When two or more light waves interact with one another, they result in the formation of different interference patterns. British physicist Thomas Young first demonstrated and explained these patterns ...

Light has always been the stage on which quantum mechanics performs its strangest tricks, and the double-slit experiment is ...

The double-slit connection In their paper, the authors draw an elegant analogy to the famous double-slit experiment, where particles like electrons produce interference patterns when passed through ...

Classical physics theories suggest that when two or more electromagnetic waves interfere destructively (i.e., with their electric fields canceling each other out), they cannot interact with matter. In ...

Schematic of the MIT experiment: Two single atoms floating in a vacuum chamber are illuminated by a laser beam and act as the two slits. The interference of the scattered light is recorded with a ...

A groundbreaking experiment demonstrates yet again that light exists both as a wave and a particle in the quantum world—but we can’t see both at the same time. Reading time 3 minutes Albert Einstein ...

Physicists at MIT recreated the double-slit experiment using individual photons and atoms held in laser light, uncovering the true limits of light’s wave–particle duality. Their results proved ...

"These single atoms are like the smallest slits you could possibly build." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. For over 100 years, ...