Significant Scientific Experiments

Thomas Young's Double Slit Experiment

 Thomas Young was an English physicist who, in 1801, performed an experiment that strongly inferred the wave-like nature of light. Young believed that light was composed of waves and that some type of interaction would occur when two light waves met. The Double Slit Experiment was based on the hypothesis that if two light waves met and were wave-like in nature, then they would behave in a manner similar to ripples or waves on a pond of water. The success of Young's experiment was strong testimony in favor of the wave theory, but was not immediately accepted.