# nLab Stern-Gerlach experiment

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## Surveys, textbooks and lecture notes

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• Axiomatizations

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# Contents

## Idea

The Stern-Gerlach experiment showed that electrons are spinors. It was the first experimental observation of the elementary spin $\frac{1}{2}$ of fermions.

## Implications

Via the Pauli exclusion principle/spin-statistics theorem, this implies that wavefunctions depending on fermionic variable commute with each other only up to a sign, forming a supercommutative superalgebra. This way the Stern-Gerlach experiment is ultimately the observation that physical reality is described by supergeometry.

(Notice that there is supergeometry independently of supersymmetry, which may or may not be present in addition).

## References

Last revised on November 30, 2016 at 13:19:37. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.