Talk:Afshar experiment/Archive 7

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.


Contents

Final Warning to Danko Georgiev

Danko, If you accuse me of Fraud one more time, I will report you to your academic institution and peruse Slander legal actions against you and whoever backs you. If you do not want your future ruined by your stupid actions, cease and desist immediately. I will also initiate a ban request for you from Wikipedia. You must apologize to me or face the consequences. Do not force me to do what I utterly dislike. Whoever wishes to help me with banning Danko from Wikipedia please let me know. -- Prof. Afshar 06:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I will have to agree with Prof. Afshar that Danko is toeing the boundary of disciplinary action, by his name calling and obsessive behavior. If Danko wishes to make a contribution to the debate, he should write up his treatise and have it published in archiv or elsewhere, like 3 of the critics have done. To make a campaign out of his disagreement, is not the way that scientific inquiry is conducted. The noise level introduced in this debate by Danko only serves to muddle the issue and becomes a distraction for those who wish to learn about this experiment, the controversy, and debate. Now, unrelated to this thread, but in order to mitigate any possible accusations of socketry and puppetry and parrotry, let me incidentally just add that I disagree with the scientific conclusion of this work, and maintain that distinguishibility is close to one, while visibility is close to zero.Forkhume 10:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Dear Forkhume, here I will agree with Afshar's position and will actually tell you that V is close to 1, not to zero. I have already extensively commented on that. Danko Georgiev MD 05:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
No legal threats, please. Stifle 18:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Momentum in QM

Afshar's wrong thesis: " very briefly, the photons happen to have linear momentum. Upon detection at the image plane the conservation laws demand that they must have originated from he corresponding pinhole. I did not make up this law, it simply is Nature in action! " In classical physics you can denote the momentum by vector - it has magnitude and direction. In QM you cannot measure both these values correctly - if you measure the momentum magnitude, you actually do not measure its direction, and you do not really measure momentum, but you make mesurement of photon's energy. So the popular view that the interference picture is measuring momentum is not fully correct - better say that the interference picture is measuring photon's energy because E = \frac{h c}{\lambda}. The popular view is misleading because you may imagine classical momentum vector, and thus think as Afshar does that you have correspondence with a pinhole. However this is wrong and the uncertainty in the momentum's direction is what erases the which way info, and you cannot be sure whether the photon passed through pinhole 1 or pinhole 2. If you put the two pinholes far from each other, so that the uncertainty is much less than the interpinhole distance, then you will have distinguishable photons [at least by time of their arrival] and you will lose the interference picture. Actually you will not measure Energy [wavelength] anymore, but you will measure time arrival. I think that it is better to interprete the Afshar experiment in terms of Heisenberg's E, t uncertainty, instead of classical p, x uncertainty. The problem in the latter is that momentum in classical physics is vector with magnitude and direction, while in QM these both are subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty. I hope this little lecture will be of help to Afshar also, who for 18 years struggles to see the difference between momentum in classical physics and momentum in QM. Right? Danko Georgiev MD 10:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Dear Danko, ONCE a photon is absorbed it's momentum is constrained by the geometry of the experimental setup (in accordance with the conservation laws), which in the case of my experiment is well-defined, and different for each image. One does not assign a momentum vector to the photon prior to measurement, but after it's wavefunction collapses we have no other choice, otherwise would have to violate the conservation laws. If you disagree with this analysis, you are essentially diasagreeing with Bohr, Einstein, Wheeler, Greenberger, Englert, Zeilinger, Scully...; not to mention the rest of physicsts in the world! That would be a bigger feat than violating the Principle of Complementarity, but one that I would not support. Also, please understand that Heisenberg's uncertainty Principle is not violated in my experiment and any claim to the contrary is wrong. Assigning such claims to me is disinformation. This is not an educational forum, nor do I have the time to correct the seemingly endless errors you make. For the last time, please heed the statement at the top of the page, and allow the agreed upon process discussed in the voting debate to start. Please respect the outcome of your failed deletion bid. Interference with that process may lead to being blocked from Wikipedia. -- Prof. Afshar 12:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear Afshar, your post is non-sense. I have opposed to Unruh, Drezet, Cramer, Zeilinger .. etc., so IF you add some more names that have made the same error like you, you should provide some direct quotations, and then list them in my negative list. Science is science, so anyone who understands mathematics can check and see that you do not understand what is momentum in QM. In order to make retrospective claim you need to have your photon labeled (e.g. by polarization filters at the pinholes), otherwise it is the uncertainty principle that forbids you to make which way propositions. Read some papers in Physical Reviews because I do not have time to teach you. Danko Georgiev MD 04:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Here I present visualisation of how should be understood the momentum in QM, and why conservation laws should NOT be applied. Use the standard double slit experiment. Although the light might be emitted perpendicularly to the double slit, it can be detected also in any point where the probability is not zero in the interference pattern at the screen. You cannot look only the photon in considering Afshar's pseudo-conservation of momentum, because you will see absurd - the photon before the double slit goes in one direction, and the final "kick" at the screen in another direction. So something happens during the photon's flight - it interacts with the double slit.

