Single-particle interference observed for macroscopic objects

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This photo shows the droplet bouncing through one slit while its trajectory is deflected by the interference of the reflected waves from two slits.
This photo shows the droplet bouncing through one slit, while its trajectory is deflected by the interference of the reflected waves from two slits.

With a variation on the famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics, scientists Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort from the University of Paris 7 are rewriting the textbooks. Their accomplishment, however, has less to do with quantum mechanics than with an observation once considered experimentally impossible: the wave-particle double nature of a macroscopic object (an oil droplet and its associated surface wave).


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