Light has a dual nature, on one hand it behaves as a wave (Young's double slit experiment) and on the other hand it behaves as a particle (Photoelectric effect), somehow it is acting as both a wave as well as particle.
So why mother nature has chosen the things to work this way ? what could be the reason for a dual nature of radiation and matter? was it a necessity? why not single unique nature persist? Was it the only way to make the universe work the way it is doing?
It may only be a question of the scale you choose to view something.
Do you see something with the eye, or with a microscope on the scale of a wave length?
Thats the difference between ray or wave. Then is the wave uniform or is it in finite regions
at a time? Those waves go past you at the speed of light, not easy to see.
Is it right to say that wave nature is a true nature , and particles are nothing but superpositions ? I mean is it correct to say that there is nothing in the universe that can be called a particle ( having sharp boundaries and volume) and everything around us is wave ( not sharp, spread out to some extent) ?
I was only refering to light here.
For particles the problem may
Be deeper.
On screens you see them as points
but the points form a wave pattern.
No real contradiction.
What something is and the
Probability of finding it
are two different questions.
“…Is it right to say that wave nature is a true nature , and particles are nothing but superpositions ?….”
- it isn’t right, the “wave-particle duality” - while photons are particles that principally don’t differ from any other particle – is particles quite true nature. This point indeed is till now some mystic one in mainstream physics, but is rigorously scientifically explained in the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s informational physical model
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354418793_The_Informational_Conception_and_the_Base_of_Physics
- particles are specific – close-loop algorithms that run basing on “FLE hardware” - disturbances in the Matter’s ultimate base – the (at least) [4+4+1]4D dense lattice, which is composed from primary elementary logical structures – (at least) [4+4+1]4D binary reversible fundamental logical elements [FLE], and is placed in the corresponding Matter’s fundamentally absolute, fundamentally flat, and fundamentally “Cartesian”, (at least) [4+4+1]4D spacetime with metrics (at least) (cτ,X,Y,Z, g,w,e,s,ct) [absolutely everything in Matter are specific disturbances in the lattice, though].
A particle is created at impact of 4D momentum P [“bold” means 4D vector in 4D space with metrics (cτ,X,Y,Z)] on a lattice FLE. If P is infinitely small, that causes in the lattice – and so, of course, in 4D space, propagating along a straight line of sequential FLE-by-FLE “FLE flipping point” when every FLE binary flip causes the flip of next FLE, with the speed of light, c, c=lP/tP, lP and tP are “FLE size” and “FLE flip time”, that are equal to Planck length and Planck time.
If P isn’t infinitesimal, since the propagating “FLE flipping point” speed cannot be larger than c, the flipping FLEs become to precess, the “flipping point” correspondingly cyclically propagates along some 4D “helix” trajectory, and just that is a particle [and just that is “particle as a point”],, which so is some cyclic algorithm that runs basing on “FLE hardware”, at that
- in first approximation the flipping point has momentum P, while “radius” of the “helix”, λ, is determined by that λ=ћ/P, and so the flipping point’s angular momentum – i.e. the particle’s angular momentum, i.e. real/“true” spin, is equal to 1ћ; and, at that, the flipping point in parallel has the creating 4D momentum P, which is observed at the particle’s interactions. However angular momentum as the cross-product Pxλ mathematically doesn’t exist in 4D space, and so having rest mass fundamental particles have 3D projection of 4D “true spin” as observed 3D “spin” be equal to ћ/2.
The observed also 3D projection of the “helix” is “just “particle as a wave”. Photons are created by 3D space directed momentums, and so “are waves directly”, and have “true spin”, ћ.
At every time moment only flipping FLE of a particle’s algorithm can interact with some other particle’s flipping FLE or with fundamental Nature force mediator, just so particles interact as “points”; photon’s hit into a photoplate is point that is well lesser than photon’s wave length.
More see the link above.
