Young's experiment showed the wave nature of light by showing that light...

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Let’s unpack the question about Young’s experiment and what it demonstrated about light. 
Option 1: 'diffracted and interfered with itself' This precisely describes the core observation in Young’s double-slit experiment: light waves pass through two slits, spread (diffract) from each slit, and then interfere with each other, producing the characteristic bright and dark fringes. The interference pattern is a hallmark of wave behavior and arises from self-interference of the light waves, since the two slits are part of the same coherent light source.
Option 2: 'reflected internally in glass, but not water' This statement doesn't relate to Young’s setup or the observed phenomenon. Internal reflection in a medium like glass (or water) is a separate optical effect (total internal reflection) and is not what produced the interference pattern in Young’s experiment. It misattributes the mechanism to reflection properties rather than diffraction and interference.
Option 3: 'neither' Saying that there is neither diffraction nor interference contradicts the well-established outcome of the experiment. The observable fringes are a direct manifestation of interference caused by diffraction through the two slits, so this option is incompatible with the historical results.
Option 4: 'both' If interpreted as 'both diffraction and interference occurred' this would be closer to the truth, but for precision, the experiment demonstrates diffraction at each slit and the resulting interference pattern when the diffracted waves overlap. However, the concise takeaway is that the light diffracts and then interferes with itself, not that both phenomena occur in isolation or due to unrelated processes. This option risks overgeneralization or confusion about the sequence of events.
In summary, option 1 best captures the essential physics described by Young: light behaves as a wave, diffracts at the slits, and the overlapping diffracted waves interfere with themselves to create the observable pattern. The other choices either misstate the mechanism (internal reflection), deny the observed effects (neither), or are worded in ways that can be misleading about the sequence and nature of the phenomena (both).

Physics Honors-Henrikson Unit 10 Test part 1

Young's experiment showed the wave nature of light by showing that light...

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