What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act like

It went something like this:

Light tends to react like a particle, when tested to see if it is a particle, and light tends to react like a wave when tested like a wave.

It was something like that.

And it might have been gas instead of particle.

Anyone know? I remember this from high school or college, or, more accurately, I DON'T remember this from school!

I don't recall your statment being expressed mathmatically except for General Relativity.

Perhaps your are looking for Schroedinger's Wave Equation or simply the WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY concept.---Marc

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

When I was in school a popular term in use at the time when referring to light was "wavicles."

The spot where I started getting twitchy about light and it's behavoir was when it started interfering with itself ...

Meanwhile,

... still looking for Schroedinger's Cat ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

[ QUOTE ]
Stolen from the WWW
wave-particle duality
The principle of quantum mechanics which implies that light (and, indeed, all other subatomic particles) sometimes act like a wave, and sometime act like a particle, depending on the experiment you are performing. For instance, low frequency electromagnetic radiation tends to act more like a wave than a particle; high frequency electromagnetic radiation tends to act more like a particle than a wave.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is what you are looking for...

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

AlphaTea--- "To the Right of Rochester, NY"? Is that Syracuse or something like Fairport? Do you work for Big Yellow Father? (Can you tell I went to RIT?)---Marc

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

[ QUOTE ]
MicroE said:
AlphaTea--- "To the Right of Rochester, NY"? Is that Syracuse or something like Fairport? Do you work for Big Yellow Father? (Can you tell I went to RIT?)---Marc

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, not Kodak (or Xerox)...RG&E! I work at Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, NY. About 20 miles east of Rochester.
Did you work in Lasers or Cold Fusion at RIT? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

Ginna Nuclear. COOL. I'm very upset that some people are trying to close down Indian Point Nuclear in Westchester.

At RIT I was in Microelectronic Engineering. I don't remember the Cold Fusion lab, maybe it was in a secret sub-basement of the College of Engineering.

After they renamed the College of Engineering as the Jackie Gleason College of Engineering (or was that simply "Clown College"?) I lost all interest in RIT. Any school that would change its name for a few dollars really doesn't interest me and certainly doesn't need my money.---Marc

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

LOL!
I always thought it was the KATE Gleason College of Engineering. I think I like Jackie better tho.
I worked at IP2 back in '88 for a while and I could not believe the population density around the plant! Only 25 miles from NYC and up-wind. I guess things must have been alot different when it was built.
Most of the public outcry you hear is because they had some kind of a mechanical problem last year and personnel could not respond in the NRC mandated amount of time due to the horrendous (normal for NYC area)traffic.
I can tell you this...If you hear about it being shut down, buy stock in Surefire, DuraCell, Rayovac etc., 'cause there are gonna be a lot of people in the dark or a brownout! Twelve Million P.O.ed NYers, OOOOHHHH whata sight.
Ah, dont get me started on this one...

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

and what's that experiment that proves it acts like a wave and a particle? the one where the light shines through 2 slits and appears as four lines of light or something o ris it the other way around?.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

Diffraction ==> wave-like

Can't be split ==> particle-like

The 4 lines through 2 slits is diffraction interference.

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

[ QUOTE ]
AlphaTea said:
[ QUOTE ]
Stolen from the WWW
wave-particle duality
The principle of quantum mechanics which implies that light (and, indeed, all other subatomic particles) sometimes act like a wave, and sometime act like a particle, depending on the experiment you are performing. For instance, low frequency electromagnetic radiation tends to act more like a wave than a particle; high frequency electromagnetic radiation tends to act more like a particle than a wave.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is what you are looking for...

[/ QUOTE ]

That was it!

THANKS!

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

[ QUOTE ]
TedtheLed said:
and what's that experiment that proves it acts like a wave and a particle? the one where the light shines through 2 slits and appears as four lines of light or something o ris it the other way around?.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That was Thomas Young's double-slit experiment which proved that light diffracts. Two slits are bombarded by a single monochromatic source and the result is a group of bands of light and dark stripes on the other side of the slits.--Marc

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

[ QUOTE ]
MicroE said:
[ QUOTE ]
TedtheLed said:
and what's that experiment that proves it acts like a wave and a particle? the one where the light shines through 2 slits and appears as four lines of light or something o ris it the other way around?.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That was Thomas Young's double-slit experiment which proved that light diffracts. Two slits are bombarded by a single monochromatic source and the result is a group of bands of light and dark stripes on the other side of the slits.--Marc

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I remember from Quantum Mechanics (it's been a while) that if you try to measure (collect) the photons coming through one of the slits, the interference pattern is destroyed, and the light behaves like a particle in that photons pass through the other slit in a straight line.

BuddTX,

I think the principle you're after is called the complementarity principle, so you mnight want to search that term.

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

Yup, that's it. See this link.

Re: What was that Phyiscs law? Light tends to act

I think it was in the experiment of observing electrons using light source. The electrons that SEEN to go through slit one or two (only use 2 slits) do not interfere, while the ones that not seen to go through slit one or slit 2 do interfere. This experiment was meant to prove that electron behave as a particle. But the result showed that while they do behave as particle in that they arrived in lumps through EITHER slit one or slit two, they also interfere like a wave. Thus, this prove that any object behave like both particle and wave, which is called wave-particle duality.