Can You Capture a Light Wave? Mind-Blowing Wave-Particle Duality Experiment!

In this video I show you an easy way to show that light is neither a wave nor a particle (or it is both?) by doing the double slit experiment followed by an analog of the photoelectric effect. This is a crazy experiment that shows how weird quantum mechanics really is. And an added bonus is that you can do these experiments at home! Finally I even show you what an electron orbital really means.

WARNING:
This video is for entertainment purposes only. If you use the information from this video for your own projects then you assume complete responsibility for the results.

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[JamesSamples]

I never realized that the split could be done on a low budget. That's cool!

[Raxilla]

I love this channel. It's so underrated. No fancy graphics or animations. You cut through all the gunk with simple and clear explanations.

[sugaall]

Great explanation. Love your videos. But here, a little mistake slipped in at 1:20:
In order for the double slit experiment to work, you don't need plane waves. It also works with curved waves in the same way. The reason why it doesn't work with a light bulb is the low spatial coherence of the light in this case (which is an entirely different beast than curvature). It basically means, that because the light bulb is an extended light source, the light waves incident on the slit are coming from many directions at the same time. So they create many of these interference patterns which are mutually shifted and therefore wash each other out. Fun fact: If you place the light bulb very far away from the slit, it would in fact give you an interference pattern also in this case (with very low intensity though).

[tylertalsma]

You basically explained quantum mechanics in a simple way it's amazing.

[Johnny-twpr]

You should do the last experiment with blue light.

[ZERO]

People are particles, but when you put them together, they act like waves

[vertigoz]

If only the double slit was to be made with blue light, perhaps we would see it painting it wide spread

This guy just made my Physics class so much more interesting

[anujsinghchauhan]

This video really made my whole day. :)
The best part is explaining such topics with simple, easy and fun experiments.
You are doing a great job.
A video on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is requested.
Thanks. (Love from India.)

[georgeplaxton]

When studying precious stones (opal), we were under the impression that different colours expressed was the micro beads in the silicate were of different sizes and behaved like prisms, re-enforcing individual colours (red, green and blue).

[cjheaford]

Why didn’t you:

Use the BLUE light with the make-shift double slit on the glow paint? Would we have seen an interference pattern? Particle like result? Both?
We will never know.

[TimothyMichaels]

Double slit glow in the dark project was lit.

[orobinson]

I wish there were a better(easier)way to explain the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. Great job on this video!! Keep it up!

[PhilTibble]

So approachable and down to earth yet passes on so much knowledge. I love the genuine excitement. give this guy a laser pointer and a sharpie and some space in his garage and he makes me feel like I am learning more than I did in uni! yo PBS or TVO or BBC or someone get this guy a show!

[Viki-zobc]

I wish I were born in a simpler universe where light would be either particle or wave.

[chrislayne]

So basically: Schroedinger's light.

[gbye]

Light has the properties of a quantized wave: neither wave nor particle, neither fish nor fowl. The particle characterization of EMR has been superseded by quantum field theory. You don't need to invoke particles with momentum to explain a transfer of energy from photons to electrons. None the less, your double slit setup with the laser pointer is fun to see.

[dman]

Something I've been thinking about for a few days is what would happen if you shoot the interference pattern through a prism. Be it a pyramid or cube, I was wondering if that would give a view of the "wave like" property through "space" of the beam as opposed to just having it hit an opaque surface. (Basically like ballistic gelatin for light)

[philjamieson]

What an excellent presentation. Thanks for putting this on here. It's so cleverly explained.

[FriedChairs]

Someone here said your channel is underrated and I think that's probably true. You are doing a really great job explaining complicated science topics in an interesting way. My 8 year old son and I have been watching them during dinner for the last few days and we are both really enjoying them. My son usually only gets excited about basketball games or dude perfect but I can see him getting excited about what you are doing.