Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

Well, simply put, if you close the slits, nothing goes through. This is easy enough, a torch and your hand should do the trick.

How, and why, or rather, why not the photon passes through the mass barrier, when that mass 99% empty space, is a matter for optics. The slit experiment is about light exhibiting interference patterns under certain conditions, putting the 'wave' part of light's 'wave/particle' duality on display. And the freaky thing is that a single photon will interfere with itself. Now that's just plainly weird.

What I want to know, seeing as we're discussing this particular experiment, is how on earth do they guarantee that a single photon was released in order to produce the results? Who counts photons? How do you count photons? I think there's a lot to the physical structure and properties of light that we don't fully understand yet. I'm actually of the opinion that light is completely different than what we think it is. But that's just me.