Talk:Wave–particle duality

Wave–particle duality has had a peer review which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Reference issue

Ref. #6 ( http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/QM/thorn_ajp_72_1210_04.pdf ) is not accessible (AJP paper). Changed the reference to point to the article on the journal's website.

Update of Treatment in modern quantum mechanics

I have updated the section "Treatment in modern quantum mechanics" to reflect the common understaning of field theory put forth by Weinberg. There were several comments stating that it needed clarification. I hope that this is considered the best approach at explaining it. Please do not remove any of the added content unless you have read "The quantum theory of fields" by Weinberg. That said you are welcome to expand or edit what I have done.

~Dr. Edmonds — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.4.58.66 (talk) 08:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

True nature of ' matter', interference of waves produced by 'free-floating-antennas'

For more than twenty years I tried to communicate the true nature of 'matter' through the system of 'peer-reviewed-journals', but the prestigious journals are not courageous-enough to publish. So I am expressing it here to the open-minded readers of this page: 'matter' is not a 'substance', 'matter' is a 'process' i.e. 'a phenomenon'. 'Matter' is a process of fluctuations taken place in a 'continuum'. The continuum nature of the fundamental-reality allows formations of spherical 'wave-packets' of micro-microscopic-dimentions.There are integer, whole number of such 'wave-packets'. The waves generated by these packets sprade in all the directions. An interesting difference between the interference of conventional electromagnetic waves and the waves of 'matter-particles' is: that in the case of electromagnetic waves generated by radio-stations, the waves add constructively or distructively depending upon their relative phase, and the antennas remain firmly fixed; whereas in the case of 'matter-waves' depending upon the constructive or distructive superimposition of the waves, the antennas change their positions! Because the 'particles of matter' are so light-weight, that they are 'free-floating-antennas. Interefrnce of 'matter-waves' causes the changes in the positions of the 'spherical wave-packets' called 'particles of matter'. We require not just 'strings' or 'loops' but rather three or four-dimentional-continuum to describe the 'particles of matter'. Thus, the particles of 'matter' are 'particles' as far as their micro-microscopic size, and their whole,intiger number is concered; and they are 'waves' as far as their true nature of 'fluctuations of the most fundamental continuum' is concerned. Hasmukh K. Tank, 22/695 Krishna Dham-2, Vejalpur, Ahmedabad-380051 India.123.201.176.233 (talk) 11:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

wave-particle duality is not wave-particle complementarity

In the introduction no distinction is made between wave-particle duality and wave-particle complementarity. Whereas the first is at the basis of de Broglie's ideas (to the effect that a microscopic particle is accompanied by a guiding wave) is wave-particle complementarity a notion used by the Copenhagen interpretation (to the effect that, depending on the experimental setup, a microscopic object is either a particle or a wave). See Dugald Murdoch, Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1987 for more details. It seems to me that the present article is about wave-particle complementarity rather than about wave-particle duality.WMdeMuynck (talk) 11:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

At root, wave-particle complementarity is wave-particle duality. If duality vanished, so would complementarity. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

It depends on what your roots are. It is true that in standard quantum mechanics (more in particular, in the Copenhagen interpretation) wave-particle duality and wave-particle complementarity are usually confounded, particle or wave behaviour being thought to be determined by the experimental measurement arrangement. However, this idea was based on too restrictive empirical data. Nowadays experiments are performed that are more general than the ones considered in standard quantum mechanics, from which it can be seen that the identification of wave-particle duality and wave-particle complementarity cannot be maintained (for instance, [[1]]). Moreover, even in the experiments of standard quantum mechanics the identification can be seen to be unfounded because both particle and wave properties show up within a single measurement arrangement, individual impacts being particle-like whereas the interference pattern of that same experiment shows wave-like characteristics.WMdeMuynck (talk) 11:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see the relevance. Wave and particle aspects can be measured in the same experiment. That doesn't disprove duality and is only a problem for complementarity if the latter is imprecisely or improperly worded - which it often is. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 11:56, 16 January 2011 (UTC)-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 11:56, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Interpretation

