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moenste
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Homework Statement
The distance between the 1st bright fringe and the 21st bright fringe in a Young's double-slit arrangement was found to be 2.7 mm. The slit separation was 1.0 mm and the distance from the slits to the plane of the fringes was 25 cm. What was the wavelength of the light?
Answer: 5.4 * 10-7 m
Homework Equations
y = λD / a
The Attempt at a Solution
a = 1 mm = 10-3 m
D = 25 cm = 0.25 m
y (distance between 1st and 21st fringe) = 2.7 mm = 2.7 * 10-3 m
m (number of slits) = 21
λ = ?
First of all I am not sure whether y and m are correct terms for the given data.
y = (2.7 * 10-3) / (21-1) = 1.35 * 10-4 m
Second of all I do not understand why we need to divide y by m and not even by 21 but by 20.
λ = ya / D = 1.35 * 10-4 * 10-3 / 0.25 = 5.4 * 10-7 m
The answer is correct, but I completely lack an understanding of what is being done and what is being found.
Taking this image as an example: d is a = the separation of slits, through which the light from the source comes. This part I understand. Through the slits the light falls on the screen, which is L = D meters from the slits. This thing I also understand. As I suppose, y on the image is what I derive by dividing 2.7 mm by 20 slits. And this is where I am completely lost. What is 2.7 mm then? What are 21 or 20 slits? Why do we consider the y region at all?
I see the whole experiment as on this http://h2physics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fringeseparation1.gif . There are two slits through which light comes to a screen 4 m apart from the slits. Light from both slits comes in a form of a "triangle", both of triangles overlap and create a smaller triangle. Now what does the θ angle and that semi-triangle drawn in the image has anything to do with the experiment? The hypotenuse doesn't fit anywhere -- it's too far away at the beginning and too low at the end of the gif to the light-"triangles". But as I understand for some reason the opposite side of the θ angle is y, which we need to find, which looks like it doesn't represent anything at all.
Honestly, I am very very lost in this topic and this looks like the basic idea without understanding of which I cannot continue. If anybody could explain these things in a simple or logical manner I would appreciate it very much. At this point I do not quite understand what is y, why we need to consider it and so on.
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