What's the best way to imagine the particle-wave duality?

[gib65]

Imagine that you had one photon traveling alone in space. Because of the particle-wave duality of photons (and pretty much every type of particle), this photon would not only travel as a particle, but as a wave too. There are 2 ways that I can imagine this, and I'd like to know which one seems more accurate.

 

1) As a wave, the photon propagates from a central point of emmission in all directions, and as a particle, it exists at a point somewhere on the crest of the propagating wave. It doesn't have an exact position being in a state of superposition, and only has a probable position.

 

2) As a particle and as a wave, it is at a precise position in space and traveling with a precise velocity and momentum. As a wave, it does not propagate, but travels in a specific direction, much like a wave traveling down a river.

 

Which one of these sounds more accurate?

[bascule]

I think it's easiest to think of them as strings vibrating in a Calabi-Yau space and thus exhibiting both particle-like and wave-like behavior simultaneously, but maybe that's just me

[5614]

The way I "see" it is that you have particles (photons) travelling in a wave shape, like dolphins go forward, but also up and down in water... so photons go forward and also up and down... it is this forward and up/down action that would make it seem a wave shape.

 

To be technically correct EMR (electromagnetic radiation) is neither a wave or a particle, it depends on it interacts. Some experiments show EMR to act like particles, other experiments show EMR acting like a wave, wave-particle duality means that the thing it is describing has charachteristics of both waves and particles it isn't actually both together as we visualise it, more it is a 'thing' having charachteristics of both.

[gib65]

The way I "see" it is that you have particles (photons) travelling in a wave shape, like dolphins go forward, but also up and down in water... so photons go forward and also up and down... it is this forward and up/down action that would make it seem a wave shape.

 

That seems to describe the second scenario I mentioned.

[Rebel.esd]

I'm inclined not to describe photons as moving, but rather that the point where they're most likely to be found "moves" throughout spacetime. Is there anything wrong with that understanding?

[SimonC]

I see them as particles following a wave-like path.