[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Pixel size has no influence on the distribution pattern, only on your perception of it.

It certainly has. Especially if you take it to the extreme, where one pixel is large enough to cover the whole area behind the slit.

[alancalverd]

So your photon knows in advance how big the receiving sensor is going to be?

A small child might argue that an elephant ceases to exist if he shuts his eyes, but the elephant thinks otherwise.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So your photon knows in advance how big the receiving sensor is going to be?

A small child might argue that an elephant ceases to exist if he shuts his eyes, but the elephant thinks otherwise.

If you imagine a photon as a tiny particle, you will inevitably face a weird, paradoxical, or unexpected situation. Unexpected results come from false assumptions. You will wonder how a linear polarizer can block microwave propagation even when it consists of mostly empty space. How do the photons know that they aren't supposed to go through the space between the metal wires?

[alancalverd]

What we know is that the diffraction of photons depends on the associated wavelength of the photons and the spatial frequency of the diffraction grating, not on the area of any subsequent detector.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

What we know is that the diffraction of photons depends on the associated wavelength of the photons and the spatial frequency of the diffraction grating, not on the area of any subsequent detector.

So you still don't know it.

Pixel size has no influence on the distribution pattern, only on your perception of it.

It certainly has. Especially if you take it to the extreme, where one pixel is large enough to cover the whole area behind the slit.

If the pixel size of the single photon detector is as large as the whole area of the interference pattern, that pixel will only show wholly bright or wholly dark pixel covering the whole area. There will be no dark fringes shown, because the state of the whole area of the pixel is binary.

[alancalverd]

What the detector shows is irrelevant. The elephant stays in the room and so do its fleas, whether I wear my spectacles (so I can see them) or not.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

What the detector shows is irrelevant. The elephant stays in the room and so do its fleas, whether I wear my spectacles (so I can see them) or not.

The detector doesn't change the wave function of the interfering light. But without a detector you don't know whether or not a photon has passed.

[alancalverd]

I repeat the underlying question: the observed far field diffraction pattern is the same (allowing for geometrical magnification) regardless of the distance between the slit and the detector, so how does the photon know when or even whether it is going to meet a detector?

I think we can assume the laws of physics apply even in the absence of a detector.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I think we can assume the laws of physics apply even in the absence of a detector.

We can also assume that the pattern shown on the detector is affected by the shape of the detector.

[alancalverd]

It is I think obvious that a detector cannot resolve detail smaller than its granularity. So what?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So your photon knows in advance how big the receiving sensor is going to be?

A small child might argue that an elephant ceases to exist if he shuts his eyes, but the elephant thinks otherwise.

It is I think obvious that a detector cannot resolve detail smaller than its granularity. So what?

What's obvious to you doesn't seem obvious to your photons.

[alancalverd]

So you allege that a photon knows in advance what it is going to encounter. That really changes all we know about physics. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So you allege that a photon knows in advance what it is going to encounter. That really changes all we know about physics. 

No. I suggested that a photon is not a point particle which doesn't interact with matter until they physically hit each other.

[alancalverd]

So whatever it is, interacts before it interacts, then decides where it is going to go when it interacts?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So whatever it is, interacts before it interacts, then decides where it is going to go when it interacts?

That would be your confusing conclusion if photons are assumed to be point particles that behave like extremely small billiard balls. You can decide to stay in confusion, or change some of your assumptions.

[alancalverd]

I have made no assumptions beyond the established fact that light travels at a finite speed from source to receptor. You have asserted that it can travel backwards, so it knows what it will interact with before it gets there.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You have asserted that it can travel backwards,

Which post?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Photon Bunching / Hanbury Brown & Twiss effect

This is the second video about photomultipliers and their use. In this video I set out to measure an effect called "Photon Bunching". Photon bunching is phenomenon characteristic for incoherent light It can for example be used to measure the angular diameter of stars and was discovered by Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Quintin Twiss in 1954.

Video chapters:
0:00​ Introduction
0:42​ Brief description of coherence
4:01​ Description of the experimental setup
10:17​ Aim of the experiment
11:40​ Main result
12:25​ Explanation and discussion
13:10​ What is a photon?
16:10​ Relation field amplitude / intensity / probability
22:17​ Second order correlation function described
25:23​ The Hanbury Brown & Twiss effect
27:25​ Trying to measure g(2); failure and succss

All wave animations in this video were produced using a Python script supplied by ‪@DiffractionLimited‬​ . Thank you very much Manuel for supplying me with this tool.

Third party imagery and clips:
14:35​ Image standard Model of elementary particles: Source WIkipedia
14:55​ I got the "face slap" clip of a channel named @neilsandwichtv5186. Not sure if this channel indeed is the copyright owner. Contact me if you have more info on this.
13:36​ I used a few very short clips from ‪@ArvinAsh‬​ as illustrations of the particle presentation of light and photons. Arvin makes very high quality content on various scientific subject. But I guess his photon visualizations leave some room for improvement (;-).

At 13:10 he describes what a photon is.

[alancalverd]

It is a mathematical model of a phenomenon.

[alancalverd]

You have asserted that it can travel backwards,

Which post?

Your post # 420 above.