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Particle, wave, both or neither? The experiment that challenges all we know about reality

Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment originally served to prove that light is a wave — but later quantum versions have made for a much fuzzier picture.
By
  1. Anil Ananthaswamy

    1. Anil Ananthaswamy is a writer based in California, and author of Through Two Doors at Once.

Thomas Young, born 250 years ago this week, was a polymath who made seminal contributions in fields from physics to Egyptology. But perhaps his most enduring legacy is proving Isaac Newton wrong about light — and igniting a debate about the nature of reality that still persists.

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Nature 618, 454-456 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01938-6

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 20 June 2023: An earlier version of the second picture caption gave the wrong date for when Young reported results of a double-slit experiment.

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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