The Double Slit

Quantum drift · 🎯
checking…
QUANTUM
one particle at a time · wave statistics

Self-test — the proof

Fire particles one at a time at a wall with two slits. Each arrives as a single dot — but where it can land is governed by a wave, |ψ₁+ψ₂|². Let thousands land and the dots build the famous interference fringes: single particles, wave statistics. Close a slit, or switch on a which-path detector, and the fringes vanish — because measuring which slit destroys the interference.

The fringe term here is N = 2 of the estate's one array factor — the very same function the Hall's diffraction grating reads at N ≫ 2. See both wings, one slit →

The light
The mask · two slits
The detector
The geometry
Fire
Readout · honest far-field physics
5.000mm fringe spacing Δy = λL/d  ·  the closed form the self-test proves exact
particles fired0
patterntwo slits · coherent
fringe visibility (theory)1.000
central envelope ½-width λL/a25.0 mm
live goodness χ²/dof

Click Fire one a few times — the dots look random. Hit Stream and watch the bands emerge from pure chance. Now Close one slit: the fringes collapse to a single broad blob (the slit's own diffraction envelope). Switch the which-path detector on: both slits are open, yet the fringes wash out — knowing the path erases the wave. The big number is Δy = λL/d; the self-test proves the pattern lands on it to ~1e−9, and that the dots really are drawn from |ψ|².