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How Do We Detect What Is Happening? : Waves And Particles Put in the simplest terms, a wave is something that wiggles in space and time. Waves extend from one place to another. The can vibrate periodically (like the sound of a violin note) or non-periodically (for example, the sound of an explosion.) All waves have the following properties:
![]() There are many more wave properties we can't get into for lack of space. Wave properties are key to understanding particle behavior.
Imagine a light source being
blocked by a sheet of metal with two slits in it. A
few meters away there is a screen. For a given point along the screen, there
are two light waves hitting the screen (one through each hole). These two
light waves travel different distances to reach the screen,
so they interfere
with each other, creating an interference pattern.
It turns out that if you repeat the same experiment using a particle beam instead of a light source, you record a similar interference pattern. This means that all particles have wave properties. For example, here's a real interference pattern caused by an electrons scattering off gold foil:
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