Cheers
Very simple. Just like we deal with water as a continuous fluid at our macroscopic level, we deal with light as a continuous wave in all experiments carried out at our macroscopic level. But at the submicroscopic level, we know full well that water is not a fluid, but is made of quantized H20 atoms that cannot be individually dealt with as a fluid.
The same with light energy. We know since Wien 130 years ago, and more concretely since Planck and Einstein in the early 1900's that at the subatomic level light is made of quantized photons that do not behave as waves, but as discrete energy amounts individually moving at the speed of light.
The so-called wave-particle duality is simply a general term to generally refer to both perspective, just the term water-molecule.
Wave particle duality as i know comes from debroglie hypothesis, according to which there is associated a wave of wavelength h/p with a particle where p is the momentum of the particle. It can't be analogus to water molecule. Adding to it what we mean when we say frequency of a photon ?
Dear Dayakrishn Purohit
Note that the de Broglie wave-particle duality concerned the electron, not light photons, which is an entirely separate issue.
Of course, light photons are not like water molecules. The comparison was just to highlight the fact that light photons are not waves, but are localized amounts of energy, just like water molecules are not a fluid – as we are used to think of water at our macroscopic level.
Light photons, in fact are one order of magnitude smaller than water molecules, just like the electron. They both are "elementary particles", meaning that they are electromagnetic amounts of energy that locally oscillate at their rated frequencies.
The electron rest mass has a universally fixed frequency, while localized photons can have a whole range of frequencies, depending on how they were emitted and how they subsequently lost or gained energy before being absorbed again.
If interested, this issue of the various orders of magnitude is put in perspective in the first part of this article. All formal historical references are provided to confirm.
Article Emphasizing the Electromagnetism according to Maxwell's Init...
About the de Broglie's wave-particle duality, he was referring to the fact that the rest mass of the electron has to be "carried", so to speak, by what he named a "pilot wave", that turns out to be similar to a free moving photon.
This is put in perspective in this other article, with all historical formal articles and sources provided for confirmation.
Article Introduction to Synchronized Kinematic and Electromagnetic Mechanics
Best Regards, André
Mother nature didn't do it. Our models did. Light is photons that cause waves in an aether. The aether waves direct to photon. Just like in GR, matter causes a curvature in spacetime, and the curvature in spacetime directs the matter. Somehow this concept is OK in GR but foreign in the quantum scale.
The wave has to do with the probability
of findimg the particle, but the particle is
not a wave.
Dear Robert A. Phillips
You wrote: "Photons cannot be observed without creating them."
Exact. It was the observation by de Broglie that the spectra frequencies of the photons collected from the hydrogen atom obeyed the same integer sequence as well known resonance phenomena at our macroscopic level that caused him to understand that the electron is in axial resonance about its mean orbital distance in the rest state of the hydrogen atom .
Analyzed and put in perspective in Section 6 of this article. With reference to de Broglie's thesis, now available directly on the internet for confirmation.
Article Introduction to Synchronized Kinematic and Electromagnetic Mechanics
You wrote: "the energy released when a wave in motion is suddenly slowed."
Absolutely right. Such bremsstrahlung photons are emitted each time an electron is suddenly slowed down, which causes its momentum energy of the moment to be ejected as a free moving electromagnetic photon.
The mechanics of emission of such photons, that de Broglie and Schrödinger meant to analyze in the 1920's has now been established. See Section 28 in this article:
Article Emphasizing the Electromagnetism according to Maxwell's Init...
Best Regards, André
Robert
Even when some phenomena
is suspected as having ultimate
deterministic originyou still
treat as random for practical
reasons.
It is true that resonce concepts play some part when some external frequency
resonates with some separation of energy levels. This is seen vividly for example
in electron paramagnetic resonance. It means energy absorption.
To say that some electron is in a resonance , is an informal comparison with certain Classical effects.
Something like fitting air wave lengths into a certain length of pipe for standing waves.
What the electron has is accesible energy levels predicted from QM, and
an external EM may resonate with some separation of these levels, either to emit or absorb radiation. The simplest model of the energy levels was due to Bohr, fitting a number of wave length of the electron into orbits
around the Hydrogen atom.
