Question

Open the full simulation Waves Interference so that you can experiment with both the slits and diffraction screens.Use your ideas from Waves Interference about what happens to waves passing through slits to help make sense of why light passing through a round hole makes a pattern. Explain what you think is happening, including images for support.

Answer 1

Light passing through a narrow slit diffracts into semicircular waves, resulting in an interference pattern on a screen. This phenomenon occurs due to the overlapping and interference of waves from the slits.

Step-by-step explanation:

When light passes through a narrow slit, it diffracts into semicircular waves. Pure constructive interference occurs where the waves line up crest to crest or trough to trough, while pure destructive interference occurs where they line up crest to trough. This pattern can be observed when the light falls on a screen and is scattered into our eyes.

An analogy to this diffraction and interference pattern can be seen with water waves, where regions of constructive and destructive interference move out from the slits at specific angles to the original beam.

Similarly, when light passes through double slits, the interference pattern produced is due to the overlapping and interference of waves diffracted from each slit. This pattern can be observed on a screen and includes regions of constructive and destructive interference.