Image:Dd_mo.gif

Now since the two slits S1 and S2 are not distinguishable, the photon's probability follows no-which-way distribution where P = | ψ1 + ψ2 | 2. The MAGNITUDE of the photon's momentum is known, but the DIRECTION of the momentum is superposition of flight through S1 and S2, so the final "kick" at the screen (if one thinks classically) should be in such direction AS IF the photon comes from between the two slits. Actually I think that to sum the momentum vectors and to have "kick" in some resultant direction is good for showing the inconsistency of classical visualization, and indeed I propose that the reality of superposition remains [otherwise the kicked atom from the screen will be attributed defined x, and p, which will violate Heisenberg's relations]. The illustration is done just to show that you CANNOT THINK in classical way and preserve the momentum. When emitted the photon might have been perpendicular to the double-slit, but when detected the "kick" at the screen is neither perpedicular, nor you are allowed to say through which slit the photon has passed, nor you should be able to know the direction of the momentum. To appeal to conservation laws in QM is equal to suicide - neither the velocity of light is the higher limit (e.g. Hawking radiation), nor the conservation of energy is strictly required (e.g. vacuum zero energy fluctuations), nor you can have precise measurement of both momentums magnitude and direction (e.g. Afshar's error).

Now what happens when you put lens? The same thing - the photon passes through both slits, and interacts with the lens in order to be refracted towards both of the images, and he arrives at both detectors in a pure state \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} (|D_{1}>+|D_{2}>). Since the light is coherent the photon after the double slit will have superposition of directions of the momentum, some of which might be in imaginary space [that accounts for the possibility of tunneling]. The final "kick" at the detectors IF you imagine one, will surely not be in direction defined e.g. by connection slit 1, center of the lens, and detector 1, for detection at detector 1, and this is because you cannot know simultaneously both the momentum's magnitude and direction. If you have polarized light however, the final "kick" e.g. at detector 1 will be exactly as the defined above, so you will have 1:1 correspondence between slit 1 and detector 1, yet you will not be able to say the magnitude of this "kick", because you do not know the photon's wavelength. As summary somewhere in the flight the photon interacts with the medium of the lens in order to be refracted and might have changed either the magnitude [wavelength] or the direction of motion, in a way that you cannot use momentum conservation! The situation resembles the delayed choice experiment - if you want to "trick out" the photon by measuring its direction of propagation, the photon will know already the future decision that you will make, so the photon will interact in a way to lose or gain some energy, precluding you knowing its wavelength. Inversely if you want to measure the wavelength the photon will supercausally know this, so the photon will interact with the lens to make its direction of propagation unknowable for you.

