Scientists take the first ever photograph of light as both a wave and a particle

[Nuclear Unicorn]

Scientists take the first ever photograph of light as both a wave and a particle

...

It's been over 100 years and every experiment with light that any scientist has ever performed proves that light either behaves as a wave or that light behaves as a particle, but never both at the same time. No one has glimpsed both states simultaneously until now.

...



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/image-of-light-as-a-wave-and-a-particle-2015-3#ixzz3THGzleMG

No matter how you look at it, from the grandest structures to the tiniest elements, the universe is a thing of resounding beauty.

[hifiguy]

1. It's amazing that Einstein's predictions keep being proven right

so many decades later. Why didn't I get the math gene? If I had I'd have become a cosmologist or theoretical physicist instead of going to law school.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. "If I had I'd have become a cosmologist"

I think you would have made a wonderful cosmetologist.

[hifiguy]

6. Brain got ahead of derped typing skills.

If I'd had the math gene I'd have become, etc etc.

And maybe a better typist.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. There was nothing wrong with your typing. I'm just having a little fun. nt

[pinboy3niner]

9. You put "the make-up of the universe" in a whole new light

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. Well played, sir. Well played.

[AllyCat]

16. Hah!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. Were this true, it would invalidate quantum theory at its very core, which is utter nonsense to begin with. Einstein was right all along...

God does not play dice with the Universe.

[hunter]

11. Not a complete explanation of the experiment by the reporter, I think.

What the original paper describes is still quantum weirdness.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150302/ncomms7407/full/ncomms7407.html

By then collapsing only the perpendicular (horizontal) spatial coordinate, we obtain an image that contains spectroscopic information along the horizontal detector axis and spatial information along the vertical detector axis

The light is still behaving as a particle and a wave, since it hasn't been fully observed along either axis. The horizontal detector "sees" it as a wave with an indeterminate location along that axis and the vertical detector simultaneously "sees" it as a particle located along the vertical axis.

[seveneyes]

4. By the time you see it, it has already happened

Cause when something ends
Something else begins

[longship]

5. Is it a floor wax, or a dessert topping?

It's both! Or neither.

That's the puzzle of Quantum Field Theory. But the deal is... It is neither, and from our perspective, both. But that's just the thing, nobody required the universe to abide by people's preconceived conceptions. It is just different.

Maybe J. B. S. Haldane

said it best:

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

Meanwhile utter kooks like Deepak Chopra feel free to just make shit up because people do not feel comfortable in not understanding these things. It is confusing, therefore that's license for me to commit fraud. After all, nobody understands this shit. Nope, Deepak, that ain't the way physics works. You don't get to make shit up.

(I'd post a clip for Shimmer floor wax here, but there are no YouTube clips of it, apparently.)

[hifiguy]

7. All of this brings to mind

A VERY nerdy joke that I found ROFLMAO funny:

Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger get pulled over for speeding.

The cop asks Heisenberg "Do you know how fast you were going?"

Heisenberg replies, "No, but ve know exactly vhere ve are!"

The officer looks at him confused and says "you were going 108 miles per hour!"

Heisenberg throws his arms up and cries, "Great! Now ve're lost!"

The officer looks over the car and asks Schrödinger if the two men have anything in the trunk.

"A cat," Schrödinger replies.

The cop opens the trunk and yells "Hey! This cat is dead."

Schrödinger angrily replies, "Vell he is now!"

[sakabatou]

10. XD

[MisterP]

12. at least they don't call it a "wavicle" any more

will we have to turn to the quantum 'zines for this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_Letters

[shenmue]

14. Go home, light, you're drunk

[AllyCat]

15. Wow, that is beautiful.

[Zorro]

17. Just as I thought it would look like

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. lol