The first ever photo of light as both a particle and wave.

[DevilishBooster]

This is a huge breakthrough for quantum mechanics. I hope that it will give a major boost to the developement of data transfer and storage. Years ago there was progress in crystal storage devises, but if I remember correctly the issue was that it was one time use because they has no way of "erasing" written data. If I had to guess, this new breakthrough on understanding how light behaves could be a big stepping stone in more stable and dense data storage.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html

Since the days of Einstein, scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of this dual behavior.

[beebskadoo]

Taste the rainbow.

 

That is seriously awesome though!

[RatedBlam]

The picture looks cool.

 

But light seriously fucks with my head. The bloody thing seemingly has mass when in motion and is dualistic in nature.

[DevilishBooster]

The picture looks cool.

 

But light seriously fucks with my head. The bloody thing seemingly has mass when in motion and is dualistic in nature.

 

Yeah, a lot of the time I can pick up the basics of a new concept pretty easily, but the properties and behavior of light are one of those things that make my head spin.

[Poofu]

what exactly is that i thought photon waves would just be straight wavy lines

[Tech_Dreamer]

This is seriously awesome..

[Altecice]

Photons being a light and a wave is nothing new to quantum physics but it is great to see some images . Although I do think it can be explained better. Perhaps  axions particles could be involved in some way:

 

"advantage of axions is that they can spontaneously decay into things that might be observed. An axion can turn into two photons, and that light could hypothetically be detected. The reverse process, light turning into an axion, is also possible—and it may even play a role in the propagation of light. The light would briefly become an axion, which would then decay back into two photons, with the briefly-existing axion being considered a virtual axion."

 

 

[DevilishBooster]

what exactly is that i thought photon waves would just be straight wavy lines

 

If you were looking at a single photon, then yes, i believe it would. I also thing that for the experiment the extrapolated out the exposure so that they could observe the differences in the wavelengths. I coul dbe wrong though, quantum mechanics is not my strong suit.

[DevilishBooster]

Photons being a light and a wave is nothing new to quantum physics but it is great to see some images .

 

I know the concept is nothing new, but "knowing" something is and being able to actually observe it are two different elements. I'm willing to bet that there will be new discoveries that stem directly from this experiment.

[Tonylu1595]

The picture looks cool.

 

But light seriously fucks with my head. The bloody thing seemingly has mass when in motion and is dualistic in nature.

That whole "Things can have momentum without mass" thing messed me up.

[Stomplar]

dude, i made something like that in 2nd grade art class. where is my nobel prize.