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And to answer your next question I have done the Stern-Gerlach and double slit experiment myself, many times actually. So I am not taking that on faith.

I'll try and address the other issues when I've more time, but the Stern-Gerlach sounds fascinating! I love the physical sciences! I would be just so happy if you might be so kind as to explain how you did the Stern-Gerlach experiment - you know, things like "How hot was your oven? What metal atoms did you use? (silver?) What sort of aparatus did you use, how did you detect the silver particles, how fast were they moving, and 'how many atoms which entered the magnetic field got out?'"

Thanks very much!

-Jesse

I would be just so happy if you might be so kind as to explain how you did the Stern-Gerlach experiment - you know, things like "How hot was your oven? What metal atoms did you use? (silver?) What sort of aparatus did you use, how did you detect the silver particles, how fast were they moving, and 'how many atoms which entered the magnetic field got out?'"

One of the things we did differently was we built a centrifuge and ran an electric current through the silver source to heat it. By varying the current and speed of the centrifuge we could vary the silver atom output. Our goal typically was to send a single atom through it at a time, but our apparatus liked to send clumps of atoms through. It had the advantage that we knew the velocity of the silver atoms and we could separate out the clumps on the output. Clumps deflected much less, but that made the output less pure.

You too can build your own Stern-Gerlach and double slit apparatuses at home : )

I don't remember the details like amps, temps, source velocity, etc. just that they were stable. We just tinkered with them until we got a reliable source. Once we had a reliable source of single atoms/wave packets < somewhat anyway : ) > we generally tried to invalidate Stern-Gerlach or get multiple results. For example, instead of stopping at the photographic plate (or phosphor screen we would run it through the double slit, with variations, to test our mathematically derived predictions. For some very odd reason our advisers didn't think we had accomplished anything unless we had the mathematical framework to back it up : )

Sadly and much to our dismay, we were unable to produce any new or unexpected results, which actually pleased our unimaginative advisers. What we were trying to do was determine velocity, position and spin concurrently, for at least a brief period of time. Like I said, everything is waves of nothing, with an emphasis on the nothing.