Chapter 11.4, Problem 2bT

Consider the following dialogue:

Student 1: "l don’t see why there are minima when there's only a single silt—I think you need two waves to have destructive interference,”

Student 2: "You can model the single slit as many Identical smaller interfering 'slits,' each small enough to act like a point; source. The first minimum occurs where the path length difference from the two ‘slits’ at the edges of the single slit is $\lambda /2$ .

Do you agree with student 2’s response to student 1? Discuss your reasoning with your partners.