Double slit experiment Definition and 484 Threads

Why did Young specifically perform a double-slit experiment to demonstrate the wave nature of light, since light will diffract and interfere even through a single slit? Is there something special demonstrated by the double-slit experiment that's not demonstrated by a single-slit experiment...

Hi, I'm reading N. Zettili Quantum mechanics. In the "double slit experiment", when the beam of the electrons pass the the two slits, they present an interference pattern on the screen. But when we have a light source there to trace the electrons, we see what we have expected to see of the...

Hi, I was watching a Royal Institution lecture on this experiment. Using light, it's not quantum physics, it's waves; when the lecturer considered using particles, like individual atoms, and no detector, you get bands like an interference pattern. Is this something that has actually been done...

Hi can any point me to a site/paper on how to construct the equipment required for the electron double slit experiment ? Thanks Lachlan

I'd like to know a few things: Are there different explanations of this experiment, and if so – which are the most common? What are the different implications and how much do we understand about it today? __________ I don't know much about quantum physics, but I'd like to learn and since I'm...

I took a piece of carton and cut out to strands in it. When I shine the line through it, it only projects the two strands on the other side. I tried it with every light in my house but it still didn't work. what do I have to do, to create the wave interference pattern on the other side. Thank you

Homework Statement I have some difficulty understanding a part of the following problem: In Young’s experiment, narrow double slits 0.20 mm apart diffract monochromatic light onto a screen 1.5 m away. The distance between the 5th minima on either side of the zeroth-order maximum is...

Why the central fringe in the double slit experiment is brighter than the others? I've tried but I still cannot undersand this. Can somone try to explain it to me. I don't know too much in modern physics, please be patient :) thanks for any help

I understand that in the Double Slit Experiment that the particle will only go through one slit if it is measured or observed. But will the particle only go through the slit observed or is it 50/50? Also any other info on the experiment that might help me or even just interest me? Any articles I...

If electrons are shot through the double slit one at a time, is it observed that each electron hits randomly in one of the dense areas of an interference pattern, or is it only observed after a long time that the interference pattern emerges? To rephrase, what I'm asking is whether a single...

Homework Statement Monochromatic light of wavelength 600nm is used in a young's 'double slit experiment . One of the slits is covered with a thin transparent layer (1.8 * 10^-9m ) made of a material of refractive index n(1.6). How many fringes will shift due to the introduction of the...

I was thinking about this. Setup a Young's double slit experiment as follows. Single Photon Source /Pulsed Photon source -> Single Slit-> Mask with two Slits (Slit 1 and Slit 2 )-> Detection plane consisting of many single photon counters. I am assuming it's possible to detect the...

Two small loud speakers A and B are positioned 1.5m apart in a large room, connected to the same signal generator. The frequency emitted is 3400Hz . A microphone is placed equidistant from the 2 loudspeakers. The perpendicular distance between the speakers and microphone is 9.0m. Calculate the...

Homework Statement Suppose we wish to do a double slit experiment with a beam of the smoke particles of Example 4.1c (which is lamda=6.6e-20m). Assume we can construct a double slit whose separation is about the same size of the particles. Estimate the separation between the fringes if the...

Hello, my name is Jordan Heath. I am a UBC third year student in the department of physics and am new to this forum. Me and a couple friends are looking into the possibility of constructing the double slit experiment and are currently wondering if it is possible to salvage a pair of CRT's from...

Homework Statement The interference pattern formed is given by I(θ)=4I0cos2(∏dsin(θ)/λ). For d=1×10-5m and λ=500nm plot the intensity pattern as a function of θ for small θ. How would this change if a block of material of thickness 500nm and refractive index n=1.5 were placed over one slit...

Imagine a light source, double-slit, and a curved screen in vacuum, shaped so that all parts of the interference pattern are created simultaneously. Define distance as proportional to the time light requires to reach a point. Detectors at each slit can be operating or not. Call the source S...

For my AP Physics course, I am trying to replicate the double slit experiment. My idea is to have a cathode ray tube from an old television set and take the electron gun out. The electron gun will be firing at a plastic or foil sheet with 2 narrow slits side-by-side. Behind the screen, I will...

Hi all, I was studying Stephen Hawking's new book (very good, by the way). He was explainning Feymann's theory, that says a particle travels by all the ways possible to reach a given point. So single particles CAN have interference by themselves. Then he explain why, in the double slit...

Just a thought. In the double slit experiment, is it possible that the particles don't actually interfere with themselves, but rather they encounter interference from all the other particles which either already have been, or subsequently will be sent through the experiment. After all, for the...

Is double slit experiment the only proof for quantum particles' superposition??

can someone tell me the relation between the intensities (of a bright band and a dark band) and the amplitudes of the interfering waves ?

In the double-slit experiment, without which-path information available, the diffraction pattern is usually shown as an even function with respect to the displacement from the midpoint of the slits: something like sin ay / y. (This is the case in Feynman's lectures, and many others.) The...

This is seriously the most amazing thing ever. Pretty cheesy experiment, but amazing results. It still makes no sense to me how an observer completely changes the outcome. Its like the electron has a mind!

Is it safe to conclude from the double slit experiment that the observer actually affects what is being observed? I ask with regards to a project I'm writing which I wish to be scientifically accurate.

