5 Years In, Finally Cracking the Code

Double Slit Experiment demystified!

Image downloaded from Hitachi site

I can go full Physics on you to explain this. But let me take the easy way out.

Imagine you have 50 big sports stadiums in 50 different countries. In each stadium, there are 50 people invited to watch something, but they can’t talk to each other, and they can’t even see each other.

So 50 people in 50 countries will watch a random show at 10 am ( at the respective time zone) sitting inside a stadium.

A total of 50 stadiums and 50 people in each, making it 2500 people in total.

Even though they’re all in different countries and stadiums, something strange happens. When you look at how they’re all sitting after they’ve taken their seats, it turns out that the pattern of where they are sitting looks the same in every stadium!

This experiment is called the Young’s Double Slit Experiment in Physics, and it’s weird. And fascinating. First it was done with Light and then with Electrons. This experiment changed our outlook on reality. The term “Dual Nature of Light and Matter” is thanks to this. In short — reality has particles as well as wave characteristics.

Image generated by author using AI

Double-slit experiment : Hitachi

I began teaching high school Physics around five years ago, and every time I cover this topic, I struggle to convey the strangeness of this phenomenon. However, while teaching the current group of students, the stadium example really clicked for me and seemed to make a lot of sense.

If you want to continue the journey further — click here for a wonderful lecture on this concept.

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Image by Author generated with AI