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Image Credit: Patrick Edwin Moran - Wikimedia Commons

I’m sure you are familiar with Thomas Young’s Double Slit Experiment. I mean, who isn’t? In case you missed that day of modern physics in college, you can watch the video below to review.

Basically, if you shine light through one slit, the light acts like a particle, but if you shine light through two slits, it acts like a wave. What’s even stranger, is that if you shine one photon at a time towards two slits, it still acts like a wave. Even though it’s just one particle. But wait, there’s more! If you shine light at two slits, but you set up a detector to see which slit the light travels through, the light goes back to acting like a particle. It appears that light changes it’s behavior depending on how you observe it. Weird.

I want you to do a new experiment for me. Create two screens where when a photon hits the screen, a blip appears so that you know where the photon hit the screen. In one of these screens, cut out two slits. Then put the screen with the double slit in front of the other screen and shine a light, one photon at a time, towards the double slit. If the photon does not go through one of the slits, you will see a blip on the first screen. If it does go through one of the slits on the first screen, you will not see a blip on the first screen, but you will see a blip on the second screen. Repeat this experiment many times keeping track of the location of the blips on the second screen, then let me know what pattern appears. Will it be a wave interference pattern, or single particle created bands? My guess is an interference pattern. For bonus points, make the first double slit screen some type of powered detector that only detects photons when it’s on. Then turn it on and off to see if it changes the pattern on the second screen.

I know what you are thinking. Isn’t this like that experiment that has already been done where they put detectors in front of both slits of a double slit? NO!!!! The key to my experiment is that we detect whether or not a photon goes through a slit, but we have no information as to which slit it went through. If we knew which slit it went through, it would obviously act like a particle. Duh!

It is possible that this experiment, or an equivalent experiment, has already been performed. If so, please send me the results. If not, please perform the experiment and let me know what the pattern on the second screen is. The first person to provide me with results that are to my satisfaction wins a $10 gift card to either Runza or Sonny’s BBQ. Your choice.