p.s. the same principle apllies even for the emission of photons by the laser of Afshar, where λ = 650 nm. In case when you know that the photon is with wavelength λ = 650 nm, you actually cannot be sure that it is emitted perpendicularly to the double slit, and in case when you know a photon is emitted perpendicularly to the double slit, you no more know that its wavelength is λ = 650 nm. Danko Georgiev MD 07:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Energy conservation in QM

Analogously to the Afshar's proposed conservation of momentum, one might argue that the conservation of energy is "Nature in action" (quoting Afshar), so one might equally well argue that vacuum zero energy fluctuations ARE NOT THERE, and one might argue to have disproven QM. So the solution is simple - either you accept that in QM violation of various conservation laws is possible in the limits precribed by Heisenberg's relations, or you should argue that the whole QM is false.

Danko's point of view

Danko could you summarize here in few sentences your argumentations or put a link to a paper ? regards Drezet 27 /01/06

Dear Aurelien, I do not know why you want my argument clearly, but I will do just because I have formulated my main thesis in a dozen of EQUIVALENT formulations. Most of you think that everything is just rumbling, but IF turn back and investigate all my examples, you will see a single main thesis, that reveals its face in different angle. So below I put the summary of my thesis.

  • The Afshar experiment should be understood of terms of E, t uncertainty, where Afshar's claim is incompatible with Heisenberg's principle. It is clear that V=1, because the wires, may be well silver compund detectors of light. Since they detect nothing they are in absolutely dark, hence they record interference minima, and perform Reininger's negative collapse of the wavefunction in basis E (energy). So you know precisely the wavelength λ of the photon, by the spacing of the wire-detectors, and E = \frac{h c}{\lambda}. But IF you know the which way [K=1] you can calculate the time for arrival of the photon from its emission to its absorbtions. THIS VIOLATES HEISENBERG. But I say that there is no which way, because the photon goes through both pinholes and each photon is in superposition at each detector. Since he has followed two different trajectories each one by single pinhole, you have two calculate time travel by two different length paths, so you have uncertainty in time - so, no which way!
  • Why Afshar makes error? He does not understand the difference between classical and quantum momentum. In classical physics you have vector with defined magnitude and direction. In complementarity this does not happen. [1] Suppose you have Afshar's experiment you have measured the wavelength, so you know the MAGNITUDE of the momentum, but because the photon has passed thorugh both pinholes [no which way] you do not know the DIRECTION of the vector of momentum. [2] Now suppose another example if you put two polarization filters on the pinholes. Photons are not coherent so no interference will occur and the wire detectors will capture 6 % of the photons. But suppose you remove the wire grid - you still have two well resolved pinholes at the image plane. But this image will not be superposition (pure state) but will be mixed state image. You know exactly the pinhole throught which the photon has arrived to the detector, because you can measure his polarization. So you know the DIRECTION of the photon's momentum, but you neither know the photon's energy, nor photon's wavelength λ, so you do not know the MAGNITUDE p of the momentum vector, because p=\frac{h}{\lambda}

Afshar, Unruh et al. believe in Afshar's claim about which way info, and his argument is in conservation of momentum. There is NO SUCH THING in QM. Quantum momentum cannot have precise magntitude of the vector, and precise direction of the vector at the same time - this is forbidden by Heisenberg's principle and complementarity.Danko Georgiev MD 04:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Dear Aurelien, I still have not published a paper because currently I work on my Ph.D. thesis and I don't have so much time. Also I stopped uploading of e-prints, before peer-reviewing, and I stopped to produce single authored papers. If someone interested in physics wants to collaborate with me on my argument against Afshar I will be glad to collect and present all my draft papers, and posts. I think that once you see the weirdness of quantum momentum, and K = 0 in Afshar's experiment you will have to withdraw you arXiv entry, so you will enter my company of people who have withdrawn pre-print at least once  :-) Danko Georgiev MD 04:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Link to Drezet's Wiki Entry

Drezet your article just shows what I already advocate since 2004.

