Most Beautiful Experiment in Physics

An anonymous reader writes "Robert P. Crease has concluded his poll asking what the most beautiful experiment in physics is. The winner was Young's double slit experiment performed using a single electron. Attentive readers will remember that Slashdot had a discussion of Crease's question previously, which Crease mentions in his current article." If you're unfamiliar with the experiment, Google pulls up a bunch of applets and demonstrations.

no WAY!!!

[lingqi]

the most beautiful experiment is, has been, and always will be the practical aspects of

* photons gets converted to electric impulses;
* these electric impulsese are stored, usually by dielectric tunneling, into a floating gate (Flash memory)
* the information is then read back, sent through 7 (read it, it's SEVEN) layers of network stack, to a physical link
* the data is digitized into more packets of light, and sent across the atlantic from RUSSIA to the US.
* after more routing (some in light-packets, some in electrical), it climbs back up the 7-layers.
* mozilla interprets them, and through some seriously complex transistor networks, the signals cause some polymers to twist just the right amount
* and i see some pr0n.

wait a sec; that would probabbly be "the most beautiful engineering feat"... ahh fsck it.

That's an easy one.....

[echucker]

Any demonstration that makes the lesson sink in to a student's head.

Kudos to one of my physics professors, Dr. Richard Mancuso, for his toy collection. Any student that brought him a toy that clearly demonstrated a principle of physics for that wasn't already in his collection got extra credit for the semester. I clearly remember the collection filling a few display cabinets, and there was at least one toy for every lecture. I learned 10 times more in his course than I did the previous semester with another instructor because he made it interesting.

Re:WOOHOO!!!!

[scotay]

"One of the contributors described watching small plastic bags circulating in wind pockets, commenting that "sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I just can't take it"

Proving the physics crowd needs to get out to the movies more often [imdb.com].

Re:WOOHOO!!!!

[The Wing Lover]

Although Slashdot bills itself as "news for nerds", its audience evidently includes a large number of science-history aficionados.

I love how this sentence is written as if it's some sort of contradiction.

Re:Quantum Polaroid Demonstration

[sconeu]

I once heard the three polarizer experiment described as follows.

You have a field with cows. To make sure that now cows get out, you put up two fences. They stay in their field. But you're really paranoid, so you put a third fence in between the two. Now, all of a sudden, one fourth of your cows are wandering in your neighbor's field.