wave-particle duality
| photons, do they have mass or are they massless? photons
do play a big role in the actions within a fusor, so knowing what
you can about them is a tool in imagining what happens inside the
poissor. I will have to accept the wave-particle duality for the moment. |
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| this text is pasted from an actual wikipedia article, and it illustrates that a photon is massless, and it is a particle in some respects. all the hyperlinks are working so clicking on them takes you directly to the wiki site, and it is easy to get lost there. | |||
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In
physics, a photon is an
elementary particle, the
quantum of the
electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of
light and all other forms of
electromagnetic radiation. It is also the
force carrier for the
electromagnetic force. The effects of this
force are easily observable at both the
microscopic and
macroscopic level, because the photon has no
rest mass; this allows for
interactions at long distances. Like all elementary
particles, photons are currently best explained by
quantum mechanics and will exhibit
wave–particle duality, exhibiting properties of both
waves and
particles. For example, a single photon may be
refracted by a
lens or exhibit
wave interference with itself, but also act as a
particle giving a definite result when quantitative momentum
(quantized
angular momentum) is measured.
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