THIS is Quantum Mechanics

The Quantum world is really strange. Some of the effects defy explanation completely.

This is the one that threw my imagination off it's axis.

It is called "regeneration".

To put it normal terms, a particle dies and is reborn.

It's astonishing what happens....

The particle was one of the first of the "strange" particles, and it is called the K-0 meson.

And this thing was really strange.

First, here is a description of what was seen.

The beam of particles was produced. We shone it onto a detector (basically, a wall) which stopped them.

Quantum machanics predicted some would come out of the other side of the "wall". Its part of the rules these things obey.

After that, with another "wall", we detected the ANTIparticle of the K-0 meson.

This told us that the beam was a mixture of the K-0 meson and its antiparticle.

It gets really weird now.

The first "wall" stopped the K-0. The second stopped the antiparticle. So basically, nothing should have got through.

Yet, because of that same rule of quantum mechanics, the second "wall" did NOT stop all the particles.

So we set up a third "wall".

You'd expect to get just K-0 antiparticles.

We didn't. We got the K-0 again!

They were dead, and yet, somehow they were "reborn".

The explantion is really simple if you know QM.

In simple terms it's not one particle, but two.

It's very hard to explain.

It's called "Quantum Superposition".

In other words, it IS both particles at the same time. The reason why it is "reborn" is because it is NOT just the K-0 we detect. We detect both, but the effigies that "get through" both "walls" are neither K-0 nor it's antiparticle. The things we detect are only what the "walls" "feel". The stuff that comes out of any "wall" is a mixture of both particle and antiparticle.

The really weird thing is that if we shift the "wall" back 3 meters or so, we detect the OTHER one!

In other words, the "thing" we call the K-0 meson actually shifts between being itself and it own antiparticle. Over a distance of about 3 meters. We actually have calculated how far. It depends on the difference between their masses! (actually it depends on the reciprocal but there you go!)

This topic is closely related to how the sun shines, but that is another post!