Light, is it particles or a wave?

Gir · Apr 22, 2001

Somebody posted this topic on another OT forum on another site and it quickly grew to newarly 60 repies.

Here's my explaination:

Okay everybody, listen up. Being the creatoR of the entire universe and all, I decided to let you all in on a few details. So keep your ears shut and your eyes wide open ->this is some of the 'secrets of the universe' stuff. ;-)

Light is the manifestation of a chance that is so infinetly small -but at the same time so very omnipresent- that it's actually visibly for us.
A chance of what? A chance that in a certain point in space at a certain time SOMETHING could excist, where there was nothing before (or afterwards). The difference between nothing (which is the definition space) and something (which is an amplitude that could represent light, any other form of radiation and last but not least MATTER itself) is decided by a mere chance.

In theory EVERYTHING is possible. Quantum mechanics is all about chance, location, mass and time. The position, its timeframe and the mass of an electron is never 100% certain (It's in fact decided by 'chance'), so the position of for example my arm isn't either. It could very well be de-attatched all of a sudden and reappear at neighbours' batroom (or in the worst case, not appear at all). The same thing goes with mass and time.

(*GASP*)

Light is something between the 'virtual' (a fancy word for the nothingness scientists can't figure out) and normal matter. And the reason we can see it is because light is a manifestation of chance (you are supposed to understand that sentence by now. If not, READ IT AGAIN DAMMIT!).

So THERE!
(I'm going to get myself a drink, now. If anyone wants to join me, I'm in the kitchen)

So, what do you think? What really is light? I am interested to hear your ideas.
BTW, I'm no longer in the kitchen.

8-4-7-2 · Apr 22, 2001

That sound like a product of a night spend with vast amounts of alcoholic beverages

Is DeBroglie's paradaxon of the duality nature of electrons also true for photons? I think not

_Zd_3s_ · Apr 22, 2001

Just curious creatoR, what and where do you study?

OshadowO · Apr 22, 2001

So basically what you're saying is that the reason we see light is because of an incident that occured due to chance?
Well most of life is made up of random chance when you think about things that way. But it'd be so hard to define stuff if we just agreed it all happened by chance.
I still don't see how that connects to light being a wave or particle tho.
I think I'm gonna stop now and give myself a chance to get something for my headache that occured by chance.
I'm really confused

_Zd_3s_ · Apr 22, 2001

What I remember from Physiscs class back in the days, (but hey! I'm just a dumb Biology-student, now :))

is that light is both a particle and a wave. Just because it's so damn small, you can actually notice it's wave-like properties. Each and every other particle also has wave-like properties (even you and I), but thanks to some sort of formula these properties don't manifest itself, because the wavelength is waaaay to large. Or something. That's what I remember...

Hell, whatever.

Gir · Apr 22, 2001

8-4-7-2:

"That sound like a product of a night spend with vast amounts of alcoholic beverages

That just so happened to be my favorite pass time

.

3s (is your name Dries?):
Funny that you mentioned that. I am inbetween studies at the moment. I am going to studie Information Engineering in Almere and quit studying Information Technologies in Amsterdam. Why do you ask?

OshadowO:
"most of life is made up of random chance".
I disagree. Pure chance is only present when your're talking about subatomic particles and stuff. Other things like carcrashes for 99.999999999% not the cause of chance, but because some action happened that had an uninevetable response. A brake failure, for example.

"I still don't see how that connects to light being a particle or a wave"
I don't either, but I do like what I just wrote. It's making sense, somehow.

The_Dudester · Apr 22, 2001

As a real-life physicist (or at least, someone in the later stages of a degree in physics...) I reserve the right to not post an answer here but just smile knowingly while reading everyone's replies so far...

Gir · Apr 22, 2001

BROEVA HARO! DINGES HEEFT GELIJK! HIK!

_Zd_3s_ · Apr 22, 2001

Originally posted by creatoR
BROEVA HARO! DINGES HEEFT GELIJK! HIK!

Don't you love it when even Obelix agrees with you?

I was just curious about your study, because you seemed to know something about quantum mechanics and stuff; so, I wondered if you studied anything like Physics or something.
And yes, the name is Andries, or Dries.

But 3s is shorter

.

Fluid · Apr 22, 2001

Light is an invention for people who think they're fat.

BunnYPandA · Apr 22, 2001

light is light , it aint wave and it aint particle - scientists just use them as models to help to understand how it works, some properties of light is best descibed using a wave model, and some using particle model as these models are 'easier' for us to understand

Kilham · Apr 22, 2001

Too late at night to think....
Remember that a 'photon' exists only due to the energy it contains (12400/Lambda eV), it has no rest mass.
I might be a bit out of date but wasn't there a theory that a single photon may be a packet of waves behaving as a particle?.
/me realises my physics is even rustier than my UT playing

.

LordKhaine · Apr 22, 2001

Particle. Its effected by gravity (as shown by black holes).

Boom · Apr 22, 2001

I thought light had some properties of both waves and particles, but was truly neither, or both.

Light is the abscence of dark.

LordKhaine · Apr 22, 2001

I think Boom sumed it up well, but if I had to answer one or the other, particle has my vote

OshadowO · Apr 23, 2001

Originally posted by creatoR

OshadowO:
"most of life is made up of random chance".
I disagree. Pure chance is only present when your're talking about subatomic particles and stuff. Other things like carcrashes for 99.999999999% not the cause of chance, but because some action happened that had an uninevetable response. A brake failure, for example.

Actually I could argue that the break failure was an act of chance too, but we'd probably end up arguing in circles

namu · Apr 23, 2001

Light is Light, BunnYPandA is right. It acts as particles AND waves. LK: it is NOT affected by gravity: black holes bend space around them (light always goes straight, but from our point of view "straight" near black holes is "curved"). And i think OShadowO has a point here: we call "random" what depends on way too many unknown factors, like the weather.

Taskmaster · Apr 23, 2001

And actually...

Hey Boom...

Darkness is the absence of light. You can never get rid of light by "introducing" darkness, but obviously the opposite is possible. Darkness doesn't actually exist (in a physical sense), it is simply the absence of light.

CHRYSt · Apr 23, 2001

For old times sake...

Hey task, Isn't Jesus the Light?

Well then is Jesus a wave or a particle?

lunchblaze · Apr 23, 2001

Croatoan!

Light, is it particles or a wave?

Offensive mode!

New Member

Regristered User

Irregular

Regristered User

Offensive mode!

Surfing the edge of underconfidence.

Offensive mode!

Regristered User

Zen fascists will control you

Evolutionary Masterpiece

Lost in RL

I sing the body electric...

Rumpshaking Moderator

I sing the body electric...

Irregular

Bleh.

Godlike - I like God

You can't help that. We're all mad here.

Codlike