Observing Wave-Particle Duality in a Classical Experiment

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on a classical experiment demonstrating wave-particle duality using a coherent beam of light passed through two slits, which produces an interference pattern. This phenomenon contradicts the corpuscular theory of light proposed by Pierre Gassendi and further developed by Isaac Newton. Participants in the forum also address issues related to formatting in LaTeX, specifically using the pdflatex tool from TeX Live, and suggest solutions for managing vertical space and column balancing in the document layout.

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  • Understanding of wave-particle duality
  • Familiarity with classical optics
  • Basic knowledge of LaTeX typesetting
  • Experience with pdflatex from TeX Live
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  • Research the principles of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics
  • Explore classical optics experiments, particularly the double-slit experiment
  • Learn advanced LaTeX techniques for document formatting
  • Investigate methods for managing vertical space in LaTeX documents
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Students and researchers in physics, optical engineers, and individuals working with LaTeX who are interested in understanding wave-particle duality and improving document presentation.

Dunhausen
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This is what's happening: (space after "-demonstrates wave particle duality")

A1ayC.png



This is the surrounding code:
Code:
\begin{multicols}{2}
\section*{\centerline{Classical Experiment}}
\begin{singlespace*}
\begin{itemize*}
\item demonstrates particle/wave duality
\end{itemize*}
\end{singlespace*}

A coherent beam of light is passed through two slits.  The light passing through the slits produces an interference pattern, confirming its wavelike propagation.  This appeared to refute the corpuscular theory of light thought up by Pierre Gassendi and developed by Isaac Newton.

(see http://pastebin.com/VMDh3k3E for the whole file -- you'll note I'm going to a lot of effort to make the document compact!)

I cannot for the life of me figure out where it's coming from. Any assistance would be much appreciated. :)
 
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Here is what I get using pdflatex from texlive...it does not look like there is any space.
 

Attachments

  • space.png
    space.png
    46.5 KB · Views: 538


I'm guessing that multicols is trying to balance the lengths of the columns, and it can't fit any more in the first column without doing something "bad" lilke putting headings at the bottom of the column.

The attachment in post #2 doesn't contain the "references", so I'm guessing the column breaks are different and the problem goes away.

You can probably squeeze some vertical space from around the rule below the main heading.

Sometimes deleting blank lines like the one after \end(singlespace) helps, for reasons that I've never fully understood!

Deleting the singlespace environment completely might help, because you only seem to have one line of text inside it and environments sometimes add some vertical space above and below themselves.
 

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