I put direct links to your math theory

V - visibility of fringes - in Afshar setup is V=1, because in the minima he detects zero light, or almost zero light. This is Reininger negative measurement. Actually the wires are wide enough to detect 6% of the light intensity if you put polarization filters.

K - which way info - is IDENTICAL to D - distingushability in your math formalism. D = 0, so you cannot distiguish from which pinhole the photon comes, so D = 0. There is no which way information. The photon comes in pure state, so the photon is in superposition and both detectors. No which way - so you have pure state density matrix, so you have non-zero off-diagonal elements, so you have photon being holographically at both detectors at once at the image plane. The fact that after that you collapse the superposed photon in basis D1, D2 is irrelevant. The same is in the Fourier plane - there the photon is in superposition at many fringes at once, but you nevertheless collapse it only somewhere in the Fourier plane, you cannot detect the single photon at pieces spread everywhere, can you?

In order to have which way measurement you should produce somehow mixed state of the photon. This can be done by entanglement with polarization filters, where the reduced density matrix of the whole systems that described the photon only will "look-like" mixed one. So you will have which way information, but not interference. You will be able to diffract 6% of the photons by the wires in Afshar's setup. The fact is that in the entangled state, the photon is not really in mixed state, but the interference info is encoded in the entanglement of the whole system [say photon plus polarization filters]. If you decide to delete the polarization of the photon, in case you have not yet collapsed it [not destructive measurement is done yet], so you can restore back the interference, but this cannot happen without deletion of the which way info.

Best, Danko Georgiev MD 04:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The Emperors New Clothes

The emperor is persuded by his advisor that the beautiful interference patterns in his new clothes are indeed perfectly visible. V=1. The emperor, however, would prefer it if such patterns were also visible in fact.

"Can we not introduce downstream re-interfernce of the photons?" asked the Emperor.

"No your highness," said the advisor, "that is quite unnecessary. Look at how these fine threads have been placed. Do you see how they make the patterns come alive."

"Yes. Of course. You are right. That is brilliant."

The conclusion to this story has become the stuff of legend. But there is a sequel to this story. It is not well known that after the Emperor's defeat at the hands of a mocking crowd, the advisor went on to became the New Emperor. And if you remember the little boy in the crowd who exclaimed V=0, well he had no problem with the Old Emperor. He liked the way the clothes were invisible. He thought it wholly unfair that the Emperor should lose the thrown over such a thing. He hatched a plan. When he grew up he would become advisor to the New Emperor.

"Yes, your highness," the little boy would say to the New Emperor, "that pinhole is indeed a beautiful pinhole. And what's more, it can be demonstrated in new clothes made from just one photon"

"Yes. Of course. You are right. That is brilliant"

You can guess the conclusion to this story. What you wouldn't guess was how the New Emperor's humiliation was far worse than the Old Emperors. For in the laughing crowd was the presence of the Old Emperor, resplendant in a gown of glowing interference patterns laughing louder than everyone else.

But to be fair, the New Emperor would have prefered his new clothes were just satin black with a small hole in them rather than the whole thing made from just one photon.

