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Imagine that a physicist found a way to consistently put an electron into a smal

ID: 534373 • Letter: I

Question

Imagine that a physicist found a way to consistently put an electron into a small box in exactly the same way each time. After putting the electron in the box, he waited a specific amount of time and then measured the position of the electron in the box. He repeated this experiment a few thousand times, and recorded the results each time. To his surprise, the electron was not found in the same place every time he performed this experiment. His results are given in the figure below. Each dot represents the results of one measurement. For convenience, the box has been divided into ten regions, labeled A-J Suppose the physicist does the experiment one more time. Rank the regions below by the probability that the electron will be measured in that region. Most Likely Least Likely Looking through the data, you discover that in the last ten measurements, the electron was found in the following regions, in the order: GlFHEBGAHH. Scroll down to answer the second question.

Explanation / Answer

The uncertanity principle comes into play in this senario since he is measuring the position of the electron precisely every time the momentum of the electron is uncertain and hence at the addition of next electron the position of first electron would have been altered.

The electron may enter in the following region in the decreasing order of probability

C > H > B > G > D > I > F > A > E > J

b ) But by knowing this you can not cetrainly predict where the next electron will be going it needs more meaurement data not just ten to predict.