Yves Couder . Explains Wave/Particle Duality via Silicon Droplets [Through the Wormhole]
Why Physics Stack Exchange recommends it
Physics Stack Exchange users link it as a short, visual illustration of pilot-wave behaviour when discussing the double-slit experiment and wave-particle duality.
Recommended by 2 people across 3 different months, 2012 to 2015.
What it is
A 3m47s clip from the Science Channel series Through the Wormhole (narrated by Morgan Freeman) in which Yves Couder shows oil droplets bouncing and "walking" on a vertically vibrating fluid bath. The droplets are guided by their own waves and are presented as a macroscopic analogue of wave/particle duality and the double-slit experiment.
Cited in 3 Wikipedia articles, including De Broglie–Bohm theory, Double-slit experiment, Faraday wave.
What people said
Recommends Peter Krauss · 2012-09 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Why does observation collapse the wave function?”
Towards a better picture of the duality On Young's double-slit experiment the wave-particle duality (one by one photon) is more a problem of "picture of the model" than a philosophic one: see Y. Couder interpretation, by your self (!), [this video] The quantum particle HAVE a location, there are only a limitation in choose a good pictoric model when you is constrained by "wave or particle" picture options: Couder demonstrates that a good picture, of an "intermediary wave/particle object" model, exists! Imagine a "localizable object" that haven't a well-defined boundary, but have a well-defined distance-limit (~lambda) to interact with obstacles (other objects). On this little video you see the ob
Recommends Peter Krauss · 2012-09 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Slit screen and wave-particle duality”
After 2006, no philosophic duality exist, only bad pictures As @Slaviks says, "the answer is yes to both questions", but I like the modern and experimental (!) Y. Couder interpretation. See by your self (!), [this video] The quantum particle HAVE a location (against @Rennie says), there are no "philosofic duality", there are only a limitation in choose a good pictoric model when you is constrained by "wave or particle" picture options: Couder demonstrates that a good picture, of an "intermediary wave/particle object" model, exists! Imagine a "localizable object" that haven't a well-defined boundary, but have a well-defined distance-limit (lambda) to interact with obstacles (other objects). There
Recommends Peter Krauss · 2015-07 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Double-slit experiment: Difference between observing photon path and interference pattern?”
Use the pilot-wave metaphor The pilot-wave picture is the best way to somebody (non-physicist) understand the double-slit experiment, as a typical photon scattering experiment. You can see the pattern construction (at @annav's answer) imagining that each photon can go its path-way as particle, after a little (harmonic-randomic) oscillation in the slit. [LINK] See this good 2-minut-movie for a complete illustration [this video] , or more theoretic details or references at Wikipedia's Pilot-wave article [LINK] . This idea seems to me so natural and simple, to resolve the wave-particle dilemma in such a clear and ordinary way, that it is a great mystery to me that it was so generally ignored ( Bell,
Recommends Ernie · 2015-08 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Does sound show wave-particle duality?”
This is a manifestation of quantum behavior in macro objects: [this video] And here is a paper describing the experiment: hekla.ipgp.fr/IMG/pdf/Couder-Fort_PRL_2006.pdf. The question, though, is whether packets of sound-carrying medium could act as the oil droplets in the experiment.
Cites user27515 · 2012-10 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Quantum mechanics and Couder experiments”
Couder experiments ( [this video] and [LINK] ), published in 2006, state that by dropping silicon droplets into a vertically vibrated bath, we can observe the whole paths of these droplets and see how interference works out. 1) Wouldn't this violate the uncertainty principle that states that $\sigma_x$ or $\sigma_p$ can never be zero? The only way I could imagine is that $\sigma_p$ becomes infinite. Can any experiment produce the case where $\sigma_p$ is infintie quantum-theoretically? (and is this paper's conclusion - that $\sigma_p$ is infinite during the experiments?) 2) This experiment is macroscopic; but some people are saying that this in fact reveals much about quantum world, and I am curi
Cites asmaier · 2013-02 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Can silicon droplets bouncing on a vibrating surface be a model for Quantum Mechanics?”
In this video on youtube [this video] it is claimed that silicon droplets bouncing on a vibrating surface show behaviour in analogy to particle/wave duality in Quantum Mechanics. Is this true? Did they really reproduce the double slit experiment (the video doesn't show that)? And what happens to the silicon droplets on a single slit? What about Quantum tunneling? Which effects of Quantum Mechanic can be "emulated" with bouncing silicon droplets and which can't?
Cites Florian Marquardt · 2015-10 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Double slit experiment and pilot waves”
Indeed, it could be helpful conceptually if textbooks also mention the pilot wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm, which provides an example of how particles being guided by interfering waves can lead to interference patterns in the statistical distribution of particle positions. The experiments by Couder on droplets "walking" on water, which you mention, illustrate such a behaviour in a different physical context (here's a video [this video] on those experiments), though they are not described by the same equations and have nothing directly to do with quantum mechanics. However, here are a few reasons why textbook authors might hesitate to bring up the pilot wave theory early on in the book: It is