- Double-slit experiment (Wikipedia)
In modern physics, the double-slit experiment demonstrates that light and matter can satisfy the seemingly incongruous classical definitions for both waves and particles. This ambiguity is considered evidence for the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. This type of experiment was first performed by Thomas Young in 1801, as a demonstration of the wave behavior of visible light. In 1927, Davisson and Germer and, independently George Paget Thomson and his research student Alexander Reid demonstrated that electrons show the same behavior, which was later extended to atoms and molecules. Thomas Young’s experiment with light was part of classical physics long before the development of quantum mechanics and the concept of wave–particle duality. He believed it demonstrated that Christiaan Huygens’ wave theory of light was correct, and his experiment is sometimes referred to as Young’s experiment or Young’s slits.
- On David Lynch’s Revenge of the Jedi
SOMEHOW MY FATHER CONVINCED MY mother to squander a date night and watch David Lynch’s Dune when it was in the theaters in 1984. I was seven; my sister, five. When we asked about the movie, my mother or my father or both—they may’ve coordinated their anecdote—told me they knew they were in trouble when the theater manager handed out to everyone in the audience a one-sheet that attempted to explain the intricacies of the film’s logic.