Carl

Graphics for Theory Section

Dear Drezet, Please bear in mind that the observed interference pattern (IP) is a fully visible one (V=1). The IP you have shown has a low visibility (V<1). If you replace it with an IP in which the dark fringes have zero intensity (V=1), the graphics would be correct. Please let me know what you wish to do. Regards. -- Prof. Afshar 19:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear Afshar, yes V=1, but D=0. So without distiguishability you cannot say which way the photon passed. In QM the momentum is complex number (!!!), and exactly because particles may propagate in imaginary direction tunneling is allowed. After collapse of the wavefunction of photon, you measure NOT the quantum vector of momentum that is complex number, but you measure momentum's magnitude only, so it is nothing but measuring the photon's energy and wavelegth. So what conservation of momentum you speak about??? Do you conserve the complex momentum vector??? Please either provide clear answer, or stop disturbing the editing process of your promo-entry, that finally will be turned into manifest of your failure to understand QM. If you do not have access to the following article "Peter Bowcock & Ruth Gregory (1991) Multidimensional tunneling and complex momentum. Phys. Rev. D 44: 1774–1785." I will be glad to send you pdf. Danko Georgiev MD 07:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Dear Drezet, the inserted lens in the figure of the main article is not needed. Either you produce Fraunhoffer diffraction without lens in the far-field approximation, or you may use lens with focal length f, and then the double slit must be located in the focal plane at one site, and the far-field Fraunhoffer image will be produced at the other focal plane. In both directions you will have Fourier and inverse Fourier transform of the corresponding images. So your picture is wrong [not equal distance f between the double slit and the Fraunhoffer image], and also introducing a lens IS OF NO PURPOSE in discussing the double slit. Danko Georgiev MD 10:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Please if somebody wants to improve the entry on complementarity let he/she edit the complementarity (physics) article. To put the entry of complementarity in encyclopedia, as a sub-entry of Afshar's article is ridiculous! At least here you must have some respect to science! (even if you do not like my comments as a whole) Danko Georgiev MD 07:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Danko has moved this section to the article on complementarity. linas 14:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Specifically, to Complementarity (physics). I just took some time to polish this up, and make it look nice (i.e. follow te WP style guidelines, etc). I think its quite good. Thank you, Drezet for creating this section! linas 01:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I was surprise when Danko moved the page but finally it was my initial intention too so I agree like that. Drezet 7 February 2006 (PS: I am adding an other reference to the list since even if I dont believe what it is claimed in it the paper is mathematically correct and written by a physicist).

Another sockpuppet?

I am wondering if Carl Looper is not indeed another sockpuppet of Afshar, and whether it is not Afshar itself? Crazy, isn't it? But not surprizing! Danko Georgiev MD 04:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

SO FAR NO REPLY!!! Carl Looper's entries above belong to Afshar suckpuppeting! The dear Afshar does not value the scientific honesty so much?! Danko Georgiev MD 08:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

No, actually, I do not value your opinion! Why so paranoid?!--Prof. Afshar 12:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
It is a compliment (of sorts) to be confused with Afshar, (or even Danko) but I am not he. But why should it matter? Is the content of what I am saying any different if I were Afshar? - Carl Looper.

Afshar already has some experience in sockpuppeting, so I decided that he plays another game. But my suggestion to Looper is if he opens an account. If somebody is not ashamed of what he is posting online, he can boldly put his name below his notes. To be wrong sometimes means nothing, it happens to all of us all the time in different situations in life. Danko Georgiev MD 03:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

On References vs. Proponents section

I don't know, what most of all may think, but to leave the section titled as References will be even more funny - in the section remains Science fiction column, New Scientist yellow press, and Afshar's unpublished paper, except in Conference bulletin.

My change reflects the repetition of Motl's work and web link to the same resource at two places - as critique ans then as reference, and the other paper link was added personally by me, but it has nothing to do with Afshar's pseudoscience, but should be listed in possible section on wheeler's delayed choice experiment. So what remained as references is just a bunch of sci fi popular writings, and I decided to rename it into Proponents section. To leave it as References will be just a joke. Danko Georgiev MD 05:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Q&A

As per discussions with CSTAR I added a link to the archived Q&A section of my weblog where some of the critics have been addressed.--Afshar 18:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

STOP with this parody, dear Afshar! If you want create a FAQ to all those critiques, but do not post links to archived web postings. This is encyclopedia, and one needs the information as fast as possible. If you believe you are right, summarize neatly in your FAQ your opinion. Do NOT post excessive linking to internal pages from your web site. Nobody needs this, and I don't see somebody to have asked you for more information so far.

I think the non-sense you have produced up to this point is enough! Danko Georgiev MD 08:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The link is a useful source of information on response to critics. The issue was fully discussed (see CSTAR's talk page.)-- Prof.Afshar 12:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
This should be an answer for DG.

