How Does White Light Affect Double Slit Interference Patterns?

[aquabum619]

Homework Statement

How would white light in the double slit experiment be different from the pattern of a normal monochromatic diffraction?

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

No idea

 

[bdrosd]

Light of a single wavelength makes a certain type of pattern. If many different wavelengths are present at the same time, you should observe all those individule patterns superimposed. Think about what that will look like.

 

[aquabum619]

So is white light defined as "light from a single wavelength?" If this is so, there will be no interference and light through the slits would never interfere, right?

 

[bdrosd]

"white light" is an expression for light of all visible wavelengths. Light of a single wavelength will have a specific color (to our eye). Light of a single color produces interference patterns. In fact that is usually what you see in textbooks; a pattern of interference fringes due to a laser beam (single wavelength) passing through two narrow slits. To form an interference pattern, something must be interfering with something else, but it is not one color of light interfering with another.