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da_willem
Aug14-04, 09:26 AM
In the wave particle duality a photon for example propagates as a wave but exchanges momentum as a particle. This looks a lot like what happens to a particle in QM, it has a spread (a wave property) wave function but when it interacts this collapses to a localised narrow 'spike' (a particle property).

Is this what is meant with the wave particle duality, or is there more to it?

Nenad
Aug14-04, 12:22 PM
he wave particle duality is like this but it simply says, sometimes its easier to talk about light as waves propagating through space and sometimes its easier tot talk about light as photons. Light is in fact both, according to duality, or as Bohr called it complementarity.

humanino
Aug14-04, 12:59 PM
There is no difference between matter waves and photon waves. The duality is exactly the same.

altered-gravity
Aug25-04, 07:22 AM
he wave particle duality is like this but it simply says, sometimes its easier to talk about light as waves propagating through space and sometimes its easier tot talk about light as photons. Light is in fact both, according to duality, or as Bohr called it complementarity.

I like to say that both particle and wave behaviours are incomplete descriptions of something more complicated than both of them. I just shows one "face" or another depending on the conditions. But neither particle nor wave are completele correct models of nothing, just a part of it.