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Re: Parallel Universe



At 09:36 PM 5/16/2004, you wrote:
Hello,
I hope someone can help me. A student sent me this web site
<http://www.allsci.com/parallel.html>
and suggested that we do the activity in class (it is very simple and
involves poking holes in a card and shining a laser beam at the holes,
then observing
the interference pattern). However, the web site claims that the observed
pattern is evidence for parallel universes. I would like to be able to
explain
convincingly to my students that it is no such thing. Some of my students
have had calculus and some have not, and all are high school seniors with
extreme
senioritis (only 2 more weeks of class for them). Any takers?
Thanks,
Fran Poodry
West Chester East High School
West Chester, PA


Some physicists postulate a parallel universe hypothesis to explain
some puzzling findings.
In the case of light interference, the presently successful concept is that
light has both wave and particle-like properties, and that a wave
(even a wave due to one photon) can traverse all available apertures and
recombine constructively in one of a set of positions that is likely to be
used by successive photons. Though this concept is puzzling enough, it
seems to need less extraneous construction of hypotheses than the
multiple universe concept.

This goes along with a similar concept that matter in small particles moving
slowly, can act in a wave-like way, and interfere in a comparable way to light.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!