The Particle-Wave Duality

like waves, but they impact the screen like particles.
This image illustrates the particle-wave duality theory of light. In the famous two-slit experiment, electrons are fired through two parallel slits. The organized lines of electrons indicate that that they are interfering with each other like waves, but they impact the screen like particles.

The fact that nothing is as simple as it seems is exactly why metaphor is so powerful. Writing that has a double meaning doesn’t mean that it is either meant to be interpreted one way or the other, but is supposed to illuminate the idea that the author is using both meanings simultaneously. In fact, when it is too one sided, the metaphor just seems ridiculous (See “The Perfect Day“). In quantum physics, light exists both as a particle and as a wave simultaneously. Light is neither a little ball with mass and energy or an undulating wave with a frequency, amplitude and period. It is both things, and has all of those characteristics, at the exact same time.

 

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