Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton had advocated that light was corpuscular (particulate), but Christiaan Huygens took an opposing wave description. While Newton had favored a particle approach, he was the first to attempt to reconcile both wave and particle theories of light, and the only one in his time to consider both, thereby anticipating modern wave-particle duality.
This demonstrates the wave–particle duality, which states that all matter exhibits both wave and particle properties: The particle is measured as a single pulse at a single position, while the modulus squared of the wave describes the probability of detecting the particle at a specific place on the screen giving a statistical interference ...
The culmination of the development is a presentation of two numbers that characterizes the visibility of the interference fringes in the experiment, linked together as the Englert–Greenberger duality relation. The next section will discuss the orthodox quantum mechanical interpretation of the duality relation in terms of wave–particle duality.
Matter waves are a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics, being half of wave–particle duality. At all scales where measurements have been practical, matter exhibits wave-like behavior. For example, a beam of electrons can be diffracted just like a beam of light or a water wave.
The Davisson–Germer experiment confirmed the de Broglie hypothesis that matter has wave-like behavior. This, in combination with the Compton effect discovered by Arthur Compton (who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1927), [9] established the wave–particle duality hypothesis which was a fundamental step in quantum theory.
EM radiation exhibits both wave properties and particle properties at the same time (see wave-particle duality). Both wave and particle characteristics have been confirmed in many experiments. Wave characteristics are more apparent when EM radiation is measured over relatively large timescales and over large distances while particle ...
The concept of wave–particle duality says that neither the classical concept of "particle" nor of "wave" can fully describe the behavior of quantum-scale objects, either photons or matter. Wave–particle duality is an example of the principle of complementarity in quantum physics.
While Bohr's presentation was not well received, it did crystallize the issues ultimately leading to the modern wave-particle duality concept. [6]: 315 The contradictory results that triggered Bohr's ideas had been building up over the previous 20 years. This contradictory evidence came both from light and from electrons.