The Mystery Wallahs

I’ve been working across Asia – mainly South Asia – for over 25 years now. You will google the exact meaning but my definition of a wallah is a someone who deals in something: it may be a street vendor, or a handyman, or anyone who brings something new. I remember I was one of the first to bring modern mountain bikes to India, and they called me a gear wallah—because they were absolute fascinated with the number of gears I had. [Mountain bikes are now back to a 2 by 10 or even a 1 by 11 set-up, but I still like those three plateaux in front on my older bikes—and, yes, my collection is becoming way too large but I just can’t do away with it.]

Any case, let me explain the title of this post. I stumbled on the work of the research group around Herman Batelaan in Nebraska. Absolutely fascinating ! Not only did they actually do the electron double-slit experiment, but their ideas on an actual Stern-Gerlach experiment with electrons are quite interesting: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=physicsgay

I also want to look at their calculations on momentum exchange between electrons in a beam: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/701/1/012007.

Outright fascinating. Brilliant ! […]

It just makes me wonder: why is the outcome of this 100-year old battle between mainstream hocus-pocus and real physics so undecided?

I’ve come to think of mainstream physicists as peddlers in mysteries—whence the title of my post. It’s a tough conclusion. Physics is supposed to be the King of Science, right? Hence, we shouldn’t doubt it. At the same time, it is kinda comforting to know the battle between truth and lies rages everywhere—including inside of the King of Science.

JL