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Not just light: Everything is a wave, including you

#1
C C Offline
The issue of realism about abstract description (in physics) and what specific ontology (of many candidates) would underlie the appearances of experiments obviously belongs to the battles waged in philosophy of science(PDF).
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https://bigthink.com/13-8/wave-particle-duality-matter/

A concept known as "wave-particle duality" famously applies to light. But it also applies to all matter — including you.

EXCERPT (Marcelo Gleiser): . . . While the wave nature of a moving baseball is irrelevant to understanding its behavior, the wave nature of the electron is essential to understand its behavior in atoms. The crucial point, though, is that everything waves. An electron, a baseball, and you.

De Broglie’s remarkable idea has been confirmed in countless experiments. In college physics classes we demonstrate how electrons passing through a crystal diffract like waves, with superpositions creating dark and bright spots due to destructive and constructive interference. Anton Zeilinger, who shared the physics Nobel prize this year, has championed diffracting ever-larger objects, from the soccer-ball-shaped C60 molecule (with 60 carbon atoms) to biological macromolecules. 

The question is how life under such a diffraction experiment would behave at the quantum level. Quantum biology is a new frontier, one where the wave-particle duality plays a key role in the behavior of living beings. Can life survive quantum superposition? Can quantum physics tell us something about the nature of life? (MORE - details)
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
If everything is a wave then does it mean that most everything is a combination of waves (chemistry?) Amazing that we need certain waves to act as wave sensors in order to know what in hell is going on. Are people’s thoughts waves? If so why can’t we sense them?
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#3
Kornee Offline
Another article with misleading clickbait title.
The quantum physics buffs at PhysicsForums are fond of repeating often that wave-particle duality is long outdated baggage.
Quantum objects are neither particles or waves though exhibit one or the other characteristic depending on the interaction involved.
According to QFT, 'everything' is quantized field excitations. It's emphasized that classical physical pictures are incapable of adequately capturing the actual physics.
All down to difficult math.
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#4
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:The crucial point, though, is that everything waves. An electron, a baseball, and you.

One among several seemingly paradoxical ontic metaphors from physics like particles without substance and discreteness without identity. The realm of quanta is nothing if not obstinately befuddling.
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#5
Zinjanthropos Offline
Been on my mind for many years, so what the hell…..Not sure how to write this but since they say everything is a wave, would an animate object’s wave be different than if the object was inanimate? IOW…. Live bodies vs dead ones. Does determining one involve wave sensing? Not exactly how I wanted to phrase things but I’ll live with it.

Just thinking about those creatures who play dead to avoid predation. They wouldn’t smell any different but somehow predators aren’t picking up the living vibes. If you were hammered and motionless, it would probably provide someone with the impetus to poke you to see if you were alive.

Seems motion is more of a factor for determining live objects than just a body emitting/reflecting waves.
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#6
Kornee Offline
I tried in #3. I really tried. Lesson - a grabby headline sinks in - deep. Dry facts not so much.
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#7
Zinjanthropos Offline
(Dec 21, 2022 01:48 PM)Kornee Wrote: I tried in #3. I really tried. Lesson - a grabby headline sinks in - deep. Dry facts not so much.

Hey Korn, I get it. I just don’t let my scepticism abruptly cut things off. Why not push it and see how far it goes? Maybe I’ll learn something like finding more things to be sceptical about. lol. It’s a forum, people shoot the shit.
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#8
Kornee Offline
(Dec 21, 2022 02:03 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Hey Korn, I get it. I just don’t let my scepticism abruptly cut things off. Why not push it and see how far it goes? Maybe I’ll learn something like finding more things to be sceptical about. lol. It’s a forum, people shoot the shit.
There's something profound in that bit Zinja. I just know it. Don't ask me to explain. Kind of a personal inward reflection/discovery thing. Which then blossoms outward - somehow. Rolleyes
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#9
Zinjanthropos Offline
(Dec 21, 2022 02:10 PM)Kornee Wrote:
(Dec 21, 2022 02:03 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Hey Korn, I get it. I just don’t let my scepticism abruptly cut things off. Why not push it and see how far it goes? Maybe I’ll learn something like finding more things to be sceptical about. lol. It’s a forum, people shoot the shit.
There's something profound in that bit Zinja. I just know it. Don't ask me to explain. Kind of a personal inward reflection/discovery thing. Which then blossoms outward - somehow. Rolleyes

Been around forums long time, ever since I paid $3500 for an HP PC with less computing power than a Fitbit. That was 35 yrs ago, starting out with Discovery Forum but there was another couple before that, can’t remember the names. Do you remember Time Travel Forum? That one had some characters I’d being seeing over and over again in different forums. Some Forums died thanks to trolling which was very popular even early on. Forums no where near as popular today. I’ve had many imitators (username) and one guy I pissed off saw fit to have my username entered in the Urban Dictionary. Zinjanthropos I deliberately misspelled to avoid the obvious if I had used the (us) ending. I was a Louis Leakey fan at the time.

Hope that clears up a few things and let’s move on.
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#10
confused2 Offline
Like Kornee suggest.. if reality is too inconceivable complicated we have to simplify it 'a bit'.

Here's Feyman on the double slits..
Quote:..each individual electron actually traverses every possible trajectory simultaneously.  “It goes in a nice orderly way through the left slit.  It simultaneously goes in a nice orderly way though he right slit.  It heads toward the left slit, but suddenly changes course and heads through the right.  It meanders back and forth, finally passing through the left slit.  It goes on a long journey to the Andromeda galaxy before turning back and passing through the left slit on its way to the screen.  And on and on it goes.  The electron, according to Feynman, simultaneously ‘sniffs’ out every possible path connecting its starting location with its final destination”, and you add up the probabilities of all conceivable paths.[2]  The probability that the electron (or photon - any particle) arrives at any chosen point is therefore built up from the combined effect of every possible way of getting there,

More:
https://elwynsbigbangpage.weebly.com/fey...rview.html
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