The Double-Slit Experiment: No Mystery, Just Extended Objects
The double-slit experiment is often called the central mystery of quantum mechanics.
In LIMA-QTE it is not mysterious at all — and there is no wave-particle duality.
Both electrons and photons are real, extended electromagnetic objects:
- An electron is a compact, rigid knot of light ~10⁻¹⁹ m across (a tiny spinning torus).
- A photon is an un-knotted electromagnetic wave packet — often millimetres or centimetres wide in modern low-intensity, high-coherence experiments.
When either is sent toward the double-slit apparatus with sufficiently low momentum (electrons) or high coherence (photons), the entire object or wave packet becomes delocalised over both slits.
It literally goes through both slits at the same time — because it is physically large enough (or coherent enough) to do so.
The interference pattern on the screen is simply the phase difference accumulated along the two paths recombining — exactly the same as classical wave interference, but built up one quantum at a time.
In one sentence:
The electron and the photon both go through both slits because they are real, extended electromagnetic objects — not mathematical points — and interference is just the natural result of taking two paths and recombining.
What happens when you “measure which slit”?
You disturb the delicate delocalisation of the centre-of-mass (for electrons) or the coherence (for photons).
The knot or wave packet is forced to localise to one slit → the two paths no longer have a well-defined phase relation → interference disappears.
There is no collapse. There is only a real, physical object being kicked hard enough to destroy the clean two-path superposition.
There is no particle-wave duality.
There are only extended electromagnetic configurations — knotted (electrons) or un-knotted (photons) — that can be delocalised over both paths when prepared gently enough.
The double-slit experiment is not evidence of quantum weirdness.
It is evidence that electrons and photons have real, physical extent and can take both paths simultaneously — exactly like any classical wave or extended object would.