EPFL's claim about wave particle duality

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around recent claims by scientists at EPFL regarding the ability to photograph light as both a particle and a wave. Participants express concerns about the implications of these claims, the validity of wave-particle duality, and the presentation of scientific findings to the public.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Meta-discussion

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants argue that the EPFL claims may lead to misconceptions about wave-particle duality, suggesting that light is neither a wave nor a particle but exhibits properties of both in a complex manner.
  • Others assert that wave-particle duality is an invalid concept, questioning the interpretation of the experiment and what it means for light to behave "LIKE" both a particle and a wave simultaneously.
  • Concerns are raised about the public presentation of scientific experiments, with some participants criticizing the sensationalism in reporting that oversimplifies or misrepresents the science involved.
  • One participant expresses a desire for correction, indicating uncertainty about their understanding of the topic.
  • References to external sources, such as an arXiv paper, are made to support claims regarding the nature of wave-particle duality.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally express skepticism about the claims made by EPFL and the concept of wave-particle duality, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of the experiment or the implications of the findings.

Contextual Notes

Participants note that the presentation of scientific findings may lack depth and accuracy, potentially due to economic motivations in science communication.

Ranvir
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Recent claims by scientists at EPFL suggesting that they somehow manged to photograph light simultaneously as a particle and as a wave raises more misconceptions than ever.
The experiment on it's own is an excellent example of recent improvements in technological and experimental techniques, but it's presentation to public, at least in my opinion, is misleading.Here's a link for a brief explanation of the said experiment
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html
Now, this gives rise to the same "Whether light is a wave or a particle?" predicament. The simple answer is that it's neither of them. It just exhibits properties and follows equations which in classical sense suggests as if the entity is a particle and wave in some weird incomprehensible way and while it's true that the actual quantum mechanics is counter intuitive in many of it's aspect, the attempt to reconcile the wave-particle picture by EPFL does no better than imaging the solution of Schrödinger's equation.
Is it right to say that the "Photographed" light simultaneously as a wave and a particle?
 
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Ranvir said:
Recent claims by scientists at EPFL suggesting that they somehow manged to photograph light simultaneously as a particle and as a wave raises more misconceptions than ever.

Not really. Its well known that wave-particle duality is a crock:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0609163

So that's not what they really did.

Ranvir said:
Is it right to say that the "Photographed" light simultaneously as a wave and a particle?

I wouldn't think so. But having glanced at the paper what they did does look interesting.

Although wave particle duality is really an invalid concept light does sometimes behave LIKE a particle and sometimes LIKE a wave - so its interesting if it can behave LIKE both at the same time. The big issue however is exactly in this case what LIKE means.

Thanks
Bill
 
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Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly what I interpreted when I read about the experiment (Although my knowledge in quantum mechanics is fairly rudimentary.)
But what concerns me more is the wave the experiment is publicized by making claims as they did at the webpage I visited.
May be I'm wrong and if so I'd really like to be corrected.
 
Ranvir said:
Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly what I interpreted when I read about the experiment (Although my knowledge in quantum mechanics is fairly rudimentary.)
But what concerns me more is the wave the experiment is publicized by making claims as they did at the webpage I visited.
May be I'm wrong and if so I'd really like to be corrected.

It is common for writers of short report articles about science to put very little to no science in favor of fashionable words and inflated claims of something great accomplished. There are probably more reasons for this behaviour, I guess mostly economic (authors need to sell their work, websites want you to click and see their ads). The original scientific article is more prosaic and I am sure it could be made even more accurate and boring.

As someone has said, everybody needs to eat.
 
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