spins_unit_sg_experiment.ppt Page 12

• Have students open the Stern Gerlach simulation on their computers.
• Let the students explore the program for several minutes and play with some of the software's capabilities.
• Pull the class back together and ask them what each object in the simulation represents.
• Be sure to tell the students that the oven fires out random states; to prepare the samples in a state that we want to use for any experiment, the first Stern-Gerlach device in the setup must be used for the preparation. Without the first device we would not be able to select a beam consisting only of atoms deflected in either spin up or spin down when the inhomogeneous magnetic field is aligned along any particular axis.
• Once a beam is 'prepared' with a certain spin, then we can use a second device to analyze the spin - hence the names 'state preparation device' and 'analyzer'.
• If time permits, have students set up the situation shown in slide 12 and run the simulation to make sure they can run the simulation before starting the lab.