Scientists capture the first image of light behaving as both a particle and a wave

ack

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http://www.cnet.com/news/this-is-the-first-photograph-showing-light-as-both-a-particle-and-a-wave/

To take the photo, the team used special apparatus, firing a pulse of laser light at a tiny metallic nanowire, which contained charged particles. The laser energised those particles, inducing them to vibrate. Light waves were then sent along the wire in two opposite directions, meeting in the middle and creating a third wave -- a standing wave.


 

amirm

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That's fascinating. Thanks for posting it.

For people who don't know the background here, originally light was thought to be a particle (photons of light). Later, it was shown to also act like waves. Think of how light can diffract around a corner of a small hole and change direction. Here was the crazy thing. When you observed light with any instrument, it would give up its wave characteristic and look like particles! This is shown in the famous double-slit experiment where light normally goes through both slits like a wave would and create an interference pattern. But if we attempt to measure which way the photons are going, the pattern disappears!

This is one of the best video that explains this fascinating quantum effect:

 

ack

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