Wave-particle duality

DEATHSTATIC–

Sincere congrats on finding wave/particle duality fascinating, challenging, and vexing.

Its interpretation turns out to be a matter of combat (even Richard Feynman’s “ultimate” interpretation of these phenomena is–a matter of interpretation).

But don’t give up. Don’t tell yourself it’s just esoteric nonsense.

What we’re dealing with are the repercussions of the way the scientific community theorized about the nature of matter and energy in the time between Newton and (very roughly) the early 20th Century. It was natural and irresistable to try to describe such things as light, “wireless” signals, electricity, radiant heat, compression-phenomena of gasses, the table of the elements, etc etc, on the basis of commonly understood models. This came down to saying that most everything could be explained as itty-bitty spatially-concentrated masses in motion (“particles”) acting in accordance with Newton’s laws; or, alternatively, that everything was due to itty-bitty regions of disturbance or compression propagating through some yet-unknown substance that literally fills all of space (“waves”). In a general way, both seemed good explanatory candidates for what was observed and measured, and they kept neck-and-neck for a long time. But which one REALLY was the case?

Now there are moments of high drama in science called “crucial experiments” which are supposed to resolve issues like this. Those experiments were performed. Before the given experiment, it was assumed that, logically speaking, only one of two results would be possible; and which one it was, would definitely indicate which of our candidates was the real deal.

So what happened? Welllllllll… some of those experiments definitely proved the fundamentality of “particles” to the universe. But alas, others equally proved the fundamentality of “waves.” In other words, what was supposed to be decisive left the damn question OPEN–even though it SEEMED that logic would not permit such a result.

But, see… what was thought to be “logical” had some hidden premisses: roughly, that the kinds of things and categories we see in the “midlevel” world around us have a kind of privileged status–that reality MUST be such as to be describable in those terms. But when you think of it, that was mere prejudice. Logic, in and of itself, does not require that “size doesn’t matter”–it is entirely possible for there to be a universe in which the ultrasmall “fine grain” of things can NOT be divided up into familiar kinds of entities, such as particles or waves. The “grain” of the universe may well be like nothing we have ever seen, nothing with any kind of visual form. The big things that we know may be derivative constructs, not fundamentals.

And that seems to be the sort of universe we live in. At the microlevel, there are neither waves NOR particles in anything like the ordinary sense. Nor is it useful to say (as some do) that there are waves that turn into particles, and particles that turn into waves. The fact that, in various situations, one seems to see something that is definitely one and not the other, is an artefact of the available means by which we conduct experiments, and the conclusion really goes beyond the “facts” that arise in the experiment.

If you can grasp the idea that “particle vs. wave” is a purely artificial, conventional duality imposed on reality, not by Nature, but by our own natures as mortal humans–then you’ll be in the enviable position to take baby step #2!

ElJeffe: modern versions of the many-worlds interpretation do not hypothesize that, as you say it, the world splits into multiple paths. That wouldn’t make for much of a scientific theory. Rather, they hypothesize that the Schrödinger equation ( H(Psi) = E*Psi, where H is the Hamiltonian operator, E is an energy eigenvalue, and Psi is the wave-function of whatever system is under consideration in an energy eigenstate) applies to all systems at all times, including the entire universe. Other interpretations of quantum mechanics generally hold that this equation usually applies to any given system, but that whenever a system is “measured” a completely different set of dynamics must come into effect that create a single unambiguous outcome.

If you ignore a few technical details related to probability, this assumption alone is sufficient to account for all observed quantum phenomena. It also leads directly to the prediction that any event with multiple possible outcomes will cause both a quantum system and its environment to “split” into branches that do not interact.

For more information about how this works, there is a nice FAQ on the interpretation here. I believe it to be somewhat biased in favor of the theory, in that it doesn’t cover those areas in which the MWI is incomplete. However, it provides a nice albeit somewhat technical introduction.

Sir J J Thompson discovered that the Electron was a particle.
His son Sir G P Thompson discovered that it was a wave.
Both recieved the Nobel prize for their work
They were both right.

Just my two euros.


Sci-fi worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html

As others have pointed out, quantum mechanics has yet to generate the equivalent of Newton or Einstein: an individual who takes existing knowledge and generates a conherent and comprehensible explanation of it.

Until someone bright enough to create a strong, new metaphor, we’re stuck with wave-particles.