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In the classic double-slit experiment, when light passes through double slits onto a screen, alternate bands of bright and dark regions are produced. These can be explained as areas in which the light waves reinforce or cancel. However it became experimentally apparent that light has some particle-like properties and items such as electrons have wave like properties and can also produce interference patterns.
This poses some interesting questions. Suppose one were to do the double slit experiment and reduce the light so that only one photon (or electron) passes through the slits at a time. In performing the experiment, one will see the electron or photon hit the screen one at a time. However, when one totals up where the photons have hit, one will see interference patterns that appear to be the result of interfering waves even though the experiment dealt with one particle at a time.
The questions this experiment poses are
The Copenhagen interpretation answers these questions as follows:
The original formulation of the Copenhagen Interpretation has led to several variants; the most respected one is based on Consistent Histories ("Copenhagen done right?") and the concept of quantum decoherence that allows us to calculate the fuzzy boundary between the "microscopic" and the "macroscopic" world. Other variants differ according to the degree of "reality" assigned to the waveform.
The completeness of quantum mechanics (thesis 1) has been attacked by the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment which was intended to show that there have to be hidden variables in order to avoid non-local, instantaneous "effects at a distance".
Of the three theses above, the third is maybe the most problematic from a physicist's standpoint, because it gives a special status to measurement processes without cleanly defining them nor explaining their peculiar effects.
Many physicists and philosophers have objected to the Copenhagen interpretation, both on the grounds that it is non-deterministic and that it includes an undefined measurement process that converts probability functions into non-probabilistic measurements. EinsteinAlbert Einstein ( March 14 1879 April 18 1955) was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory of relativity and also made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics's quotes "God does not play dice" and "Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?" exemplify this. Bohr, in response, said "Einstein, don't tell God what to do". Erwin SchrödingerErwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger ( August 12, 1887 January 4, 1961) was an Austrian physicist famous for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrodinger equation, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1933. He proposed the Schrodi devised the Schrödinger's cat experiment that attempts to illustrate the incompleteness of the theory of quantum mechanics when going from subatomic to macroscopic systems.
There is doubt over the validity of the Copenhagen interpretation, due to Shahriar Afshar's experiment [1], a variation of the two-pin-hole "which way" experiment .
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