Today in the lecture, a video was shown that presented a new idea to us. The idea of the double split, particle motion, and probability of patterns matter makes is easy to understand and predict at the meter level. But when minimized to quantum level, the physics change. The electrons travel through the slit in random ways, and somehow still make a highly dispersed wave pattern. This is confusing in itself, but then once a device that watches the slit is installed, the electrons behave as expected, not as usual. This proves that just a watcher can affect the action at the quantum level. This amazed me. I still can barely fathom these hypotheses and conclusions about quantum physics. But I am intrigued and am hoping to take a class in quantum physics in order to enhance my trivial knowledge of quantum mechanics.
Another idea that intrigued me was the table that when touched projected out particles, and could be manipulated and create waves and patterns. Before camp I had an idea to build a LED table with my friend. This table would react to objects touching the table, or even shadows passing by. LED’s would light up and flicker out like a wave when a pebble is dropped in a pond. They slowly flash and ripple until they die out. Another cool aspect of the table we were trying to build is that it could flash different colors to music playing in the room. Now I am intrigued to use multitouch from the design shown to us today to improve my idea.
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/tablekits
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
http://library.thinkquest.org/3487/qp.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blob_detection