While performing an experiment on optics, English physicist Henry Fox Talbot inadvertently discovered the key to quantum carpets. In this experiment, a wave struck a diffraction grating, and Talbot noticed that the patterns of grating repeated themselves with periodic regularity. This phenomenon became known as the Talbot Effect. The bands of light that Talbot discovered were never graphed on an axis, and thus, he never created a true quantum carpet. However, the bands of light were similar to the images on a quantum carpet. Centuries later, physicists graphed the Talbot effect, creating the first quantum carpet. Since then, scientists have turned to quantum carpets as visual evidence for quantum theory.