this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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The duality of particles (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I get that part. With absolutely no disrespect or jokes to the person who asked why there was a duality to the meme, I was actually wondering if the question was another joke I wasn't understanding. (Many comment-based double entendres fly over my head, unfortunately.)

Still though, this whole area of science is confusing, especially when trying to understand EM radiation from antennas. You can shake some electrons in a metal wire and generate a wave (of photons?) that can cause the electrons in another wire to ocillate. (It's really weird when you think a little on that.)

I have heard the word "photon" being used in regards to EM recently, and that is confusing me a bit. It seems legit on the surface when thinking about how energy is transferred, but it also kinda doesn't. Would you happen to have any clarity on that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I would suggest reading the book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman. He won the Nobel Prize for his theory of how light and matter interact and it has been tested to more accuracy than even Einstein's Theory of Gravity.

The book is written for anyone to understand without any mathematics.

What makes his explanations so simple is he is adamant that photons are particles and explains everything as particles interacting.

So your question about EM becomes: an electron in a metal emits a photon, the photon travels until it hits another electron in a piece of metal, that electron's energy is measured and you received the signal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the details. I am to the point now that the concepts are clear enough that solid literature could fill in some blanks. (It's taken me about a year or so before I could actually begin to visualize wave/particle concepts. Not gonna lie: PBS Space Time and Sabine Hossenfelder videos helped a ton.)

Ok, cool. The issue was that I had previously visualized the EM wave as being more akin to how electrons flow through wires, but with more magic involved. Once I started to revisit many my core conceptual beliefs, there was a ton that didn't make sense. Basically, you just gave me some validation, thanks. (There aren't too many people in my life that are interested in the nuances of photons, believe it or not.)