Since its development 100 years ago, quantum mechanics has revolutionized our understanding of nature, revealing a bizarre ...

When a single photon encounters a barrier with two thin openings, it produces an interference pattern on a screen placed behind the openings – but only if the photon’s path is not observed. This ...

One of the stranger features of the quantum world is that light—even individual photons—can behave as a wave or a particle, depending on how you measure it. But, according to papers released ...

One photon (known as the signal) ... Nevertheless, the researchers have provided an interesting new way to approach the wave-particle duality. PNAS, 2012. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1201271109 ...

Quantum objects are notoriously shifty. Take the photon, for example. The quantum of light can act as a particle one moment, following a well-defined path like a tiny projectile, and a wave the ...

In a sense, then, a photon or any other quantum object acts like both a particle and a wave. This ‘wave–particle duality’ embodies many of the central conceptual mysteries of quantum ...

H. Yan et al. Experimental observation of simultaneous wave and particle behavior in a narrowband single-photon wave packet. Physical Review A . Vol. 91, April 2015, p. 042132. doi: 10.1103 ...

The key was going to be to subject the photon to a setup that would make it decide, “I am going to act like either a wave or a particle,” and then, before the photon reached the detector ...

With the photon model, a brighter light just produces more photons per second. ... However, they are different than this wave-particle model of light. Let’s look at a few other models.

This has been a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, demonstrating the particle-wave nature of light and matter. Light shone on the double slit will interact and form an interference pattern on a screen.