In: Chemistry
Why do baseballs not diffract? Why are baseballs not particle-waves?
The de-Broglie equation for matter waves is given by-
....(1)
Immediately from the equation we see that the de-Broglie wavelength and mass are inversely proportional.This is why the wavelike properties of the macroscopic objects such as interference and diffraction are not observed.
According to the question,we take the example of a baseball.The
mass of a baseball is approximately 0.145 kg and the fastest
baseball pitch recorded is 46.7 m/s. Plugging the value of Plank's
constant
alongwith the m and v values for baseball into eqn 1,we get -
From the above result,baseball can also show its wavelike
properties but wavelength at
order of a meter is beyond our human observation.So we do not
notice the particlelike properties of baseball like macroscopic
objects.