John Gribbin Quote

According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, when an electron is ejected from an electron ‘gun’ on one side of the experiment it leaves as a particle, and can be detected as a particle. But it immediately dissolves into a probability wave, which travels through both of the holes and interferes with itself to make a pattern of probability on the other side of the holes. At the detector screen, the electron can appear as a particle at any point allowed by the probabilities, but with some places more likely than others, and, crucially, some locations being absolutely forbidden. There is a ‘collapse of the wave function’ at the point where the electron is observed, or measured. It arrives as a particle.

John Gribbin

According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, when an electron is ejected from an electron ‘gun’ on one side of the experiment it leaves as a particle, and can be detected as a particle. But it immediately dissolves into a probability wave, which travels through both of the holes and interferes with itself to make a pattern of probability on the other side of the holes. At the detector screen, the electron can appear as a particle at any point allowed by the probabilities, but with some places more likely than others, and, crucially, some locations being absolutely forbidden. There is a ‘collapse of the wave function’ at the point where the electron is observed, or measured. It arrives as a particle.

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About John Gribbin

John R. Gribbin (born 19 March 1946) is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. His writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the origins of the universe, and biographies of famous scientists. He also writes science fiction.