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Ch.8 - The Quantum-Mechanical Model of the Atom

Chapter 8, Problem 49

Sketch the interference pattern that results from the diffraction of electrons passing through two closely spaced slits.

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hey everyone in this example, we need to display what the interference pattern of electrons going through a double slit ID wall will appear like. So we're going to create our double slatted wall by drawing a longer wall first we're going to create our first slip by drawing a smaller wall in the middle. And then on the outside of that smaller wall, we're going to create our second slit by drawing another longer wall. So this is our double slatted wall. And the next part of our setup is the fact that we need to pick a light of one type of wavelength and one sort of color. So in this case let's go ahead and just use ultraviolet light since we already have the color purple here being used. So this is going to be our stream of ultraviolet light and it's going to be passing through each slit of our double sided wall and it's gonna be reflecting on a second wall that we're going to draw here on the other side of our double sided wall. And so as our ultraviolet light passes through these slits, we're going to be reflecting on that other wall over there, the second wall and it's going to be creating our waves of light that are reflecting upon that wall. So we're gonna go ahead and draw in those waves. So now that we have our waves of light being drawn in our diagram, What we want to recognize is that as our ultraviolet light passes through each of these double slits, it's also going to break into two smaller waves. So we formed the first smaller wave here at the first at the beginning of our first slit. And so we're going to go ahead and draw that in. So this is our first wave that forms or our second wave that forms. And then we're gonna have a third wave that forms at the start of the second split of our wall. So that's going to form over here. And so what we want to recognize is that as these three waves have formed via our ultraviolet light reflecting onto the second wall, we're going to be noticing that we've created two different types of points. The first type of point is the intersections of each of our waves where they're kind of meeting at the trolls here or sorry, that would be the peak. But like they're meeting at these trolls over here. So those points are weaker points or weaker intersections that aren't going to produce any light. However, we form another sort of intersection between our waves, whereas you can see we're meeting at the peaks of each wave here almost. And at these peaks of each wave that are intersecting one another. We're actually producing quite a bright light here that is forming a particular pattern that is being reflected onto our wall. And so I'm just gonna highlight those points. So this isn't exactly drawn to scale but you may have an example in your textbook that will definitely showcase this pattern clearly. But just I'm doing my best. I'm not an artist. So I'm just gonna kind of draw out what that pattern is looking like. But it's at the intersection of each peak of our waves. And so it's very clear um over here on this side of our diagram, but that very bright light is being produced at the intersection of our three waves and it's going to be reflecting onto our wall over here. So this super bright ultraviolet light stream is being produced in this pattern here. And this is what we call our interference pattern. So what we want to do now that we understand what our interference pattern is, is go ahead and actually reimagine this entire diagram. And instead of our ultraviolet light being behind our double sided wall, we want to imagine this on a quantum or in the quantum realm scale. So we're going to actually just imagine electrons, for example being fired through our double sided wall. So as they're being fired through our double sided wall in the same fashion, the electrons are going to be passing through the slits of our wall. And what we have found out as scientists is that these electrons are going to build up and replicate in the same intersection or intersecting pattern as our three waves here. Did between the two walls. And so they're going to actually form the same sort of pattern of light that was created from our waves. And that's going to be um that's going to cause our electrons to land on our second wall over here in the same streams um that we see here these same three streams. And so they're building up over here on our second wall in our interference pattern. And this is exactly what our interference pattern of electrons appears as through our double slatted wall. And so this entire setup is relevant because because our electrons have formed the same interference pattern as our wave of light did um through our double sided wall, this is suggesting that the characteristics um of quantum particles like electrons can be related to the characteristics of waves. And so this is how we have coined the subject or the sub subject called wave particle duality within quantum mechanics. And so to complete this example, the only correct choice is going to be Choice C, which is showcasing this exact pattern of our electrons forming through our double sided wall And building up on the 2nd wall over here. So this is going to complete this question as our final answer. If you have any questions, please leave them down below. And I will see everyone in the next practice video