Definition: wave-particle duality: The principle of quantum mechanics which implies that light (and, indeed, all other subatomic particles) sometimes act like a wave, and sometimes act like a particle, ...
Wave-Particle Duality
(a) Quantum realization that particles of matter and energy also exhibit many of the characteristics of waves.
(b) Basic feature of quantum mechanics that objects manifest both wavelike and particle-like properties.
Wave-particle duality
The modern theory that explains the nature of light includes the notion of wave-particle duality, described by Albert Einstein in the early 1900s, based on his study of the photoelectric effect and Planck's results.
wave-particle duality
The principle of quantum mechanics which implies that light (and, indeed, all other subatomic particles) sometimes act like a wave, and sometimes act like a particle, depending on the experiment you are performing.
Wave-particle duality
In physics and chemistry, wave?particle duality is the concept that all matter and energy exhibits both wave-like and Subatomic particle-like properties....
in quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics ...
Wave-particle Duality: the concept that some entities show both wave and particle properties. There are two cases.
(a) Electromagnetic Radiation.
Quantum (or Wave-particle duality) Theory
Combines previous three theories
Pioneered at end of the nineteenth century
Max Planck proposed that light waves are made of packets of energy known as quanta or photons in 1900 ...
[2.2] DE BROGLIE & WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY / QUANTUM STATISTICS
[2.3] WERNER HEISENBERG & MATRIX MECHANICS
[2.4] THE SCHROEDINGER EQUATION ...
The complementary wave and particle aspects, or wave-particle duality, of electromagnetic radiation and of material particles furnish another illustration of the uncertainty principle.
are only visible at extremely small distances, or by experimenting with particles with extremely small wavelengths (of the order of the compact dimension's radius), which in quantum mechanics means very high energies (see wave-particle duality).
He also achieved note for his arguments that light consisted of waves; see: wave-particle duality. In 1655, he discovered Saturn's moon Titan. He also examined Saturn's planetary rings, and in 1656 he discovered that those rings consisted of rocks.
To be truthful, modern physicists don't yet fully understand why nature displays this wave-particle duality. Nevertheless, there is irrefutable experimental evidence for both of these aspects of radiation.
The wave-particle duality, as it's known. All matter, not just light is both a wave and a particle. Most of the time light is a wave, an electromagnetic wave. It is only when it interacts with something that is assumes a particle-like nature.
It is often useful to think of light as a bunch of particle photons; whereas, at other times it is useful to think of light as a wave. This is termed the "wave-particle duality.
 See also: Light, Wave, Photon, Energy, Spectrum
  
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