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popper-logic-scientific-discovery

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APPENDIX v<br />

Examination of an Objection. The<br />

Two-Slit Experiment (cf.<br />

section 76)* 1<br />

The imaginary experiment described below under (a) is intended to<br />

refute my assertion that arbitrarily exact simultaneous (non-predictive)<br />

measurements of the position and momentum of a particle are compatible<br />

with the quantum theory.<br />

(a) Let A be a radiating atom, and let light from it fall on a screen S<br />

after passing through two slits, Sl 1 and Sl 2. According to Heisenberg we<br />

can in this case measure exactly either the position of A or the<br />

momentum of the radiation (but not both). If we measure the position<br />

exactly (an operation that ‘blurs’ or ‘smears’ the momentum) then we<br />

can assume that light is emitted from A in spherical waves. But if we<br />

measure the momentum exactly, for example by measuring the recoils<br />

due to the emission of photons (thereby ‘blurring’ or ‘smearing’ the<br />

* 1 See also appendix *xi and my Postscript, chapter *v, section *110. My present view is<br />

that the two-slit experiment is to be treated differently, but that the interpretation proposed<br />

in this appendix is still of some interest. The remarks under (e) seem to me still to<br />

contain a valid criticism of the attempt to explain the dualism of particle and wave in<br />

terms of ‘complementarity’—an attempt which, it seems, has been abandoned by some<br />

physicists more recently.

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