Bert has pretty much hit it on the head. If you think you understand QM you probably don't. Having said that, you can get a good understanding of it, conceptually at least, so long as (and here's the caveat) you realise and accept that a lot of the "how it does it" and "why it does it" we don't have answers for.
Neutrinos are not photons and therefore have nothing to do with the EM spectrum, or EM itself. They are a totally different particle, but just as light as a wave exhibits particle like properties (in terms of the photon), particles, like the neutrino, exhibit wavelike properties. This wavelike property is defined in terms of the wavefunction.
Your baseball has such a small wavelength, or spread of its wavefuction, that for all intents it's irrelevant. An electron, or any particle is a different bag of chips. As you reduce momentum, therefore energy, and therefore effective mass, you increase the wavelength. You can throw your baseball at two parallal doors and it will never go through both as its wavefunction will never spread far enough to encompass both doors. The wavefunction of an electron shot at two slits however spreads over time. If by the time it reaches the slits it's wavefunction has spread far enough to encompass both slits, it will go through both slits at the same time and split into a state of superposition .... two new wavefunctions that as they spread out on the other side of the slits, interfere with each other and produce the interference pattern on the backwall. How does it do that ... caveat 1, it just does.
Of course the moment you observe the electron to determine which slit it went through, the wavefunction breaks down, the electron behaves like a particle and the interference pattern disappears. Why does it do that when we observe it .... caveat 2, it just does.
A really good book is Quantum - A guide for the perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili. It's mathematically free and will provide a good conceptual overview.
Thank you so much Andrew for going to so much trouble and thank you Mike. Armchair science is in debt to both of you .
I am going to have fun as the expression "it just does" makes me think . I love riddles like that.. however I doubt if this one has an answer. Maybe a time will come when there is an answer but I guess the cows are the only ones who can tell us and they are a secretive bunch .
alex
Thank you very much for taking the trouble to put me onto that link. But I confes the more I learn to more I realise I know so little and that drives me on. Thanks again I really do appreciate that. I have a lot of reading tonight.
Sciencedaily seems to have been turning out much more recently I think I can remeber a time where they hit a flat spot in new news
alex
. I love riddles like that.. however I doubt if this one has an answer. Maybe a time will come when there is an answer but I guess the cows are the only ones who can tell us and they are a secretive bunch
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