what is dule nature of light

neeraj sharma, 13 years ago

Grade:12

1 Answers

AKASH GOYAL AskiitiansExpert-IITD

420 Points

13 years ago

Dear Neeraj

Wave–particle duality postulates that all matter exhibits both wave and particle properties

The question whether light are streams of particles (corpuscles) or waves is a very old one

The notion of wave-particle duality, states that an electron, for example, may sometimes act like a wave and sometimes like a particle. Conventional physics explains that when electrons are excited, packets of quanta are released as electromagnetic radiation and then 'hit' matter, the same way a ball hits a wall, resulting in kinetic and heat energy at the target. It also states that Energy=hf where h is Planck's constant (h = 6.63E-34 Js), that is the frequency band is not continuous, but rather exists in digital steps (quantised) in exact factors of h. This wave-particle duality characteristic, together with the uncertianty principle and quantisation, have totally upset most of the past well known physicists, and although both wave and particle characteristics have been experimentally confirmed, it is still very unclear what's the mechanism undergoing within matter or wave

The idea of duality originated in a debate over the nature of light and matter dates back to the 17th century, when competing theories of light were proposed by Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton: light was thought either to consist of waves (Huygens) or of corpuscles [particles] (Newton). Through the work of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Compton, Niels Bohr, and many others, current scientific theory holds that all particles also have a wave nature

All the best.

AKASH GOYAL

AskiitiansExpert-IITD

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