "shadow of the rings". The rings would be pretty thin on an astronomical scale, so there wouldn't really be much of a shadow when the sun was behind them. I'd guess that a full "ring eclipse" would be like a slightly overcast day where you could still couldn't really look at the sun. On the other hand, the diffraction pattern might be magnificent. I guess it would depend on what the rings were made of.

Also keep in mind that the "shadow" would constantly be moving based on the time of year, so there would be no place on Earth where the eclipse was permanent.

I wish he had shown some images of the shadow that Earth would cast on the rings. The two cutoff points from the part of the rings that show brightly at night to the part that is in shadow would give a real good sense of what time it is.

And just how dark would night be at that point? There would be significantly more reflected light than what the moon gives us.

Spoco, I'm not sure you are right. Holograms store interference fringes from a diffraction grating in holographic media. You can then take the burned media and shine light (same wavelength as the original incident light) on it from the reverse angle (originating from where the scattered light would have landed behind the media) and you will get an image of the original diffraction grating projected on a screen (or eye). you can store entirely different fringe patterns at different angles in the same spot (within the limits set by the physical lattice of the media and the wavelength of light being used), but in typical holograms you store the fringe pattern of the SAME grating at a different angle.

It looks like these things accomplish these end result: a recording of fringes for a given diffraction grating on a media. Sure, the images aren't actually produced by light, but I don't think that is a requirement. The point is that his scratching pattern contains the information required to reconstruct the point sources that would have created such an image for multiple incident angles.

This is what makes holographic data storage so exciting, storing a whole X by X grid worth of information on some Y by Y by Y chunk of media, and storing ANOTHER X by X grid of info ON THE SAME SPOT at a different angle.

PS I'm drunk. and this guy is my hero.

quoth wikipedia: The rainbow-light effect seen in daylight on ctenophores is not bioluminescence but merely diffraction of ambient light by the beating comb rows.

I was fascinated by them when I studied inverts

QUICK, SOMEONE CALL IISAC NEWTON, HIS DISCOVERY OF THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM VIA DIFFRACTION THROUGH A PRISM WAS A TOTAL SHAM!!