Double-slit experiment
Videos
In modern physics, the double-slit experiment demonstrates that light and matter can exhibit behavior associated with both classical particles and classical waves. This type of experiment was first de
Same double-slit assembly (0.7 mm between slits); in top image, one slit is closed. In the single-slit image, a diffraction pattern (the faint spots on either side of the main band) forms due to the nonzero width of the slit. This diffraction pattern is also seen in the double-slit image, but with many smaller interference fringes.
Fig. 442 in a 1807 book about Young's lectures with a caption by Young that reads: “the manner in which two portions of coloured light, admitted through two small apertures, produce light and dark stripes or fringes by their interference.”
Thomas Young (scientist)
Videos
Thomas Young was a British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He was instrumental i
Double-slit experiment
…that light and matter can exhibit behavior associated with both classical particles and classical waves. This type of experiment was first described by Thomas Young in 1801 when making his case for the wave behavior of visible light. In 1927, Davisson and Germer and, independently, George Paget Thomson and his…
Portrait of Thomas Young by Henry Perronet Briggs, 1822–6
Plate from "Lectures" of 1802 (RI), published 1807
Volumes I and II of A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)
Title page to volume I of A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)