![]() The standard Copenhagen interpretation (named in honor of the home city of Niels Bohr, who first formulated it) takes a simple stance: the reason why photons sometimes seem like particles and sometimes like waves is that our experiments dictate what we see. The major difficulty with quantum mechanics is its interpretation. All of this is backed up by years of work. Matter also has this dual character interference of electrons and atoms has been observed experimentally. In other words, single photons travel as though they are interfering with other photons, but is itself indivisible. If the experiment is sufficiently sensitive, the interference pattern appears grainy, where an individual photon appears on the screen, as you can see in the simulated projection pattern shown. Light famously has two natures: it is wave-like, interfering in the same way that water ripples cross each other it is also particle-like, carrying its energy in discrete bundles known as photons. In many ways, though, the most difficult experiment to understand is one of the simplest: the so-called "double-slit" experiment, in which the experimenter shines a light on a barrier with two narrow openings in it, and study the interference pattern it produces on a screen. It's easy to overstate how complicated quantum mechanics is: after all, it's one of the most successful theories in the history of science, something that wouldn't be possible without some level of comprehension. Right: Simulated double-slit interference pattern, showing the "graininess" due to individual photons striking the detection screen. Left: Schematic of a generic double-slit experiment, showing how the interference pattern is generated. (Scientific American also has a brief article on this experiment, republished from Nature.) Steinberg – have measured both the trajectory and the interference pattern from photons, a difficult feat to say the least, and one with interesting implications. The authors – Sacha Kocsis, Boris Braverman, Sylvain Ravets, Martin J. However, a paper from Science, titled " Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer", holds out hope that we might be able to get closer to understanding how nature works on the smallest scales. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in all of science at the same time, it's one of the most challenging to comprehend and one about which a great deal of nonsense has been written.
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