The interference pattern of a double-slit experiment. Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

The physics equations you learned in school don't work on the atomic scale. We have Newtonian physics to explain the world we can see and feel, and we have Einsteinian physics to explain the behavior of matter and light in the universe, but we observe a bunch of bizarre phenomena on the atomic scale that we can't explain fully yet with equations and mathematical laws.

Perhaps the two most perplexing behaviors of atomic particles are quantum superposition (particles can exist in two separate places simultaneously) and quantum entanglement (particles separated by large distances can react to one another instantaneously, suggesting information can travel faster than the speed of light, although there are other explanations for this phenomenon as well).

The experiment that started physicists down the path to discovering the wonderfully spooky behaviors of atomic particles is called the double-slit experiment. We know that light travels in waves, and when those waves pass through two parallel slits, a single wave gets separated into two waves that run into each other. PBS's Space Time series has a great new video explaining the double-slit experiment.

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When we shoot two waves of light through a double slit, they form a pattern based on the way their peaks and troughs match up or clash. When we shoot a single photon through, we'd expect it to just go through unchanged. But it won't. When you shoot enough single photons through—one at a time, alternating slits—they form the same interference pattern as the waves of light. Basically, that means that all the possible paths of these particles can interfere with each other, even though only one of the possible paths actually happens. Mind blown?

We can't fully explain these phenomena yet, but we can observe them. (The video above runs through some of the leading theories for these odd quantum behaviors. It's trippy stuff.) It is only a matter of time before someone comes up with the correct mathematical equations to fully predict and model these events, and when they do, the third major set of physical laws will be born.

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