- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
You must log in or # to comment.
Here’s something that helped me understand wave/particle duality of a photon.
A cone can be, from a 2D standpoint, a triangle or a circle. A photon is either a wave or a particle from the 3D standpoint. It’s only when you increase the dimensions of perception that you see the object for what it truly is.
Really, it’s a misuse of language to describe elementary particles as having ‘wave/particle duality’. If you ask them a wave-like question, they give a wave-like answer. If you ask them a particle-like question, they give a particle-like answer. But that doesn’t mean they’re a combination of the two; just means that our everyday understanding of big things isn’t suitable for describing small things.
We know that general relativity and quantum dynamics can’t be quite right. They have enormous predictive power, but they don’t overlap, which means we can’t model things where they’re equally important; the big bang and black holes for instance. “Higher dimensions” is the string theory way of trying to reconcile them - it might be right. But a theory isn’t scientific if it doesn’t make predictions you can test, and string theory hasn’t been very productive in that so far. Amazing maths though, has been great for expanding our knowledge there.
I think of it like polymorphism in programming.
If I have an integer “1”, that is equivalent to the float “1.0” or the string “1” or the list [1]. Depending if I ask “1” a float question, an integer question, a list question or a string question it will respond as it should for each type of question, defaulting to integer because that’s the “most correct” datatype for it.
As a proponent of strongly typed languages, don’t do that.
Instead, I think of it as one type implementing multiple interfaces, but we’re still working on understanding the underlying type and what other interfaces it implements. Yes, you could implement a “compare” interface that does what you describe, but I don’t think that’s a good way to think about what’s going on. Instead, I think of it as Go interfaces (Rust traits are close enough) where we define a bunch of interfaces, and the particle/wave happens to implement all of them.
We’ve provided a definition for waves and particles, but electrons seem to be something a little different, so it’s very possible neither waves or particles actually exist and are merely manifestations of some other type that can exhibit both types of behavior. Once we figure out what that underlying type is, we can make more inferences as to other behaviors it could have.
I was introduced to this concept with the 1884 book entitled Flatland by Edwin Abbott. It was a quick and enjoyable read. Highly recommend.
Damn, I saw those movies at the end of a trimester in high school.
So you’re saying waves and particles are projections into 4D spacetime from some higher-dimensional spacetime?
deleted by creator
Subplot of 3 body problem
The key to beating the final boss of quantum superposition is leaving everything alone to do its thing. The best of all possible worlds unfolds around you. Just don’t look at it.
When I do that people call me lazy.
Particles got it made. Hang out in an empty room long enough and new particles show up to say hi, hang out, and maybe make something cool together. Does this mean today’s internet is antimatter?
Exposing normal reality to it is highly energetic and mutually destructive, so I think the theory holds
They hang around and they wave at you when you’re not looking.
It’s all just waves and fields (gestures with hands).
Sounds something like a bunch of particles would say.
look in the mirror, you “bunch of particles”
shy electron can go when it wants to
