"Light is a wave and particles"?

Question

Light is considered to be both a wave and made up of particles. By calling it both, do we mean that light is waves of particles?

Answer 1

Light travels in waves. Light is composed of particles called photons that actually do the travelling

Answer 2

The particle and the wave are nothing more than scientific models.



What is a scientific model? It is a strategy scientists use to understand a certain situation. It may not be entirely correct, but it is still useful in some situations.



The particle is a scientific model where we consider the modeled entity to behave as if it were a "steel ball". It has a negligible geometric size, and it is definitely in one place at one time, and it exists as discrete quantized versions of this entity for which if you split any particle you can no longer consider it to be the entity of interest.



The wave is a scientific model where we consider the modeled entity to exhibit the characteristics of waves known at our macroscopic world, such as interference patterns and diffraction. Waves are more distributed models than the localized particle model.



When considering light to either be a particle or a wave, all we mean is sometimes it is useful to consider it a particle, and sometimes it is useful to consider it a wave. It exhibits both behavior, but never both behavior in the same experiment.



It turns out, all elementary particles behave as both particles and as waves.

Answer 3

Light has both wave &particle nature. But it can't exhibit both the natures simultaneously..



It acts as a wave or a group of particles.. but it is not a wave of particles..



But it assumed that light wave is composed of photons those can also exhibit dual nature..

Answer 4

Light is made of waves ( based on the quantum theory). It is made up of particles named Photons. People used to think of it as a particle but soon when scientist carried out experiments such as the double slit experiment, it acted differently. The quantum theory is to hard to explain by hand but it is an interesting property and i recommend you finding out what it is. The website below will explain what quantum mechanics are describing their properties and will definitely leave you amazed.

Answer 5

The statement "Light is a wave AND particles" is incorrect, at least to my understanding.



The statement this appears to be based on tells us that light shows the QUALITIES of both waves and particles at different times, under different conditions.



So no, light is not "waves of particles".

Answer 6

No. Light has a dual nature - particulate and wave. One experiment, such as the slit ones, can show that light is a wave. Another experiment, such as the photoelectric one, can show that light is a particle. But no single experiment can show both natures of light simultaneously.