Afshar Experiment - History

History

Shahriar S. Afshar's experimental work was done initially at the Institute for Radiation-Induced Mass Studies (IRIMS) in Boston in 2001 and later reproduced at Harvard University in 2003, while he was a research scholar there. The results were presented at a Harvard seminar in March 2004, and published as conference proceeding by the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). The experiment was featured as the cover story in the July 24, 2004 edition of New Scientist. The New Scientist feature article itself generated many responses, including various letters to the editor that appeared in the August 7 and August 14, 2004 issues, arguing against the conclusions being drawn by Afshar, with John G. Cramer's response. Afshar presented his work also at the American Physical Society meeting in Los Angeles, in late March 2005. His peer-reviewed paper was published in Foundations of Physics in January 2007.

Afshar claims that his experiment invalidates the complementarity principle and has far-reaching implications for the understanding of quantum mechanics, challenging the Copenhagen interpretation. According to Cramer, Afshar's results support Cramer's own transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics and challenge the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. This claim has not been published in a peer reviewed journal.