Thursday 2 September 2010

Wave/particle duality described by wave only model

The wave/particle nature of light is well documented. However it is a mistake to assume that the particle like behaviour of light cannot be explained by wave only propagation of EMR. Take the example of a photon detector. Instead of explaining the point like appearance of light at the detector as the result of a particle `hitting` the atoms on the detector. One can say instead, that each atom on the detector screen acts like a capacitor. Succesively absorbing, storing up and re-emitting the incoming wave radiation in discreet amounts to the electron cascade. This also gives a point like appearance at the detector screen, despite being from a wave only source. The advantage with this model as it also explains all the wave like interference phenomena observed in EMR