wave-particle duality

[Burlyman]

It doesn't make any sense, and it's obviously not true. Answers about physical reality are supposed to make sense.

Thoughts? :3

[Top Gun]

The beautiful thing about scientific discoveries is that they don't care at all what you think makes sense or doesn't. All that matters is what physical reality tells us. Light can act as both waves of energy and discrete photons, and matter can act as both individual particles and waves. This is how the universe functions.

[vision]

Answers about physical reality are supposed to make sense.

Where did you come up with this assumption?

[Top Gun]

The moment Neo starts making sense is the moment that physical reality does as well. I won't hold my breath.

[Jeff250]

An early human who possessed innate intuition for wave-particle duality wouldn't have any survival advantage over one that didn't, so we don't have that.

[TigerRaptor]

Neo Nonsense makes people facepalm so hard they change race.

[Burlyman]

Okay, you can avoid the flames and give a mature response.

wave-particle duality isn't a "scientific discovery," it's an interpretation of scientific discovery.
Aren't physicists supposed to answer life's questions, especially since they don't think religion does that already?

We're not early humans, so interpretation of physics does help. If you're so focused on survival, why do you throw away your soul?

[vision]

Aren't physicists supposed to answer life's questions, especially since they don't think religion does that already?

That's not the job of physicists. There are plenty of physicists who are religious and also believe in any number of gods. Physicists explore the physical world and create explanations that might not make sense but are at least useful in that they can make predictions. The better the prediction, the more useful and accepted the explanation is even if it's wrong. It's OK to be wrong in science because you get less wrong over time. That's scientific progress.

[Burlyman]

That's what they started saying when quantum mechanics and quantum field theories came around. Scientific progress is getting the right interpretation, i.e. philosophy, in my opinion, which is what's already out there, but some of it is missing. There are a lot of silly interpretations of quantum physics, and they're more popular (for a bad reason), but the right one helps you understand it and it answers a lot of questions.

[vision]

There are a lot of silly interpretations of quantum physics, and they're more popular (for a bad reason), but the right one helps you understand it and it answers a lot of questions.

I'm just a science fanboy who is bad at math, but I do enjoy reading the work of Feynman. One book I read gave a great explanation of how to visualize (and calculate) the wave/particle idea. You could imagine a single particle splitting infinite times as it travels then coming together and consolidating at a point in the future. I don't remember the name of the book, but you can learn about Sum Over Paths to get the basic explanation.

[Top Gun]

That's a fantastic analogy for the wavefunction of a particle, which is just what you'd expect from Feynman.

[Burlyman]

Particles don't do that. There are no such things as particles, just localized wave-packets.

[Top Gun]

...so you're using the core idea of wave-particle duality to...argue against wave-particle duality? That's a bold strategy Cotton.

[Burlyman]

Um... no, try again. lol

There's a wave-only interpretation that isn't as popular as some of the other ones.

And why did you call me cotton? Sounds racist. >_>

[Top Gun]

[Alter-Fox]

Answers about physical reality are supposed to make sense.

Thoughts? :3

Woooow, that sounds like a really boring physical reality you think you've got there.
Glad I don't live in it.

[Burlyman]

lol... Hey, things are fun when they make sense.

[Top Gun]

No, things are much more fun when they don't make sense, when your results don't match your expectations, when you have to go back to the drawing board. That's the joy of scientific discovery.

[vision]

Particles don't do that. There are no such things as particles, just localized wave-packets.

You might be right! There are some theories that throw out particles altogether and I wouldn't be surprised if one of these evolved into the long sought after unified theory. From a perspective of everyday experience it doesn't matter either way, but if we can somehow build a better world using a wave-packet interpretation of the Universe, let's go!