$single slit diffraction wave particle duality$

$single slit diffraction wave particle duality$

SINGLE SLIT DIFFRACTION WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY SERIES
SINGLE SLIT DIFFRACTION WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY FREE

In the particular case where your friend does move it in time with you, constructive interference happens. And as such the waves will not always line up. The important thing to realise here is that your friend will not always move the rope up and down in time with you. The fact that the waves add at every point results in a phenomenon called interference. This is known as constructive interference. At any point, the total 'height' from the zero line is given by the addition of the two heights from the two waves. This results in a pattern that will be doubly as higher and doubly as lower in the crests and the troughs, respectively. What do you expect will happen? An important physical principle, called The Principle of Superposition, tells us that the resulting wave will be the mathematical addition of the two individual waves. Now imagine someone else also held the rope with you and moved their hand up and down the same amount as you and in time with you. The same image is shown here with the amplitude and wavelength properties indicated. The wavelength is the distance between any two consecutive crests or any two consecutive troughs.

$single slit diffraction wave particle duality$

There is also another property to point out here, the wavelength of the wave. The amplitude is the distance between a crest and the zero point, the point where the rope would rest at (shown as the black line in the image above). The higher and lower you move your hand, the greater the amplitude of the wave is.

SINGLE SLIT DIFFRACTION WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY SERIES

This wave pattern is a series of repeating crests, which are high points, and troughs, which are low points. Notice the high points are called crests and the low points are called troughs. As you expect, you see a wave pattern travelling across the rope looking like this:Ī wave pattern showing what you might expect when you move the rope. Now, you hold the rope, and you start moving your hand up and down periodically. Imagine you're floating in outer space! And you happen to have brought a bit of rope with you. Most explanations introduce the wave model by making an example of water waves so I would like to try something different. Waves interfere and diffract whereas particles do not! There are two main properties that waves experience that distinguish them from particles: interference and diffraction. I've written other articles about particles in a series called Particle Physics, the first of which is here. You might be familiar with particles as we usually imagine them as small spherical objects like marbles, that make up everything in the universe. In physics, we usually either talk about one of two things: waves and particles. Waves and Interference: A Crash Course (in space)

SINGLE SLIT DIFFRACTION WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY FREE

If you feel you already have an understanding of the wave model, feel free to skip this section. So we will be starting by exploring waves and the phenomenon of interference! To keep the focus on the double slit experiments, I'll try to keep this section short. This requires some understanding of the wave model. In order to understand the modern double slit experiment, we need to first understand the results of Thomas Young's double slit experiment which he performed in 1801, showing that light can behave as a wave, rather than as a particle (of course Einstein later showed that it can also behave as a particle, and we'll get to that). My ultimate goal with this article is to introduce the reader to some of the weird phenomena that accompany quantum mechanics without assuming prior quantum physics knowledge on their part. In addition, since quantum mechanics can be interpreted in many different ways, I will be expressing what I think the results of the double slit experiment could possibly mean. What I am discussing here is what I have come to understand about the modern double slit experiment through my own personal research into the topic and my studies at university.

$single slit diffraction wave particle duality$

Oh, by the way did I mention wave-particle duality! Wave-particle duality is another one of those concepts that make quantum mechanics weird, frustrating and beautiful! And the double slit experiment essentially proves that matter can indeed exist as a wave, in addition to providing insight into other things.įair warning: I do not claim to be an expert on this topic. Do observers affect reality? Are particles 'conscious' of what's happening around them? In this article, I'll be exploring these concepts, starting off by talking about waves, Young's original double slit experiment and finally the modern double slit experiment performed with electrons. The modern double slit experiment demonstrates one of the weirdest, and perhaps fundamentally the only weird, phenomenon about quantum mechanics.

$single slit diffraction wave particle duality$

Single slit diffraction wave particle duality