Hi, Have there been done variations of double slit experiment, particularly I'm interested in following scenarios: 1. Three slits instead of 2. (Would expect the same behaviour of wave interference) 2. An observer is installed at one of the three slits. (Again, wave interference should be...

Homework Statement Is this wrong or right? PLZ.The Attempt at a Solution http://www.kentshillphysics.net/optics36.gif I have a test tomorrow buy my teacher said it's m - 1/2 Why does it say n + 1/2 everywhere. >_<

I just saw a video explanation about the double slit experiment , and how an electron behaves as wave / particle according to if it is observed or not. I am more intrigued to see in action how an electron will behave as a particle when consciously observed and as a wave function when it is...

I've read in many places that if, in a Young's double slit experiment, you can determine by whatever method through which slit your photon goes through (enhancing the "particle" behavior of light), then the interference pattern dissapears. For this reason Zeilinger says that entangled photons...

I noticed a youtube video, where Thomas Warren Campbell, a physicist and author of the book trilogy My big TOE the last standing for Theory of Everything and apparently he also works for NASA, deducts some very disturbing things from a certain double slit experiment. Here it is, I marked the...

In viewing a derivation of the formula describing the intensity of the interfering waves, I noticed how the electric field components were combined - one from slit a, the other from slit b. The intensity is then proportional to the square of this value. But this would mean that two in phase...

Today, my teacher showed us a video in class (AP physics B) as part of our quantum physics unit. I'm really skeptical about the video, and I wanted to seek the opinion of people who are actually knowledgeable in this field. Is there anything wrong with the information provided...

Homework Statement A two-component beam of light, consisting only of two wavelengths 650 nm and 520 nm, is used to obtain interference fringes in a double-slit experiment. The separation between the centers of the slits is 2.43×10−4 m and the distance of the plane of the slits from the...

Hello everybody, I am absolutely a novice in physics and although I generally have a good grasp of math I am pretty sure my knowledge of it is quite far from the one required by quantum physics. However, I am very interested to its main concepts and for this reason I am reading an...

Hi all, My limited knowledge of quantum decoherence leads me to believe that it can be demonstrated experimentally via rather humble apparatus involving low power lightbulbs, a few sensors, & some plywood with holes in & some switches etc. I was just wondering what kind of pattern you get if...

Greetings! From my last post, to this my understanding of QM has improved somewhat. (thanks mostly to these great forums). I was wondering how the Multi Universe Theory treats the observer effect in a basic Quantum Double Slit Experiment ? from howstuffworks.com :- "“When a...

I know even molecules can be used and the result still emerges. What is the density of [pick a type] of atoms or molecules when the experiment stops working? Also, as you increase the density of whatever you're using, does the result get less and less like what you get when you use photons...

Hello! I have this doubt with a variation of the double slit experiment: Let us suppose that we are sending electrons to the screen. When both slits are open, the wave function at a given point x of the screen is the sum of the functions phi1 and phi2, respectively corresponding to reach x...

particles act differently when being observed. WTF :confused: check out the video...weird... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEzRdZGYNvA&feature=fvst

I plan on trying to recreate a version of Young's double slit experiment for a science fair. All the methods I've found for it recommend using a helium-neon laser. Would a laser pointer or some other cheaper laser work? For the slits my idea is to get a glass microscope slide, paint over it then...

I am trying to recreate Young's double slit experiment and I can't figure out what he used to detect the photons. In some things I read it says he used a photographic plate. However, these are outdated and no longer available. Any ideas?

In the double slit experiment is it known if the energy of the "particle" is less after passing the plate?

I've read that when one performs the double slit experiment (dse) without any detectors to "see" which slit the photon goes through one gets an interference pattern. When one places a detector to see which slit the photon goes through the interference pattern disappears. My question are these...

Many textbooks use the double slit experiment to introduce quantum effects. However, all texts I know use handwaving arguments instead of the whole formalism of QM. Especially dynamics is completely omitted. I don't expect that a complete microscopic description -including the walls- has been...

I am trying to recreate the Young double slit experiment at my house with a laser. You could call it a homemade experiment I suppose. My question is if I use a laser pointer for my photon source what would I use as the photon detector. I want to have some sort of screen that can detect the...

It maybe the lateness of the hour, but I've just had another one of those awkward thoughts that only people who know more than I do can provide an answer for (I'm compelled to edit quickly and note that by this I mean that no one I know's going to have a clue, not that I'm somehow an authority...

hi! first of all: I take the opportunity to introduce myself and to say hello to every member of this forum. now. I'm not a pro-physicist: I'm a programmer/3d graphic artist/musician/and everything else curious; so go easy on me :) I was seeing a BBC's documentary about "what is reality"...

Hi, I was trying to learn a bit of quantum mechanics from Feynman lectures. In the 3rd volume of the Feynman lectures, he talks of the double slit experiment with electrons. He says that if we keep a light source near the first slit, so that every time an electron passes it scatters light and...

Homework Statement Upon using Thomas Young's double slit experiment to obtain measurements, the following data was obtained. Use this data to determine the wavelength of light being used to create the interference pattern. DO this in 3 different ways! The Angle to the Eighth maximum is 1.12...

Hello, I'm not sure if this is the right part of the forum to be posting this in (if it's not, feel free to move me), but I have a question about the double slit experiment. For my AP Physics class, a group of seven other guys and myself are researching the double slit experiment, both...