I think, this article is not about a real phemomena but only about interpretation. Early quantum physicists are forced to use classical concepts such as "newtonian particle" and "Fresnel wave" to describe quantum objects in contradictory manner because they had no other conсepts. The path integral formulation developed by Feinman eliminates this misunderstanding. Added a paragraph in head section Raoul NK (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with User:Dicklyon's reversion of Raoul NK's edit, but not with his argumentation: it will not be difficult to find a source expressing someone's belief in the superiority of the path integral formulation. I admit that this method has advantages in certain respects; but it has also disadvantages in other respects. For instance, it does not address the influence of the measurement arrangement, which influence is an essential ingredient of the problem of wave-particle duality. Hence, it seems to me unwarranted to posit the path integral formulation as the canonical way to understand quantum mechanics.WMdeMuynck (talk) 08:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't the PI side-step the measurement "arrangement", since it requires an initial and final state to begin with? It moves the spookiness from the endpoints to the summation itself. Endpoints don't vary in path integrals. --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course. Measurement is not a methodological problem in PI, it only means that a decoherence occurs in the observation point Raoul NK (talk) 12:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that by ignoring measurement as a methodological problem PI ignores a main problem of particle-wave complementarity, a subject different from, but closely related to, particle-wave duality. This leaves undisputed the many important features of PI.WMdeMuynck (talk) 21:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

It ignores it because it can; that's a success, not a failure. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:49, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

PI is a basis of all modern quantum field theories since Feynman's QED. It supports special relativity natively. All the prospect theories such as M-theory or LQG are a development of PI approach. PI also is a clear way to get classical physics as a limit case of quantum physics via principle of the least action. Maybe PI are more difficult to understand unlike de Broglie waves but this is only about didactics, not physics itself.Raoul NK (talk) 11:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no argument about the relative merits of the viewpoints, but I don't see any source saying that because of PI, duality is only of historical interest. And many sources that still talk about duality, not in a historical context. Dicklyon (talk) 22:33, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sources, speaking on the "duality", either obsolete or are popular, educational, or philosophical literature. Serious contemporary theoretical sources don't mention about duality, they use more effective approaches, almost all based on PI. There is a good analogy with the notion of so-called "relativistic mass", which served its in the interpretation of relativistic effects in terms of Newtonian physics, but in the modern 4-dimensional formulation only creates a confusion Raoul NK (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

wave-particle duality and electromagnetic waves

The recent edit by Dicklyon drew my attention to the fact that in the article on Wave–particle duality not only wave-particle duality and wave-particle complementarity are confounded (see my previous edit on this page), but that there is also a confusion between wave-particle duality (implying that an entity like a single electron or a single photon has both particle and wave properties) and the analogy between electromagnetic waves and water waves (to the effect that both consist of particle-like objects but yet collectively show wave behaviour). Although this confusion certainly has played an important role in the history of wave-particle duality, does it seem to me that piling up these different meanings under the same heading does not improve understanding.WMdeMuynck (talk) 10:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

What are you suggesting we could do to improve matters? Dicklyon (talk) 06:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Distinguish what should be distinguished.WMdeMuynck (talk) 16:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

So enlighten us. Dicklyon (talk) 18:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

So sorry I can't do that. After clashes with expert hating administrators over what they considered to be `own research' (or some similar term) I have decided to restrict my contribution to Wikipedia to giving advice if this seems necessary to me. Some details on the present subject can be found here [[2]].WMdeMuynck (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, no problem. Just advise about appropriate sources that will help me understand what needs to be distinguished, so I can work on it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If I remeber well, a book where the distinction between wave-particle duality and wave-particle complementarity is explained, is: D. Murdoch, Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics, Cambridge University Press, 1987.WMdeMuynck (talk) 15:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there's a good chapter there, visible on Amazon. But on reading a bit, I don't see a clear distinction. Bohr developed his complementarity ideas as a elaboration of what others were calling duality. The difference seems to be mostly that he made up a new word and some new concepts to add to the mix. Or am I missing something important? Dicklyon (talk) 06:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not exactly remember how Murdoch puts it. There is a crucial difference though between p-w duality (stemming from de Broglie, and referring to an objective, i.e. context-independent, property of an object) and p-w complementarity (stemming from Bohr, and referring to a context-dependent property of an object). As additional reading you might consult my website here [[3]].WMdeMuynck (talk) 09:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Too cryptic for me. Aren't there any good secondary reliable sources with a simple explanation of the distinction? Dicklyon (talk) 07:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

ostensible paradox?

