Question:
Wave-Particle Duality?
cs_rvs
2011-10-16 21:41:06 UTC
I've come to learn that everything has wave properties, according to Wave-Particle Duality... electrons pop in and out around the nucleus so we can never be certain about their positions or destinations. But I'm having trouble making sense how objects can be described as waves. What about the particles causes us to describe them as being wave-like?
Three answers:
Harley Drive
2011-10-16 21:44:08 UTC
nobody and I mean nobody knows it's all theory the human brain is too stupid and limited to understand the workings of the universe, there appears to be a duality which we can't explain but we have no idea if we are even looking at it in the right way
beilul
2016-10-21 05:09:27 UTC
at the start, gentle *is* an electromagnetic container. this is the interplay between the electrical powered and magnetic areas that enable the sunshine to propagate in a vacuum. next, gentle, like each and every issues on the quantum point is the two a particle and a wave. extra rather, it quite is a hazard wave the place the possibility is of detection of a particle. The wave nature shows up in issues like interference fringes and diffraction varieties. there is likewise a wavelength and frequency linked with it. even although, if the intensity is extremely low, basically individual photons would be detected. Even nonetheless, the interference varieties will advance via the years. i could ought to element out that electrons have this comparable sources of being the two a wave and a particle. We normally think of of electrons as debris, yet in addition they coach interference varieties with useful and unfavorable interference. This quite shows an underlying cohesion in ALL standard debris: all of them coach the two wave and particle homes with the wave being a hazard wave.
anonymous
2011-10-16 21:51:56 UTC
Quantum particles like electrons are wavepackets. They have a central peak, allowing them to act like particles, but they also have a wave characteristic, allowing them to act like waves.



Wavepacket: http://www.astarmathsandphysics.com/university_physics_notes/quantum_mechanics/university_physics_notes_dispersion_relations_html_7d9c07.gif



Electrons and all other quantum particles have a wave-like nature: they produce the same kinds of interference bands as any other kind of wave does when it passes through a diffraction slit.



Also, the electron can be modeled as a wave (more precisely a standing wave) in the model of the hydrogen atom, and doing this allows one to correctly predict some of the properties of hydrogen. So this provides further evidence that electrons must be wave-like.



The Davission-Germer experiment also showed that electrons had a wavelike nature to them. This experiment confirmed Louis de Broglie's hypothesis that particles had a wavelength associated with them. de Broglie guessed that if light had both particlelike and wavelike characteristics, then matter probably did too, hence they probably had a wavelength.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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