| >> Can light and matter be both particle and wave? Or neither? We don’t know. But we know! The answer is neither. Light and matter are weird things that is impossible to describe with usual language, but they can be described very precisely with math language. The problem is that the equations are too complicated and difficult to use. They have been tested thoroughly, for example in particle accelerators but in experiments with very few things moving around. It's very difficult to use them when the experiment gets bigger. In some cases, you can make some approximations and get almost the same result if instead of the full correct equations you use the wave equation. It's just an approximation. Light and matter are never waves, but in some case they can be approximated as waves. In other cases, you can make some approximations and get almost the same result if instead of the full correct equations you use the particle equation. It's just an approximation. Light and matter are never particles, but in some case they can be approximated as particles. And in other weird cases, bot approximations get very inaccurate predictions. |