Higgs Boson, String Theory, Dark Matter

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Re: Re: Re: Higgs Boson, String Theory, Dark Matter

A photon is an electromagnetic disturbance with a particular energy.

I like that description. Please correct me if Im wrong. A photon is a particle/wave "combination". We use either the term "wave" or "particle" at the appropriate circumstances because they are "conceptualy stable", reasonable ways to talk about certain properties in the correct situations. But in the end, the "particle/wave" concept is an approximation to "whatever is there" without meaning, exactly, that the particle is a definite set of matter nor that the wave is just a probabilistic phenomena.

 

[wollery]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Higgs Boson, String Theory, Dark Matter

I like that description. Please correct me if Im wrong. A photon is a particle/wave "combination". We use either the term "wave" or "particle" at the appropriate circumstances because they are "conceptualy stable", reasonable ways to talk about certain properties in the correct situations. But in the end, the "particle/wave" concept is an approximation to "whatever is there" without meaning, exactly, that the particle is a definite set of matter nor that the wave is just a probabilistic phenomena.

Exactly. Subatomic particles are amazingly frustrating things.

eta Post 1000, apparently I just graduated (or something).

 

[Pragmatist]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Higgs Boson, String Theory, Dark Matter

I like that description. Please correct me if Im wrong. A photon is a particle/wave "combination". We use either the term "wave" or "particle" at the appropriate circumstances because they are "conceptualy stable", reasonable ways to talk about certain properties in the correct situations. But in the end, the "particle/wave" concept is an approximation to "whatever is there" without meaning, exactly, that the particle is a definite set of matter nor that the wave is just a probabilistic phenomena.

Bottom line. We don't know what it is. We can only gauge its interactions with other things. In the course of those interactions, sometimes it appears to be acting like a particle, other times it appears to be acting like a wave.

At the present state of knowledge there is no way to determine whether it is particle or wave or something else, because any measurement accurate enough to do so falls within the Heisenberg limit of uncertainty.

 

[JAK]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Higgs Boson, String Theory, Dark Matter

Bottom line. We don't know what it is. We can only gauge its interactions with other things. In the course of those interactions, sometimes it appears to be acting like a particle, other times it appears to be acting like a wave.

At the present state of knowledge there is no way to determine whether it is particle or wave or something else, because any measurement accurate enough to do so falls within the Heisenberg limit of uncertainty.

Excellent! Now were moving!

Thank you Wollery, Pragmatist, and Bodhi Dharma Zen.