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Quantum Wonders card QTM-11, The Double-Slit Experiment, with a glowing paper-cut illustration. It reads: Send electrons one at a time toward two slits, and a striped pattern still builds up — as if each went through both.

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Waves & Particles

The Double-Slit Experiment

What’s going on

In 1989 a team at Hitachi sent electrons through an electron version of two slits so slowly that only one was in the apparatus at a time. Each electron made a single dot on the detector, yet thousands of dots formed light and dark stripes. Stripes come from waves overlapping, so each electron’s wave must have passed on both sides. This experiment sits at the heart of quantum physics.

Myth

Each electron splits into two pieces.

Fact

Every dot on the detector is one whole electron.

Learn more

A. Tonomura et al., American Journal of Physics 57, 117 (1989); Feynman Lectures, Vol. III, ch. 1.

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QTM-11 from Quantum Wonders, free quantum physics cards for ages 10 to adult

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