22: Spin
- Page ID
- 416095
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Spin is a special property of particles that has no classical analogue. Spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles, such as the electron.
- 22.1: Stern-Gerlach Experiment
- In 1920, Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach designed an experiment that unintentionally led to the discovery that electrons have their own individual, continuous spin even as they move along their orbital of an atom. The experiment was done by putting a silver foil in an oven to vaporize its atoms.
- 22.2: Sequential Stern-Gerlach Experiments
- An interesting result can be obtain if we link multiple Stern–Gerlach apparatuses into one experiment and we perform the measurement along two orthogonal directions in space.
- 22.3: Spin Operators
- The mathematics of quantum mechanics tell us that Sz and Sx do not commute. When two operators do not commute, the two measurable quantities that are associated with them cannot be known at the same time.