However QM has seriously altered this initial vision into for example the 1s orbital which is simply spherically symmetric
around the atom. The prediction in QM is done using eigenvalues of operators or matrices.
It should be remembered that the electron is also a well recognized elementary particle with definite value of
mass , charge and spin.
The duality of conservation laws as reference, vs. action as reference.
The thread question is rigorously scientifically enough answered in the SS post on page 1, so only one note to
“…The wave has to do with the probability of findimg the particle, but the particle is not a wave.….”
- that isn’t completely correct. Again – in well more than first approximation a particle at every time moment exists as “FLE binary flipping point”, i.e. being as ~ Planck length “point”, however the flipping point moves along some 4D “helix” that has radius be equal to reduced de Brogile wave length [if a having rest mass particles is at rest in the absolute 3D space of Matter’s spacetime that is its reduced Compton length], λ.
- while 3D projection of the 4D “helix” is observed at a particle’s interactions with environmental particles, say, with particles of some physical instrument, as a “wave”.
This wave is described in QM equation and is interpreted as probability of particle to have concrete point coordinates, however, again, that is adequate to the reality just because of particles quite really exits [not simultaneously, of course] in points of the space volume with size ~ λ>>>> Planck length.
Note, though, that that above is, though good, but an approximation; real picture is more complex because that 4D “helical” motion is rather vaguely mathematically defined/determined, at least relating to its observable 3D projection; and so in the text above mostly “~” is applied.
More see SS post on page 1, SS post in
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NO14_How_do_Electrons_in_Atoms_Know_the_Transition_Level_difference_in_Advance/3 , 2 days ago now, is relevant to this thread question.
Cheers
Juan Weisz
Einsteins photoelectric experiment shows individual photons as instances of E=hf. We can't say that the double slit experiment implies physical interference in the sense that it involves conservation laws - it still shows individual photons, however as instances of h=E/f.
Yes, perhaps because photons are finite wave trains of light.
about 2 mts long. Since c is so high, they hit like particles.
Effectively finite wave trains of light. "Photon" is a name for the effect that:
- has a definite speed associated with a wave front
- presumably is a group effect with a certain dispersion
- nevertheless has a definite wavelength
- is subject to the path integral formalism
- is mass less
Wave trains can fulfill a and b. Re. c, d, and e, in my view EM waves are in fact associated with a Goldstone mode, but obviously not coupled like in fermions or EW bosons. The photon spin-1 could thus be modeled as 2-manifold explaining effects such as photon entanglement, the 2-slit effect and the path integral. As Goldstone modes are closely related to the action, a stable wavelength might be a stationary rather than a conservative effect, and therefore not as "real" as e.g. a sound wave. In short, the dual nature of light is due to the dual nature of the inferred principle, namely action & energy.
Yes indeed. That is an informed
opinion in many physics departments.
Long enough so f is well defined.
“…Yes, perhaps because photons are finite wave trains of light….. Since c is so high, they hit like particles…”
- light – and practically any other EM wave – is intensive coherent flow of particles “photons”; and, as every other particle exists, at every given time moment a photon exists as ~ Planck length “point”, which interacts with other particles again, at time moments when these particles are ~ Planck length “points” as well.
More see the yesterday SS post on page 2. How most of particles interact by at least fundamental Gravity, Electric, and Nuclear, Forces see the
Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s 2007 initial model of Gravity and Electric Forces in
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365437307_The_informational_model_-_Gravity_and_Electric_Forces
- and 2023 initial of Nuclear Force in
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369357747_The_informational_model_-Nuclear_Force.
Though yeah, photons rather specifically differ from other particles – while the particles at interactions, at least in most cases, at interactions exchange by radiated corresponding Force mediators, photons are transformed Electric Force mediators, and so don’t radiate the mediators, and interact with other particles directly – as the Electric Force mediators do.