KEY policy of Wikipedia : Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all differing views on a subject, factually and objectively, in an order which is agreeable to a common consensus.Drezet 16:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Drezet, encyclopedia entry is NOT TALK PAGE !!! For objectivity should I post various links to different web discussions where I have criticized Afshar? If someone wants to browse in Afshar's web site, he is wellcome to do it. But Wikipedia should not be "guide" for Afshar's web. If he feels that there is something importa in his QA talks, he is well advised to put the especially important info in his FAQ. One link to all his replies is best. Please delete this QA link. Regards, Danko 08:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC) p.s. by the way all this non-sense if enough for me - I am not the gatekeeper of Wikipedia, if you all like this parody go on - do commercial entries, do advertisements, etc. The wikipedia idea starts to look stupid, if there are no peer-reviewers of the entries. Afshar calls him "professor", so let it be - I vote that Afshar is promoted into "academician" soon. Bye!

Dates added

I added the dates for the intital work at IRIMS and later at Harvard.--Afshar 18:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

comment from a roving mathematician

I don't see the experiment as disproving complementarity. Let's talk somewhere after I get back from vacation. (And I think John G. Cramer has less physical intuition than a WP:CIVIL violation removed. I had an E-mail exchange with him on the apparent gravitational position of the sun -- he sees an anomaly of \frac{8.3\ \mathbf{min}}{365.25\ \mathbf{solar\ days}}, and I do not. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


merge?

Could this article be merged to Complementarity (physics)? Something seems wrong with having an article on an experiment by someone who is actually an editor of the article. -- Astrokey44|talk 13:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This experiment is too much on the fringe to be merged in there, I think. We've had two requests for deletion here; let's just leave it. Pfalstad 15:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • This experiment was conducted by me, and as a scientist I have a duty to defend its veracity against any accusations, most notably from crackpots, who by-the-way have requested the two deletion bids. I respect your opinion if you think this is a fringe experiment, (with much evidence against that view) however, it has been notably covered by international media, and a number of papers have been published and are currently underway regarding it (just Google Afshar experiment). I'm sorry if defending my integrity has offended anyone, but I will not allow any individual regardless of rank or background to harm my reputation. BTW/ I have strictly adhered to the agreed-upon editing process discussed in the last deletion "bid".-- Prof. Afshar 15:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Mergers, personal attacks and other comments

Re: Could this article be merged to Complementarity (physics)?

As User:Pfalstad points out, this has been proposed, twice, and rejected. However, I suggest removing all details about complementarity from this article. The article should be limited to saying what Afshar's experiment consists of, where it was conducted, what it claims to disprove and facts about how it is viewed in the scientific community (almost all negative).

To say the experiment is on the fringe is hardly a personal attack. However, Danko's apparent suggestion there is fraud involved is completely unwarranted and I may remove those comments from this talk page. It's one thing to say the experiment's conclusions are wrong or some other observation about the experiment itself. Did I misunderstand you Danko? Making such accusations is almost certainly contrary to WP policy.

Afshar, please avoid using charged words such as "crackpot".

Moreover, as has already been pointed out by linas (and is also policy) the purpose of this and any article talk page is to discuss the content and structure of the article, not the experiment. If the validity of the experiment or its justification needs to be discussed, that is original research. It is however, the responsability of the writers of the article to fairly report the general consensus of the scientific community in regard to this experiment, which I believe is overwhelmingly negative. If you want to do something useful Danko, document this fact from the published literature (not from your own opinions or research if it's not published).--CSTAR 17:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The issue at hand right now, is Danko's Fraud accusations, which I utterly dismiss. That is a defamatory personal attack that can directly affect my career and cannot be tolerated in WP. As for the consensus of the community, one can refer to the credible critics (as the article has) and avoid making generalization as to what the entire community believes, which can only be achieved by taking a scientific survey. One cannot extrapolate a community consensus based on a few early and vociferous critics. Let time decide the merits of the experiment and community consensus. However, allowing a non-expert to muddy the waters in a serious scientific debate only reduces the legitimacy of Wikipedia, which must be avoided. Remember the Seigenthaler affair? -- Afshar 18:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Re The issue at hand right now, is Danko's Fraud accusations. OK I think we agree that this kind of accusation on WP is unacceptable, even in a talk page, unless, of course somebody is actually convicted in a court. --CSTAR 18:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration by an administrator

