The double-slit experiment was first performed by the English scientist Thomas Young in the early 1800s. Young conducted the experiment to demonstrate and investigate the wave nature of light.
Young's double-slit experiment was a pivotal contribution to the understanding of light and laid the foundation for the wave theory of light. His experiment provided compelling evidence for the phenomenon of interference, which occurs when waves superpose and interact with each other.
Thomas Young's work on the double-slit experiment, along with his other contributions to optics and the wave theory of light, significantly influenced the field of physics and played a crucial role in the development of the wave-particle duality concept.