Talk:Simulated optics experiment/Simulator

Regarding the "Extra 'credit'": The technical issues here are simple. Not only is there an error in the "proof", but it is a colossal error that no one who is any good at mathematics would not, at least eventually, see through. The "proof" assumes that two variables are independent parameters, when, in fact, they are functions of whatever actual independent parameters there are. Therefore there is nothing close to a proof. The exercise was a waste of time. The social issues, however, are complicated. How in the world did it come to be that you cannot get published in Science if you do not accept the veracity of a fallacious "proof"? And why is it that physics in the last century has not seen anything even remotely near to the progress that occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries (when a high school dropout such as Benjamin Franklin could become a Fellow of the Royal Society)? Is it because our physicists do not even understand what a mathematical proof is? Is it because they merely take the word of authority and never read such a supposedly momentous paper for themselves? These are things to think about. --Chemoelectric (talk) 13:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

BTW in the above "eventually" means something like "at least within the next 30 years". Sometimes it takes years to see through a fallacy. --Chemoelectric (talk) 13:20, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

How many polarizing beam splitters?

The task description mentions two polarizing beam splitters, but gives angles for four polarizing beam splitters.

As a consequence, I am having a problem visualizing what is being simulated here.

Do we have two beams which are fat enough such that each beam is partially intercepted by each of the four beam splitters? --Rdm (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)