Also double slit experiment is not so much a thought experiment as it’s an experimental phenomenon that is hard to explain.
Also Einsteins thought experiments are actual science, based on reality with actual results…
The double slit experiment was first invented as a thought experiment, and later was built as an actual experiment. It’s the same with relativity, first it was thought up, now it’s experimentally verified. So the examples from relativity you bring up are also more experimental phenomena than a thought experiments at this point.
Yes and no, it’s based on observed interference by Newton, Which was noted looked like how rings in water can interfere. So observation preceded theory, which was confirmed by reproducible experimental setup.
In 1801, Thomas Young presented a famous paper to the Royal Society entitled “On the Theory of Light and Colours”[22] which explained interference phenomena like Newton’s rings in terms of wave interference.[23]: 101 The first published account of what Young called his ‘general law’ of interference
With relativity the difference is the huge amount of thought experiments that Einstein was able to connect to a coherent theory. That explains connection between many phenomena, and explains a very larger part of how reality works, And the Theory actually explains things way outside the original thought experiments.
Like the delay in the observation of mercury appearing behind the sun. Gravitational waves and other exotic phenomena. And can be used to model things that were unknown at the time.
It’s ridiculous to claim the wave function is anywhere near general relativity in scope and significance.
In that regard the wave function is more like when Galileo figured that the sun was the center of the solar system.
It was not a thought experiment, as much as a mathematical result of observations.
The double slit experiment was first invented as a thought experiment, and later was built as an actual experiment. It’s the same with relativity, first it was thought up, now it’s experimentally verified. So the examples from relativity you bring up are also more experimental phenomena than a thought experiments at this point.
Yes and no, it’s based on observed interference by Newton, Which was noted looked like how rings in water can interfere. So observation preceded theory, which was confirmed by reproducible experimental setup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
With relativity the difference is the huge amount of thought experiments that Einstein was able to connect to a coherent theory. That explains connection between many phenomena, and explains a very larger part of how reality works, And the Theory actually explains things way outside the original thought experiments.
Like the delay in the observation of mercury appearing behind the sun. Gravitational waves and other exotic phenomena. And can be used to model things that were unknown at the time.
It’s ridiculous to claim the wave function is anywhere near general relativity in scope and significance.
In that regard the wave function is more like when Galileo figured that the sun was the center of the solar system.
It was not a thought experiment, as much as a mathematical result of observations.