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classes:2009:fall:phys4101.001:q_a_1120

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Nov 20 (Fri) Spin and magnetic fields: Larmor precession, S-G

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joh04684 11/19/09, 3pm

I've got a quick question on the Stern-Gerlach experiment. On page 182 in the description of it, it says that we would normally expect a “smearing” of the two lines that are deflected, but instead we just see two perfect lines…Do they expect it to blur because of the uncertainty princible such that we know the angular momentum in the z direction of the beams leaving, so the actual position of the parts of the beam shouldn't be known as well? The way I read it, they say the reason there isn't any smearing is because the angular momentum is quantized. Wouldn't this pose a problem for the uncertainty principle then, if we can get around the predicted “smearing” by giving it special quantized values, or am I just misunderstanding this?


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classes/2009/fall/phys4101.001/q_a_1120.1258664662.txt.gz · Last modified: 2009/11/19 15:04 by johnson