Chapter 590: Chapter 509: The Terrifying Double-Slit Interference Experiment_2
Lynn waved his hand, precisely splitting open the casing without harming the internal structure, and then began explaining its operating principle to everyone.
The so-called filament was not made of a fire lion’s hair but of tungsten wire, which would convert electrical energy into thermal energy when electrified, thereby heating the cathode and emitting a large number of electrons.
These electrons were blocked by the grid, and by adjusting its position relative to the cathode, the quantity of electrons passing through could be controlled. Finally, an electric field generated at the anode would accelerate them, the deflection coils would adjust their direction, and then they would be emitted one by one.
Lynn’s explanation was highly professional, and many terms confused the Wizards present, fortunately, they understood the last part—the star of Magic had found a way to emit individual electrons and was preparing to use it for an experiment.
“But… shouldn’t it be photons?” a young witch murmured softly.
The voice was light, yet none of the wizards present lacked sharp hearing.
Lynn rolled his eyes, knowing emitting a single photon would be far more troublesome than an electron.
“No worries, they are the same!” Lynn said with a smile, both being microscopic particles exhibiting quantum phenomena.
After explaining briefly, Lynn did not elaborate further and looked around before speaking again, “My experiment is simple—it involves using an electron gun to fire electrons one by one into the double slits, and a specialized fluorescent screen at the back will then display their distribution pattern…”
“What do you think will happen when individual particles pass through the double slits?” Lynn suddenly asked.
The wizards pondered for a moment, and soon came to a conclusion. Glenn was the first to speak, “It should project an image on the back just like pinhole imaging!”
“Let’s see then!” Lynn neither agreed nor disagreed with Glenn’s statement, and immediately activated the thermal electron gun. Under everyone’s watchful eyes, the tungsten wire heated up and glowed…
In the invisible realm of the microscopic, electrons accelerated one after another and rapidly collided with the screening ahead.
Since the holes were extremely small, it was not easy for the electrons to pass through, and most hit the partition instead.
After waiting about five seconds, Harrov spoke gravely, “It’s gone through!”
Alade and others widened their eyes, staring intently at the photosensitive screen behind the partition until they finally noticed a barely discernible little spot suddenly light up.
This meant Lynn’s thermal electron gun had successfully hit a single electron onto the specialized photosensitive screen behind.
As time ticked by, more and more light spots appeared on the photosensitive screen, becoming increasingly dense. However, they were not forming two slit reflections as they had imagined, but were rather dispersed across nine bar-shaped areas…with very few light spots in the other areas.
“Is this… is this an interference pattern?!” Anthony looked at the scene before him, his face filled with shock.
The other wizards felt equally incredulous, to the extent that several senior wizards in the front row couldn’t help but step closer to verify that this wasn’t an illusion and there was nothing wrong with their eyes.
“Strange, why is it ?” Vittorio frowned, murmuring to himself.
“Haha, I was right about the particle-light, my theory is correct!” Sanchez exclaimed excitedly, indicating that particles can also produce wave-like behaviors!
“Idiot!” Anthony interrupted Sanchez brusquely. “If the electrons really passed through one by one, what then is affecting their trajectory?”
Sanchez’s laughter stopped abruptly, clearly realizing the issue now. His previous particle scattering experiment was successful due to the advantage of numbers, by having particles within two exploding element clusters collide to simulate a wave-like path.
However, the current situation was different, with electrons passing through the slits one by one, they should not have been affected by any interference. Yet, the fact was that these electrons had deviated from their original direction.
It was as though a mysterious force was causing these electrons to follow wave-like paths to these specific points.
A chill crept up Sanchez’s back, wondering what was influencing these microscopic particles.
“Could it be that there is an issue with the electron gun, and that it actually fires not just one electron, but many?” a senior Wizard suddenly thought of this, only to have his voice grow softer under the watchful eyes of the other wizards, eventually stopping altogether.
After all, he was questioning the experiment of the star of magic right to his face.
However, to many, it seemed like a viable explanation, assuming that many electrons passed through the pinhole and then interfered with each other.
Although this speculation was far-fetched and couldn’t explain why the photosensitive screen lit up dots one at a time, or why the electrons exactly followed a trajectory comparable to waves, it was nonetheless a tentative explanation.
“Since everyone is in doubt, why don’t you all enter the Magic Network? I’ll personally ‘show you’ myself,” Lynn said with a smile, then proceeded to reveal the technique he had recently developed to connect to the Magic Network.
It was a relatively simple Spiritual Magic technique, not very difficult, accessible to anyone at the official Wizard level.
In just a few minutes, the Wizards in the exhibition hall had mastered this magic.
The reminder from the smart brain rang out in his mind, as the number of people connecting to the Magic Network was increasing.
Even though the majority of Wizards had just connected to the Magic Network and had minuscule computing power available, their large numbers still ‘supported’ Lynn…
His level of spiritual power also rose from seven to eight.
His soul strength was somewhat unable to keep up with the rapid increase in computing power.
Lynn took several seconds to adjust, then expanded his domain to encompass the entire exhibition hall. Under the connection of the Magic Network, all the Wizards present temporarily gained the ability to perceive electromagnetic fields.
At the same time, within a tenth of a second, the electron gun fired ‘one’ electron again.
Glenn, who had been closely watching the experiment from the front row, instantly sensed the disturbance in the electromagnetic field. This disturbance was minuscule, but under the immense computing power provided by the Magic Network, it was incredibly clear.
This ‘electron’ was fortunate enough to pass through the right slit and struck the photosensitive screen, where a faint light spot appeared at the corresponding position.
“Really, there really is only one electron!” Anthony was utterly baffled. Although they hadn’t truly seen or sensed the electron itself, they observed its rough trajectory through the disturbance it caused.
The particle indeed traveled in a straight line, and the lit point on the photosensitive screen was solid proof.
But why did those strange, wave-like interference patterns appear?
Like Anthony, the Wizards who were puzzled about this focused fully, eager to witness firsthand what was affecting the electron’s trajectory.
The electron gun continuously fired without pause, and under the ‘close watch’ of Anthony and others, every fortunate ‘electron’ reliably passed through one of the slits, its path unchanging.
What about the expected deflection?
If this continues, how were the interference-like light spots formed?
Anthony’s expression grew more puzzled, and it was in that moment that a burst of exclamations suddenly filled the exhibition hall.
“Look quickly, the photosensitive screen… the photosensitive screen… it’s changed!”
Anthony’s pupils constricted, only then noticing that somehow, the pattern on the screen had gradually shifted from nine stripes to two…
Seeing this scene, even Harrov, Vittorio, and Aurora grew restless, their six eyes glued to the changing photosensitive screen, and then turned to Lynn, who still sat calmly at the judges’ table.
Lynn shrugged his shoulders and calmly said, “You saw it too, my electron gun is right there, nobody touched it!”