Garzo has agreed to arbitrate and settle the dispute on personal attacks in this article. Please hold your comments until the process is finalized. Thanks! -- Afshar 18:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Who understands physics?

Since I was accused by Linas that I do not understand physics, I will illustrate how good is Afshar's knowledge in physics - here is one quotation by his preprint that is indeed the final conclusion : "Since the arguments presented in this Letter are valid for all quantum particles, it is plausible that equivalent experiments could be performed involving electrons or neutrons with identical results to this experiment." It seems very "expert" opinion unless I point out that photon is boson, while electron is fermion. In the preprint of Afshar is described the high flux photon [boson] experiment, so exactly in the high flux electron [fermion] experiment you will have "almost identical result" up to the difference between "Bose-Einstein statistics" and "Fermi-Dirac statistics" :-)))) I hope you will get this joke, or possibly advice Afshar to read again some very basic principles of quantum particle statistics. Maybe the wikipedia links are good start for Afshar to "update" his memories, because I think he has forgotten this little fact. Danko Georgiev MD 05:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Just stop already. You wrote your paper and stated your position, all you are doing now is making a fool out of your self and everybody who's associated with the topic.
I would contend that understanding the physics is not the real question here. Wikipedia is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and it definitely should not be used as a shortcut to scientific publication. I argue that all supporting information for the experiment must be backed up by reference to peer-reviewed publications. Likewise, all refutation should be backed up by reference to peer-reviewed publications. Basically, any support or refutation that is not backed up by such material must be considered scientifically questionable — if the argument is sound, why does not appear in some scientific journal? However, any argument that is clearly verifiable by such reasonable sources should be admitted. So, the question is can both sides in this argument present sources? — Gareth Hughes 13:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
A fact is that unless Afshar's paper is officially published, no serious scientist will lose his time in preparing a paper strong enough to pass peer-reviewing process. To post a brief explanation of error, is not the same as performing computer simulation of the whole setup Afshar. Also no serious journal will accept critique of results published in the yellow press. Conference Proceedings are not counted as peer-reviewed publication, because what you have to do is to pay the tax of about 300-500$ and your paper has good chance to be published in the Proceedings book. I personally never publish conference papers in proceedings books but upload my presentations in eprints. Danko Georgiev MD 14:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
What do you feel about the status of the references at the foot of the article as it stands? — Gareth Hughes 14:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry Danko, but you insist on embarrassing yourself! The double-slit experiments involving Fermions show the same results as in other SINGLE particle interference experiments. The Fermion statistics has to do with at least two Fermions occupying the same state SIMULTANEOUSLY which is forbidden by Pauli Exclusion Principle. Single particle interference experiments (first order) produce the same interference effects as for bosons (with small phase differences depending on the experimental set-up.) Mind the gap! -- Prof. Afshar 15:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The Pre-Print is dated 2003! Do you forget that? No single photon experiment reported yet!!!! Or you have falsificated the year (of the irims preprint to be more specific)? Danko Georgiev MD 15:21, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The results of high-flux and low-flux double slit experiments are identical and are all considered to be single-particle interference. The high-flux regime is simply a faster single-particle process. This is a well-known fact, but if you oppose it, then produce your publisehd reference please. BTW/ There are no tricks here, just a simple demonstration of your utter lack of knowledge in the subject matter (too easy really!)-- Afshar 15:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Dear Afshar, by-the-way the full text of my argument is on Garzo's web page - you have pasted your responce just several lines below my full text explanation, so calm down. I suppose you are performing right now blind copy-pasting, and you score auto-goals. I have clearly said that high flux experiment in bosons and fermions is different, and quotation is from your 2003 preprint. Read again, think again, and do not hurry so much ... :-) Danko Georgiev MD 15:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Garzo, (1) I do not see you asking Danko to take back his Fraud accusations. Why? Isn't that as important as the policy against legal actions? (2) The references in my papers are all from peer-reviewed publications, and well-established. (3) Danko Georgiev's position is "not even wrong," that is, it is beyond redemption! In "defense" of Complementarity, he violates so many laws of physics that I cannot even begin to number them here. He did put together a hodge-podge paper of copied and pasted material from internet sources that have been aptly rejected from archives, and cannot possibly be cited in WP. His involvement in the talk page is akin to allowing someone off the street to take part in Brain surgery! This is not an educational arena and neither I, nor other experts have the time to teach Danko, or point out every error in his statements. His arguments are certainly in the category of "Original Research" and cannot be allowed to be aired here. He is more than welcome to put up his arguments on his own web-page.-- Prof. Afshar 15:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I cant see how somebody in your standing would contribute to this personal level of bickering with all your argument about sound professional behaviour.
I request that our discussion be limited to the validity of our sources. Therefore, Danko, if you wish to suggest that this experiment or its results were falsified, you have to quote a source that says it — saying it yourself does not carry weight and has been construed as a personal attack. Likewise, Danko's personal qualifications are not the subject here — we interpret the sources, not the ability of individuals to interpret them (I myself confess to a hazy memory of long-forgotten particle-physics lectures). As this is Afshar's experiment it seems reasonable to link to his paper on it (just as a biographical article might link to the subject's personal homepage). The link to AIP proceedings seems fair also (if this is what Afshar was willing to present to a room of colleagues). Links to popular science articles are fine too, as not every reader will be familiar enough with the subject area to follow the other articles. However, we should be careful only to include those that are not too fanciful, but link to those that present the experiment in a more straightforwrd way. The link to the Science Friday archive is labelled as being New Scientist. Is this a mistake, or did the image that appears in Science Friday also appear in New Scientist? Can someone verify this? Overall, the article seems to represent a fair number of concerns about the Afshar experiment, which include links to papers by notable physicists (I found most of these also referenced in an arXiv.org search). — Gareth Hughes 16:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The Science Friday program used the New Scientist graphics after I obtained copyright permission from NS. Regards. -- Afshar 16:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

