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tennis freak
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hey guys i was wondering if you knew any thing that helped to prove the wave-particle duality theory of light. any help would be greatly appreciated
tennis freak said:hey guys i was wondering if you knew any thing that helped to prove the wave-particle duality theory of light. any help would be greatly appreciated
pmerrill said:So a followup question, in the double slit, since diffraction takes place, how does the photon know that the slit is there, considering it does not touch it?
Farsight said:I thought this looked like a good depiction of the dual slit experiment:
http://www.joot.com/dave/writings/articles/entanglement/spookiness.shtml
Lower down is the Bell State Quantum Eraser which seems particularly mysterious to me.
mathman said:One point that should be stressed concerning the double slit experiment is that the diffraction pattern shows up when the source is emitting one photon at a time, so you don't have interference between phtons, only interference of a photon with itself. Similar results can be seen with an electron source, one at a time through the double slit.
mathman said:One point that should be stressed concerning the double slit experiment is that the diffraction pattern shows up when the source is emitting one photon at a time, so you don't have interference between phtons, only interference of a photon with itself. Similar results can be seen with an electron source, one at a time through the double slit.
Wave-particle duality is the concept in physics that suggests that light has both wave-like and particle-like properties. This means that light can behave as both a wave and a particle, depending on the experiment being conducted.
The wave-particle duality of light was discovered through a series of experiments, including the double-slit experiment conducted by Thomas Young in 1801 and the photoelectric effect experiment conducted by Albert Einstein in 1905. These experiments showed that light can exhibit both wave-like and particle-like behavior.
In the double-slit experiment, a beam of light is shone through two parallel slits onto a screen. If light were only a wave, the light would diffract and create an interference pattern on the screen. However, if light were only a particle, it would create two distinct lines on the screen. The results of the experiment showed that light behaves as both a wave and a particle, thus proving wave-particle duality.
The role of the observer in proving wave-particle duality of light is crucial. The behavior of light is affected by the act of observation, which is known as the observer effect. This means that the act of observing light can change its properties, further supporting the idea of wave-particle duality.
The concept of superposition, which is the ability of waves to overlap and combine, is crucial in understanding wave-particle duality of light. In the double-slit experiment, the interference pattern on the screen is a result of superposition, showing that light behaves as a wave. However, the photoelectric effect experiment also showed that light can behave as a particle, further supporting the concept of wave-particle duality.