as far as i can tell "ostensible paradox" isn't a technical term. i suggest ostensible be dropped altogether. or replacing ostensible with apparent. ostensible is a distancing word in this circumstance IMO. LazyMapleSunday (talk) 20:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The definition of ostensible that I find says "appearing as such but not necessarily so." This seems like a good word for something that people find paradoxical but which is really just how things are. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

i suppose the word is on point...the word can definitely be confused with "ostensive" which means "manifestly demonstrative" another valid descriptor for paradox. why not just say apparent? or drop the word. it isn't needed. there aren't different 'types' of paradoxes so the descriptor "ostensible" isn't adding anything but uncertainty. LazyMapleSunday (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oil droplet model for wave-particle duality?

There are quite recent extremely interesting papers (2 in PRL) of Couder, Fort et al in which they use oil droplets on vertically vibrating surface as a model of entities with wave-particle duality - droplets are localized, but they create periodic waves around which cause quantum-like effects: interference in double-slit experiment, unpredictable tunneling (depending in complicated way on practically hidden state of field) and recently orbit quantization (that particle has to 'find a resonance' with field perturbations it creates - after one orbit, its internal phase has to return to the initial state).

They give great intuition about wave-particle duality - maybe it should be mentioned in the article? (the authors relate it to pilot wave theory). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.150.224.239 (talk) 22:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

possessive of Huygens

"the double-slit experiments by Young and Fresnel provided evidence for Huygens' wave theories" should read "Huygens's wave theories" The possessive form of an individual should end with an apostrophe & "s", even if that name itself ends in "s", with the rare exception of a few notable entities, such as Zeus' thunderbolts or Jesus' disciples. Verberate (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. Dicklyon (talk) 00:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Wavicle

Why, if "wavicle" redirects here, is no mention made of that handy awesome term? 71.82.157.201 (talk) 05:21, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Alternative views

Back in 2009 a comment was made: "An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue" Elsewhere: "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." I don't see any discussion yet, so presumably this is a difficult subject? So I will put something in to start it.

1. I think the issue is that wave-particle duality is an issue, even for orthodox physics. Yes, physics can rationalise away some of the dilemma, by simply defining a particle to mean both a point and wave, or making out that the effects are only complementary rather than contradictory. But deep down there is an incongruence about wave-particle duality, that will not go away. Wave-particle duality is not a done deal, or a historical fact. Instead it is an ongoing conundrum.
2. Since it is a controversy, there is a place for a mention of alternative views. In fact I think there is a responsibility to mention that wave-particle duality is still somewhat problematic for fundamental physics, and an area of ongoing development.
3. I thought the coverage was reasonably balanced and did not give undue weight to the alternatives. In fact I think there could be a good deal more said about the de Broglie Bohm theory, since that has never gone away and is even enjoying a renaissance.
4. There are 'tiny minority' views that are not included at all, which is consistent with the above.

So overall, I think the text is sufficient. If anything I think it should be expanded, not reduced. John Pons (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It is almost uncany that terms are used to discribe the physical phenomen like "quantum potential" and "deterministic" that could have come from a Buddist text on 'Dukkha':

The "potential" of one 'thought' moment in bringing about (conditioning) the next one in a "cause and effect" manner with no unchanging substance in them, continuing unbroken, being a series that is nothing but movement.

