Re: Waves and Particles

From: Garry (gmalloy_at_cogeco.ca)
Date: 09/05/04 

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 10:30:59 -0400

"Gregory L. Hansen" <glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:chf2u0$he$2@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
> In article <vnq_c.30764$%m4.2463896@read2.cgocable.net>,
> Garry <gmalloy@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>Is there really a wave-particle duality, or can the idea of particles be
>>thrown out all together, in favour of the view that everything is actually
>>a
>>wave?
>>To put it another way: Is there evidence that particles actually exist?
>>All the information I have come across seems to point to everything being
>>a
>>wave. And what is the smallest wavelength/frequency possible anyway? The
>>awnser that it is the Planck length is the intuitive awnser, but now I
>>can't
>>see it being right.
>>
>>I dunno, just wonderin'
>>
>>Garry
>
> Whole electrons are detected. All the charge, momentum, etc. in a dot on
> your phosphor screen, or as a pulse from your PIPS detector. An electron
> shooting through a wire chamber reveals a trajectory. The charge of an
> electron is never found spread out through space.
>
> Backscatter an electron from a crystal, and you'll detect it in one place
> or another place (assuming it's not lost for some reason). Backscatter a
> whole bunch of electrons, and each one will be detected at one location or
> another, but with a pattern that looks like diffraction. That's what it
> means for a particle to diffract; not that it's smeared out like a water
> wave, but that the aggregate pattern of many detected particles show wave
> behavior. Neutrons, which pass easily through many types of matter, can
> be focused with lenses of e.g. MgF.
>
> It's not really a wave, and it's not really a particle. But some things
> can be interpreted as wave-like, and some things can be interpreted as
> particle-like.
>
> --
> "When the fool walks through the street, in his lack of understanding he
> calls everything foolish." -- Ecclesiastes 10:3, New American Bible

Thanks, that's probably as far as things can be taken without getting into
ideas that are usless due to there unprovability. Particles exist but not
really. Waves in a way are one-dimensional and can't describe everything
either.

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