Youngs slits (1803)

Consider a light source shining on a screen containing two horizontal narrow slits, placed very close
together. The light goes through the slits, and is detected on a vertical screen some distance away.
Label the slits 1 and 2 (see figure):

Now, if slit 2 is closed, so the light can only go through slit 1, we get an image of slit 1 on the
screen: the intensity of the light on the screen will be peaked, opposite the position of the slit:

Likewise, if we close slit 1, we get an image of slit 2 on the screen, at a slightly dierent place.

Youngs slits (1803) cont.

If both slits are open we might expect the total intensity on the screen to be the sum of these,
symmetrical about the midpoint between the two slits, something like this:

Instead what we actually see is something more like this:

In the middle there is indeed a peak, but either side are dark strips where there is no light at all!
Then there is another peak, then another, falling gradually in intensity as we move away from the
midpoint. So on the screen we see alternating strips of light and dark, rather like this:

The alternating strips of light and dark are known as an interference pattern, or interference
fringes.

Youngs slits (1803) cont.

The classical explanation for interference is that light is a wave, travelling through space at speed c.
At the midpoint of the screen, the distance to both slits is the same, and the waves from slit 1 and 2
arrive in phase:

when added together they thus produce a wave with twice the amplitude, and the intensity on the
screen is large. However, as we move away from the midpoint, we move slightly closer to one slit,
slightly further away from the other. Eventually the waves will be out of phase: one will be up when
the other is down. When we add them we get zero, thus no light at all on the screen.
For electromagnetic waves, the amplitude is proportional to the electric or magnetic field in the
wave. The intensity of the light is given essentially by the square of the amplitude:
2

I = |A| .
For two waves, with amplitudes A1 and A2 (such as those from slit 1 or slit 2) the amplitude of the
combined wave is A1 + A2 : the intensity is then
2

I = |A1 + A2 | ,
which is not equal to
2

|A1 | + |A2 | = I1 + I2
just as Young observed. So because we see interference on the screen, light must be in some sense a
wave.

So if light is a wave, how can it be a particle?!

To resolve this paradox, consider the intensity of the light. Since light comes in lumps (the
photons), if we reduce the intensity enough, eventually the source will be emitting photons just one
at a time, and we can see what happens to them.

Now, each photon must leave the source, somehow get through the slits, and then arrive at some
definite spot on the screen. So we will see photons hitting the screen, one by one, in dierent places.
If we count the number of photons arriving in dierent places on the screen, eventually we must
build up the intensity distribution described previously: there will be lots around the midpoint, but in
some places close by none at all. So the probability P that a photon arrives at a particular place on
the screen must be proportional to the intensity there
2

P / I = |A1 + A2 | .
For this reason the amplitudes A1 and A2 are sometimes called probability amplitudes.

So if light is a wave, how can it be a particle?! cont.

So far so good. Note that we have no choice but to introduce the idea of probability: though the
individual photons arrive at dierent places, we have no way of knowing where any particular photon
will turn up.
Now, however, we have another paradox: does a particular photon go through slit 1 or slit 2? If it
goes through slit 1, then P1 / |A1 |2 , if it goes through slit 2 then P2 / |A2 |2 . Surely it must go
through either slit 1 or slit 2, so the total probability must be P = P1 + P2 = |A1 |2 + |A2 |2 ? But
then there would be no interference: this is not what happens.
The resolution of this paradox is that in this experiment, we were only looking at the screen, not at
the slits, and if we never look at the slits, we cant say whether the photon went through slit 1, slit
2, or indeed something more complicated. However if we do look (say by looking for electrons
scattered by the photons passing through the slit), then just at the moment we see which slit the
photon goes through, the interference pattern disappears!

So if light is a wave, how can it be a particle?! cont.

This observation is an example of the uncertainty principle, first expressed by Heisenberg in 1927:
if x is the uncertainty in the measurement of the position of a particle (like the photon), and p
the uncertainty in the measurement of its momentum, then the product
x p > h,
where h is Plancks constant again. Thus, if we want to determine which slit the photon goes
through we need to reduce x to the separation of the slits. But this means we lose precision in the
vertical momentum, p > h/ x. This means that the observed photon will arrive at a slightly
dierent spot on the screen, and this extra fuzziness is just sufficient (it turns out) to destroy the
interference.
To summarise: light is both a particle (photon) and, in some sense, a wave. The wave gives,
through the square of its amplitude, the probability to find the particle. When there are alternative
(but undetermined) possibilities for the way a process can happen, we can add the amplitudes, but
not the probabilities. Only if we can determine experimentally which possibility actually occurred,
should we add the probabilities.
These are the essential ideas of quantum mechanics: they resulted in a number of Nobel prizes,
notably for de Broglie (1929) for waves, Heisenberg (1932) for amplitudes and uncertainty,
Schrodinger (1933), for wave mechanics, and Born (1954) for the probalisitic interpretation.

So if light is a wave, how can it be a particle?! cont.

We now ask the following question: what happens in the double slit experiment if we replace the
photons by electrons? Since the electrons are surely particles, they surely wont interfere? Wrong:
with electrons we get interference just like with photons electrons are wavelike too, their behaviour
determined by probability amplitudes just like photons. Thomson and Davisson received the Nobel
prize in 1937 for showing this experimentally.
Given this, why in classical physics do light and electrons look so dierent? The answer is that
photons are massless, and carry no electric charge, so its easy to make lots of them, even at low
energy (for example in a candle flame). Electrons however are massive, and it thus takes alot of
energy (mc 2 in fact) to make one. Moreover they carry electric charge e, so the number of
electrons is conserved they are thus easy to count, and it isnt difficult to see that they come in
lumps. Electron waves have a minimum frequency: since E = h, p = h , E 2 = p 2 c 2 + m2 c 4 , for
electrons
c2
m2 c 4
m2 c 4
2
= 2 +
>
.
h2
h2