Alternate Explanations for the Double Slit Experiment

Most recent answer: 10/10/2013

Q:
The wave pattern produced in the double slit experiment is typically explained as illustrating the wave nature of electrons. I'm wondering however if there may be an alternative explanation - and that is that electrons are particles but because they are traveling at/near the speed of light, they do not experience time (or time does not pass for them) and from their perspectives, all electrons are being passed through the double slits simultaneously, rather than one by one. Is that explanation possible?
- Barbara (age 50)
Boston, MA, USA
A:

Hi Barbara,

You bring up some interesting points, but your idea doesn't quite explain the experimental results.

To begin with, the relativity problem you mention isn't quite as simple as you made it out to be. For example, I don't think there would ever be a frame in which two (or more) electrons passed through the slits at exactly the same time.

More importantly, there are at least two ways to set up this experiment such that relativity isn't even an issue; at least one of these experiments has already been done.

1) After a quick google search, I found an experiment ( in which the electrons were traveling at a small fraction of the speed of light, so relativistic effects aren't important here.

2) If you set up a million identical double-slits and shot only one electron through each one, then there would be no possible way for two electrons to ever meet each other. If you did the experiment and then laid all one million electron-detecting films on top of each other, you would still see a diffraction pattern.

So, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that single electrons are indeed described by a quantum mechanical wave packet.

Cheers,

David Schmid


(published on 10/10/2013)