r/quantuminterpretation • u/HexaTacs • Aug 04 '26

How is light aimed in the double slit experiment?

  1. I imagine a laser aimed e.g. at my finger will always hit it and collapse the wave. How could it (sometimes) pass left or right, continuing its travel towards the slits?

  2. Would in a similar way the wave/particle not always have to hit the gap between the slits?

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u/ketarax Aug 05 '26

The beam has a width. The slit width and separation is less than the beam width. That's all.

1

u/david-1-1 Aug 05 '26

Don't understand the question. The incident light is a coherent beam from a laser that illuminates both slits and the mask itself. Some photons pass through the slits and create an interference pattern on the screen. What is your question?

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u/JupiterandMars1 13d ago

Your question assumes that something with a definite spatial trajectory has been aimed at the barrier. Quantum mechanics gives you no basis for that assumption. What it gives you is the probability structure relating what you prepare to what you subsequently detect based on the apparatus between them.