Is the Dual Nature of Light Really That Confusing?

[bobsmith76]

In the documentary the Fabric of the Cosmos Leonard Susskind remarks how confused he is that a photon could be both a wave and a particle, he says a rock is a rock, and a wave is a wave (a picture of an ocean wave crashing). How could a rock be a wave?

To me the answer is obvious, a wave is just an abstract description of how matter moves. Any material body can be both a body and a wave so long as it moves in a wave form. I don't understand why this is hard to understand.

I put this in the classical category because it concerns optics.

 

[Dale]

Susskind is making the point that there is no true wave-particle dichotomy. His confusion is rhetorical.

 

[lavinia]

In the documentary the Fabric of the Cosmos Leonard Susskind remarks how confused he is that a photon could be both a wave and a particle, he says a rock is a rock, and a wave is a wave (a picture of an ocean wave crashing). How could a rock be a wave?

To me the answer is obvious, a wave is just an abstract description of how matter moves. Any material body can be both a body and a wave so long as it moves in a wave form. I don't understand why this is hard to understand.

I put this in the classical category because it concerns optics.

In Maxwell's equations, light is a traveling pair of orthogonal waves, one an electric field, the other a magnetic field. This description does not use the idea of motion of matter. Rather it uses the idea of oscillating fields.

Many fields - e.g. the static gravitational field or static electric field - can be thought of as mere mathematical conveniences for describing a distribution of forces in space. They are a way to avoid discussing action at a distance. But the electromagnetic field describes light itself and in some sense is not just a convenience. So this is a case where the wave is niether a description of motion of matter not is it a pure mathematical convenience.

 

[Drakkith]

To me the answer is obvious, a wave is just an abstract description of how matter moves. Any material body can be both a body and a wave so long as it moves in a wave form. I don't understand why this is hard to understand.

A wave in water is easy to understand because there are untold trillions and trillions of atoms that contribute to the effect. However with single particles this is not the case. There is no way to understand it other than to accept that the math used to describe, understand, and predict where something will be is a wavefunction.

Personally I choose to view it like this. All "particle" and "wave" like properties that are observable to us in our everyday lives, are simply a likeness of the actual quantum effect which is the "real" way the universe works. So a water wave uses similar math and acts similar to the "quantum" effect, but only so far. A water wave will not tunnel to the other side of a barrier like a subatomic particle can. But I'm sure I've broken a dozen scientific rules or something with this.

 

[sardar]

I can understand why the dual nature of light can be confusing to some. It goes against our everyday experience and intuition to think of something as both a wave and a particle. However, this is the reality of quantum mechanics and it has been confirmed through countless experiments.

The idea of wave-particle duality is not limited to light, but applies to all particles at the quantum level. It is a fundamental concept in physics and has been extensively studied and tested. It is not something that can be easily explained or visualized in our macroscopic world, but it is a cornerstone of our understanding of the universe.

To answer the question of how a rock can be a wave, it is important to understand that at the quantum level, particles do not behave in the same way as macroscopic objects. They can exhibit wave-like behavior, such as interference patterns, and also behave as discrete particles with specific energies. This duality is not contradictory, but rather a reflection of the complex nature of the quantum world.

It is true that a wave is an abstract description of how matter moves, but it is a crucial concept in understanding the behavior of particles at the quantum level. The concept of wave-particle duality may be difficult to grasp, but it is a well-established and fundamental principle in physics. As scientists, we must continue to explore and study this concept in order to deepen our understanding of the universe.