The reason that many text-books don't give the exact location of the secondary maxima, is simply because they are much harder to calculate. You need a lot more math to find them. You start by calculating the intensity profile of single-slit diffraction. I skip the lengthy derivation here, because you can find it in any advanced text-book about wave optics. The final result is Fraunhofer's diffraction equation (see [Diffraction - Single-slit diffraction][1]): $$I(\theta) = I_0 \left(\frac {\sin\left(\frac{d\pi}{\lambda}\sin\theta\right)} {\frac{d\pi}{\lambda}\sin\theta} \right)^2 \tag{1}$$ where $d$ is the slit width, $\lambda$ is the wavelength, and $\theta$ is the observed angle. [![intensity profile][2]][2] <sub>(image from [Diffraction - single-slit diffraction][1])</sub> By defining $x=\frac{d\pi}{\lambda}\sin\theta$, we can write (1) in a simpler way as $$I(\theta)=I_0\left(\frac{\sin x}{x}\right)^2 \tag{2}$$ Now it is straight-forward to find the $x$ values of the maxima and minima: * The primary maximum is at $x=0$. * The minima are at $x=\pm\pi, \pm 2\pi, \pm 3\pi, \pm 4\pi, ...$ * The secondary maxima are harder to find. Actually there is no analytical formula, and they can only be found by numerical methods. According to [The unnormalized sinc function][3] (Table 1) they are at $x=\pm 1.429\ \pi, \pm 2.462\ \pi, \pm 3.470\ \pi, ...$ Transforming from $x$ back to the original variables ($d,\lambda,\theta$) we have: * The primary maximum is at $\theta=0$. * The minima are at $\sin\theta=\pm\frac\lambda d, \pm 2\frac\lambda d, \pm 3\frac \lambda d, \pm 4\frac\lambda d, ...$ * The secondary maxima are at $\sin\theta=\pm 1.429\frac\lambda d, \pm 2.462\frac\lambda d, \pm 3.470\frac\lambda d, ...$ Now you can see: The secondary maxima are indeed approximately (but not exactly) half-way between the minima. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction#Single-slit_diffraction [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/fbw5X.png [3]: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/teach_res/mp/doc/math_sinc_function.pdf