Can someone explain to me the wave/particle duality of quantum

>>8473858
Its magic

Read up on the Double-Slit experiment

Basically, waves and particles are two manifestations of the same thing. Depending on the context, it may be more convenient to refer to them as one over the other.

>>8473862
Dumb spotted. "Two manifestations of the same thing." What a dumb.

Two different things can't be same thing, that's not how determinism works, you dumb.

>>8473867
>being a naive realist

the copenhagen interpretation supposes that the wave function is the true entity. a pulsating wave of the possible locations of the particle.

in valence bond theory, these wave functions produce constructive or deconstructive waveforms which form the bonds in chemicals.

>>8473867
I don't understand how the presence of an observer changes things.

>>8473874
The Copenhagen interpretation views the wavefunction as more of a mathematical object representing the observer's uncertainty than an actual physically real wave (at least, according to Bohr and Heisenberg).

>>8473878
Just dumb Copenhagenists who think observation by a conscious observer magically collapses the wavefunction

>>8473878
>>8473873
>Buzzwords

Back to highschool, dumb kiddos.

>>8473884

isnt it something to do with the limits of observing something without interfering with it? since observation is not a process independent from the physics of the world of what youre observing?

>>8473884
that not what the Copenhagen interpretation sez, but it's OK if you want to water it down to that so you can "understand" it. brainlet

>>8473858
There are limitations in calling light a wave, and there are limitations in calling light a particle.

The usual starting point for the story comes with Max Planck who was studying blackbody radiation. Remember that prior to this point, light was regarded as a wave. A perfect blackbody is basically an object that emits all the energy that it absorbs, or in other terms, its energy isnt be reflected back onto itself. This energy comes in the form of heat, and electromagnetic radiation. The issue was that the distribution of the electromagnetic radiation's frequencies for black body given the presumed continuous wave nature of this light was flawed and provided us with impossible solutions for very hot objects (look up "ultraviolet catastrophe"). Planck fixed this by quantizing the radiation. Basically speaking, he took the previously known distribution of the radiation, and basically tacked on a factor which had the physical implications of this radiation only being emitted in discrete amounts, rather than being continuous.

Following this, Einstein proposed that light was actually discrete packets of energy, constrasting with Planck merely proposing that the energy was simply emitted in discrete amounts. He proved this with the photoelectric effect, and in doing so he used the same factor Planck had made up to make his numbers work to describe the amount of energy of one of these discrete packets.

That was fine and dandy, we could view light as a stream of photons which travelled in waves, but a French guy by the name of De Brogile pushed it a step further and postulated that all matter could be treated as such. This meant that all matter could be described through particles and through waves.

Don't think that wave-particle duality implies that an electron or a photon is a wave and a particle at the same time. That's not what this is saying. This is saying that neither is explicitly more correct than the other, and both can be used.

take a look at uncertainty principle and double slit and/or the first quarter or half of a modern physics textbook

File: magic_science_gaslamp-fantasy_gg_2560.jpg (133KB, 332x335px)

133KB, 332x335px

>>8473878
It doesn't - it's a statement taken out of context and used to make it sound more magic than it is. It's simply that one cannot measure a particle's position without collapsing the wave, as there's no more fundamental particle with which you can measure with.

All these measurements are made by machines, not men, after all, and all particle interactions require the collapse of a wave - it's not as if every corner of the universe is constantly under observation, yet clearly, particle interaction that we've not previously observed had been going on.

Plus, it's not really a thing anymore:
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html
With a little trickery, you can see both states at the same time.

>>8473881
according to my organic chemistry book :

"An electron is like a wave. Bring the waves close together and the waves reinforce each other producing constructive interference. A bond is simply the sharing of electron density between two atoms as a result of the constructive interference of their atomic orbitals. "