gen-explain-diffraction-through-a-single-slit-as-you-would-to-a-086f

Explain diffraction through a single slit as you would to a capable student, in 3-4 sentences.

When light passes through a single narrow slit, it doesn't just travel straight through—instead, it spreads out and creates a pattern of bright and dark bands on a screen. This happens because different parts of the wavefront within the slit act like tiny sources of new waves (Huygens' principle), and these waves interfere with each other. Where waves arrive in phase, they constructively interfere to create bright fringes, and where they arrive out of phase, they destructively interfere to create dark fringes. The central bright fringe is widest and brightest, with dimmer fringes on either side, and the pattern becomes more pronounced as the slit width becomes comparable to the wavelength of light.