OK. I imagine that the image must have been in this feature. Unfortunately, NS is only readable online with subscription, which prevents it being used as an external link in the Wikipedia article. Perhaps the link to that graphic can be a bit more explicit. — Gareth Hughes 16:29, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Took care of that!--Afshar 16:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I would like to mention that even if the result of Afshar stirred controversy after its presentation in New scientist it is not the first time that a scientist attacks the position of Bohr . If we should condamn the enthousiasm of Afsahr in defending his interpretation we will condamn all scientists in the same way. Moreover, it is clear that there are several interpretations of the results obtained by S. Afshar but I think that the list of publication and preprint at the end of the Afshar page gives a neutral and equal chance to different scientific interpretations. I dont really understand what Georgiev consider this experiment as a falsification: this is an original experiment very simple to realize and which can illustrate either violation (for Afshar) or application (for me and others) of Bohr's complementarity. To conclude 1) the experiment exists and Afshar invented it, 2) Interpretation is not falsification. Thus I do not see the point of disagreement??? Drezet 16:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Drezet and others. We all have various opinions on what conclusions can be drawn - that differ in various ways - but none of us (including Danko) disagree with the data produced by the experiment. The only case for fraud would be if such results were manufactured by means other than through the specified experiment (ie. faking of the data). But nobody here, including Danko, has any argumanet at all with the data. The debate is in the domain of interpretation (and/or the mathematics) and about the sometimes overly colourful words exchanged :) (Carl)