Wave–particle duality

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

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Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/waveparticle-duality

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the core principle?Fundamental entities exhibit both wave and particle characteristics depending on experimental context
2. What is the key entities?Photons (light quanta) and electrons are primary examples
3. What is wave-particle duality?Wave-particle duality means that tiny things can act like a ball (particle) and like a wiggly wave at the same time. It shows that what we see depends on how we look at them.
4. Why does light sometimes act like a particle and sometimes like a wave?Light can act like a particle when it gives energy in little packets called photons, and it acts like a wave when it makes patterns that look like waves. The experiments with light show both sides.

Quantum mechanics: The fundamental theory in physics describing nature at the smallest scales of energy and matter.
Photon: A quantum of the electromagnetic field, behaving as a particle of light with zero mass and zero electric charge.
Electron: A subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge, exhibiting both particle and wave properties.
Planck's constant (h): A fundamental physical constant that relates the energy of a photon to its frequency.