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Comment by riperoni | Hacker News Reader

This experiment is not really "lesser known" as the article claims. It is known by everyone in physics, because it is so fundamental. And fascinatingly simple in the concept of the setup to prove a quantum effect.

To the public, perhaps it is "lesser known" but so is all that isn't CERNs LHC or Einsteins theory of relativity.

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Yeah, the article says, "It was indeed one of the most important experiments in physics of all time". Presumably the "lesser known" applies to the lay public, who know schrödinger's Cat (a thought experiment, not a lab one) and maybe the two-slit experiment. The concept of quantum spin and its demonstration is less well known to non-experts. I'm certainly no expert, but the concepts of spin, probability amplitudes, and bosonic vs fermionic behavior fascinate me.

Tough call there, I'd probably rank Michelson-Morley ahead of the double slit, but could see room for disagreement.

> the lay public, who know schrödinger's Cat

Even then, the vast majority only knows the _name_ of it and something about the cat being both living and dead. I doubt many people could even tell you it is an experiment, thought or otherwise.

I learned about it in school, I think in chemistry class. So it is not only known by physicists.

Very true, nothing obscure about S-G. Every time you ask "What time is it?", the question is ultimately answered by a cesium beam in an S-G apparatus.

At least for now, before the optical clocks take over...

It used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity, but it still does too.

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