h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ok, if elctrons, photons, etc..ie all tiny particles can behave both as a wave & a particle. then a bunch of em would still behave like wave & particle, yeah?
& we r all made up of these tiny particles, right?
so does this mean that we have the potential 2 behave like a wave & a particle?
makes u think dont it.....

luv a thoughtful omylouse

Yes, you do have wave-like properties because you are made of of small wavelike particles. However, your wavelength is VERY short, much less than the diameter of a hydrogen nucleus. (I would calculate it for you, but it is night out, and my solar calculator is not working.) Because of this you cannot observe people diffracting through doorways.

Unless your going through a very small doorway



Do you think Alice in Wonderland ever diffracted? A sort of Alice-Wonderland duality...

Hmmm.

if the doorway was too small we woodnt b able 2 fit thru neway

there must be sum way of making this idea work....its too good 2 b wasted..hmmm.....

Quantum Alice?

I think there is some mileage in this...

so we are agreed this must lead sumwhere, the question now is where? or rather, how do we get there? i wonder if people have different wavelenghts & frequencies, & how 2 find em out...ne1 got ne ideas on this?

You could tunnel through the doorway - but the probability of this happening is about as small as your wavelenght.

BTW -I mean quantum tunneling, not digging a hole underneath the door.

Unless you were very small.

Your wavelength and tunnelling probability would increase as your size decreased - at which point digging under the door would start to take more energy than running through it!

I suppose as we got smaller, the more wave-particle duality would become an issue. Opening a door and running through it would take similar amounts of energy.

Diffracting through a door is another thing. How do you think we would feel diffracting through two doors that are close together?

Quantum tunnelling through a door would be difficult unless you were very small.

Your wavelength and tunnelling probability would increase as your size decreased - there would be a size of your body at which digging under the door would start to take more energy than running through it!

I suppose as we got smaller, the more wave-particle duality would become an issue. When we would be very small, opening a door and running through it would take similar amounts of energy.

Diffracting through a door is another thing. How do you think we would feel diffracting through two doors that are close together?

me & my m8 who came up with this interesting line of thought hope that we can use this theory 2 be in 2 places at once, like photons can do.
it sounds like fun!

The point of being in two places at the same time is really interesting. Strangely enough, I am presently following a thread from an entry on Time Travel: The article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A398955 The thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F49284?thread=113584&latest=1 (I must work out how to use the hyperlinks...!) Obviously methods of Time travel are being discussed. Maybe by shrinking someone to a size where wave-particle duality becomes viable, time-travel may become more probable. You know the sort of thing, try and ram yourself through two doors at the same time and, HEY PRESTO === time travel :-) Maybe Quantum Alice in Wonderland feels like she was falling gently down a long rabbit hole because she was being shrunk to the size smaller than an atom! (sorry, I have an Alice in Wonderland fixation) As they say in all good action films "It's a long shot, but it might just work... "

The idea of being in two places at the same time is really interesting. Strangely enough, I am presently following a thread from an entry on Time Travel: The article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A398955 The thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F49284?thread=113584&latest=1 (I must work out how to use the hyperlinks...!) Obviously methods of Time travel are being discussed. Maybe by shrinking someone to a size where wave-particle duality becomes viable, time-travel may become more probable. You know the sort of thing, try and ram yourself through two doors at the same time and, HEY PRESTO === time travel Maybe Quantum Alice in Wonderland feels like she was falling gently down a long rabbit hole because she was being shrunk to the size smaller than an atom! (sorry, I have an Alice in Wonderland fixation) As they say in all good action films "It's a long shot, but it might just work... "

"its a million to one chance...but it might just work"

this is bcuz, "million to one chances crop up nine times out of ten"

or (take yer pick) 2 whoever can tell me where them quotes is from! (bt nt mr falsename coz i know he knows!)

Come to think of it tunneling would be quite handy during rush hour traffic though it would undoubtedly lead to further legislation and all new sorts of traffic violations heretofore unheard of.

well if we dont tell ne1 what we've discovered we might jus get away wiv it...@ least 4 a while!
they cant tell us off if there are no rules 4 us 2 break, tho they may b a bit p**sed off wiv us!

Actually it is possible to diffract through a door or gateway, all you have to do is to make your wavelength approximately equal to the width of the opening. Unfortunately de Broglie's equation says that momentum of particle (here human) = mass * velocity = Planck's constant/Wavelength, so that the only way to increase wavelength here, given that mass stays constant, is to go really really slowly. To find the speed required to diffract through a door the equation can be rearranged to velocity = (Planck's constant/wavelength)/mass, and inserting nos. (assuming the size of a door is approximately 0.5m, and an average weight is 75kg) gives velocity = ((6.64*10^-34)/0.5)/75kg = 1.77*10^-35 m/s. Now (assuming you would have to walk 1m to go through the door) using time = distance/speed gives the time which it would take to travel through a door when going at a sufficiently slow speed to diffract as 5.65*10^-34 seconds, or 1.79*10^27 years. To 28 significant figures this is 1790000000000000000000000000 years, or many more than several lifetimes of the universe. Don't think it'd be worth it personally but all u intrepid scientist out there could have a go