Concidering this it makes sense that the wave-particle duality is an ongoing conundrum in modern physics and that the unified field theory has not been discovered or formulated yet as the basis for the physical hypothesis are a substance or force that brings about movement instead of using movement as the basis of the hypothesis. The physicist that realises this will succeed in reconciling the conundrum and discover the "unified field". Mendel Sachs appears on the right track although his wave monism (continuous field) needs to be replaced with movement. The "moment" mentioned above can be reduced to the zero dimensional mathematical point, which cannot be observed and this makes no difference to the observable movement of wave and particle and thus the universe. I am not a physicist or mathematician but hopefully someone competent can apply what I have implied above and translate it into the nessesary mathematics. SamiAEH (talk) 20:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

1925

Where is the reference to light quanta renamed to photons in 1925. Is this from a book a news paper article a scientific paper or what? Dsmith7707 (talk) 13:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

the primary source is here. Should be 1926. Here is a secondary. Dicklyon (talk) 15:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

New images?

At the very beginning, nevermind their awkward positioning, are either of the second two images any use?

The first

Particle impacts make visible the interference pattern of waves.

is nice, though can and should be moved down somewhare, yet the other 2??

A quantum particle is represented by a wave packet.

Interference of a quantum particle with itself

will a typical reader gain anything? They will look at them and think

"Heh, what am I looking at?... ok, in the first there are these bands in the dark, and... the second, how or why does this particle "interfere with itself"??"

I mean really? There are already images of quantum interferance (now including the new one above) and wavepackets, yet every other diagram in the artice actually transfers meaning visually, these do not. I have removed them for now. Please explain if you object. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 16:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

On second thought perhaphs they could be moved down to the first section, with re-written captions. Apologies for that. =( F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 16:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that the three animations are better together. The second and the third are like a theoretical explanation of the experimental result (here simulated) presented in the first. I suppose my critic understood that they are informative because they are a precise representation of mathematical solutions of the Schrödinger equation in a simple case, a single particle in free space.Thierry Dugnolle (talk) 21:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Original research in section "Both-particle-and-wave view"

The text referencing the work of one A. F. Biddulf was added by none other than Andy Biddulf himself. Evidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality&diff=398257200&oldid=397345259

The source given is Andy's (now non-existent) page on Google Knol. As far as I can tell the work has not been published anywhere else. The claim itself sounds a lot like pseudoscientific nonsense.

In this light, I'm going to remove these statements from the article. 91.77.66.232 (talk) 23:22, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

see also: User_talk:Andybiddulph Special:Contributions/Andybiddulph 91.77.66.232 (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The 'Rays' Of Light: As a Solid Proof Of 'Wave' Nature Of Light

The fact that we see the 'rays' of light, is a solid proof of 'wave-nature of light'. If light were like the spray of photons, then we should see a spray-like distribution of photons, and not the 'rays'. The waves travel in space making concentric-circles. And interference of amplitudes of circular-waves from many closely-located-sources give rise to rays of light.

Thus, the very observation of 'rays of light' is a proof of 'wave nature of light'. Hasmukh K. Tank111.91.79.3 (talk) 09:44, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Particles constructed as causal sets have frequency and wavelength

When particles are constructed as repetitive causal set propagations, they have deBroglie wavelength and frequency with respect to other such particles. Thus both particle and wave characteristics are accounted for in terms of standalone causal sets. The frequency ratios inherent in causal sets serve as energy ratios in accord with Planck's E=hf. This implicates the causal link as the quantum of action and the unit of energy ratios. Wave-particle duality is just one of the issues that becomes a non-issue in the reduction of physics to causal set theory. The full set of constructions illustrating wave-particle duality is posted online here: Causal Set Theory and the Origin of Mass-ratio Carey Carlson (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)Carey_Carlson

So, in reading the section on the covering the transition from Newtonian physics to wave-particle physics, the article states:

For macroscopic particles, because of their extremely long wavelengths, wave properties usually cannot be detected.[2]

And the footnote, then says;

2. R. Eisberg and R. Resnick (1985). Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 59–60. ISBN 047187373X. "For both large and small wavelengths, both matter and radiation have both particle and wave aspects.... But the wave aspects of their motion become more difficult to observe as their wavelengths become shorter.... For ordinary macroscopic particles the mass is so large that the momentum is always sufficiently large to make the de Broglie wavelength small enough to be beyond the range of experimental detection, and classical mechanics reigns supreme.

Which to me sounds like the first section should say that because of extremely short wavelengths...Gpronger (talk) 22:14, 2 August 2013 (UTC)