Cheers
Dayakrishn Purohit
Just now reading your question better. You've put it nicely, not only the technical side. In that spirit, in nature there's indeed a complementary presence or influence of energy (conservative principle) and action (the physics principle as in the principle of least action; stationary principle). That, in turn, as I see it goes back to much deeper philosophy, stemming in part from your home country, and which is also supported by contemporary thinkers. Another way to put it, touching on physics and philosophy alike, is to say that certain experiments or observations rather highlight the epistemological aspect (of light), and others the ontological aspect. I think it's good to stick to the scrutiny required by math, and to a slightly lesser degree by physics, but also be conscious of the philosophical aspects, some of which are very advanced.
Sir Frank, thankyou for perceiving my question rightly. It's right that question I asked has more philosophical flavour than the technical one. The answers i got have mainly technical taste and they all were too good ( although i have some difficulty understanding some answers but were worth the discussion). We all know that the maths work right and things are working smoothly but deep down it's a fundamental question 'why does the maths went correct ?
In our macroscopic world where we have precise answers to future events( knowing initial conditions) but the root of all this where quantum mechanics rules things are uncertain and we deal with probability. It is somehow difficult to digest that starting with uncertainties (atomic level) we end with certainty (our macro world).
Dayakrishn Purohit
Certainly. My view on why "math went correct" (in great part due to a paper I'm working on right now): I believe most of math is indeed man-made, in the sense, it's universal, but nature itself doesn't employ it. Only when you go to the very foundations, I'm thinking of number theory, the prime factorization theorem, you get close to how nature works. I believe even the number line, e.g. the natural cardinal and ordinal values are non-existent in nature, except, indeed the primes. Even they have a deeper cause, as was found by Riemann. Equally foundational is the action principle. In case you're not very familiar with it, here's a YouTube with the telling intro: "I'm going to tell you about one of the most profound and far-reaching ideas in physics it's called the principle of least action"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUk9y23FPHk
If light is a wave the energy
WOULD BE ABSORBED
CONTINUOUSLY.
but its not, its absorbed in lumps.
Also see "black body radiation"
“… the root of all this where quantum mechanics rules things are uncertain and we deal with probability. It is somehow difficult to digest that starting with uncertainties (atomic level) we end with certainty (our macro world).….”
- really here is no problem, since interactions on the QM scale are extremely [in dozens of orders by magnitude] lesser than interactions on macroscale, where the fundamentally always existent QM interactions are so extremely averaged, and the QM uncertainties so don’t affect the averages.
“…I don't understand why the photoelectric effect is seen as proof of particle behavior. Consider the electrons as acting like apples on a tree. A high-amplitude, high-energy swaying of the tree will not shake loose the apples, but a lower-energy impulse at the right frequency will. If an electron is shaken loose, it will release a "photon" worth of energy to initiate another wave. From this perspective, the quantization is done by the electron.…..”
- photoelectric effect [where particles “photons” are observed as “points”] hasn’t direct relation to radiation of photons at relaxations of excited electronic shells in atoms – really photons are radiated not by electrons but just systems “electrons +nuclei”. Including, say, now it isn’t known how that happens, since photons are created by impacts on Electric Force mediators, which aren’t particles [more see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365437307_The_informational_model_-_Gravity_and_Electric_Forces],
- while, again, it is unknown – what mediators, that are radiated by electrons or by nucleus – are impacted.
The answer to this question see in SS posts on pages 1, 2, 3, and links in the posts, so more see the posts and links; here let remind only, that the “wave-particle duality” is fundamental property of all/every particles, not only of photon and of electron.
Cheers
I agree that light itself is not the wave, rather, the wave is the conserved format in a gauge scenario. At the same time the action is not minimized to zero, but to h. The Planck-Einstein formula E=hf is quantitatively correct, but falsely suggests that the action is reconciled with the wave. It is not, and that's how light became a group effect and effectively a finite wave train with the impact of a particle. As for the dispersion, in my view it is not probabilistic but synergistic.
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