Philosophy / Science / Religion

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

... but the fact that electrons will change or become "activated" to be either particle or wave when they interact with something else is so completely D'UH that I'm perplexed it made such a splash of news when it was "discovered."

Well, it really was (and still is) a massively important discovery (though just to be clear these discoveries are all nearly a century old).

But in terms of the duality it isn't so much that a photon becomes either a wave or a particle at the moment of observation it is more that any particular observation can only reveal either its wave or its particle aspects. And the ways in which experimentation reveal and flip between those aspects are weird nearly beyond comprehension (and largely are beyond my comprehension).

In a very crude analogy (it fails on many levels), take a blue apple-flavored candy cane. It is simultaneously blue and apple flavored. But when you observe it with your eyes all you can determine is its blueness, and when you observe it with your mouth all you can observe is its appleness. But when you observe its appleness it doesn't lose its blueness. And it is impossible to simultaneously observe both its blueness and its appleness because you can't see it and taste it at the same time.

GRAND CAVEAT: I'm hardly qualified to explain the deeper nature of quantum mechanics and there is perhaps a greater than even chance that I've screwed it up. That said, I have read a lot on what people who are qualified to explain quantum mechanics feel the implications are within the area under discussion. So if I say something obviously stupid, it is best to assume that the flaw is with me and not with them.

Stephen Hawking's latest book The Grand Design does, I think, a pretty good lay explanation of wave-particle duality.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Alex

(though just to be clear these discoveries are all nearly a century old)

The reason that I included that aside is my sense when you talk about the way these discoveries were conveyed is that you're reporting them as if you personally remember when they were announced.

If that is incorrect and you're referring to the discoveries of the 1910s and 1920s (which is what I'm talking about) then apologies.

But if you aren't, I'm wondering if what you're recalling is the explosion of Quantum Mysticism starting in the mid-'70s (such as with Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukov's The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and eventually Deepak Chopra's claptrap) which "discovered" the implications of quantum mechanics for theories of consciousness. These generally involve horrible abuse of the science they claim to build on, extending it by metaphor into areas on which actual quantum mechanics has nothing to say, at best, or says the opposite, at worst.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex

Stephen Hawking's latest book The Grand Design does, I think, a pretty good lay explanation of wave-particle duality.

Ooh, new Hawking? Hold placed.