Wave-Particle Duality
BOOK III: The Enigmatic Mystery – Consideration #191
Be a part of the Conversation!
Tuesday June 3, 2025
“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”
– Albert Einstein
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
There are very few situations in which a paradox in science or religion is truly “illogical” in the actual sense of the word. The Wave-Particle Duality of light and matter is an example of such an anomaly. How can a photon act as a wave and a particle? How can an electron that has mass act as a wave? And the most important question in terms of pure logic: how can both of these things occur simultaneously? The reality of Wave-Particle Duality has led many people, including scientists, to speculate, “But how can it be like that?”
Here’s how it works.
CONSIDERATION #191: Wave-Particle Duality
The Nature of Energy and Light
“It is seen that both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now, it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different.”
— Werner Heisenberg
One of Einstein’s most important contributions to modern science was his recognition that light acted as both a wave and a particle. This duality of light made it possible to acknowledge and utilize previous scientific theories based on light as being a wave, while supporting new quantum theories based on the particle nature of light. This becomes an even more important consideration when we realize that his most famous equation, E=mc2, establishes that matter (particles) and energy (light) are essentially the same thing.
“Einstein recognizes and acknowledges the unique dual nature of light…”
Energy can be manifested as both light (massless energy) and matter (energy as mass), it is essentially the same energy manifested into a different state of existence. However, the incredible caveat is that matter (mass) can never become light (energy) because of Einstein’s universal speed limit on light. Einstein recognizes and acknowledges the unique dual nature of light, and more importantly reality. There is a single unity, manifested through the incongruent opposites of duality; requiring two separate theories to fully explain: Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory. Light is just one example.
“It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do.”
– Albert Einstein
One consideration of the “Unity” principle of dualism has traditionally been that although light has the properties of opposites (wave/particle) both opposites never manifest themselves simultaneously. It appears that this argument may no longer be valid.
“…it seems that light behaves selectively depending on the environmental constraints. Sometimes it’s a wave, sometimes it’s a particle… and sometimes it’s both. Scientists have only ever been able to capture an image of light as either a particle or a wave, and never both at the same time… until now.”
Mihai Andrei – The world’s first image of light as both a particle and a wave
Even in Einstein’s universe the wave-particle duality of light was perplexing; but the Big Bang is a reality outside of Einstein’s universe which means that Einstein’s rules no longer apply. Which means his universal speed limit no longer applies. This means that energy and matter could have been virtually interchangeable at some point in existence. Which raises the question as to how such a thing is possible? How is one thing, two things? How do two things, become everything? Because everything is really only One Thing: energy. Everything else is a manifestation of that One Thing. Those manifestations are expressed through dualism.
From One; two. (Singularity/Energy) From Two; three. (waves/particles) From Three; the entire universe. (Proton-Neutron-Electron/all matter) Lao Tzu called it Tao. Christianity called it Logos. Science calls it the Wave-Particle Duality of Light.
Ultimately, all three call it a mystery.
POSTSCRIPT
The Nature of Energy and Matter
"Matter is Energy (light) whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter."
– Albert Einstein
When Einstein proved the dual nature of light, it was considered a unique property of photons, or energy, because they had no mass. They were not matter. Light was a unique property in the universe. Einstein demonstrated that light and matter were in fact manifestations of the same energy. In 1924, French physicist, Louis de Broglie, followed up on Einstein’s work to demonstrate that all matter, not only photons, were part of the dual wave-particle nature of reality.
“Inspired by the work of Albert Einstein on the wave–particle duality of light, de Broglie proposed that matter also has both particle and wave properties. His 1924 thesis on the subject made his career and launched the new field of wave mechanics (see the article by Heinrich Medicus, Physics Today, February 1974, page 38). By 1927 experimentalists had confirmed de Broglie’s theory by demonstrating the wave nature of electrons. Two years later, in 1929, de Broglie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.”
– Louis de Broglie, © 2018 American Institute of Physics (Physics Today - August 15, 2018)
Since electrons have mass, they are matter. This essentially means that all matter is at its essence pure light, or energy. Basically, the various things we think of as physical, tangible, or “real,” is in truth the same thing perceived differently through the five senses. Everything in the universe is an abstraction of pure energy, or light.
“Louis De Broglie demonstrated that every physical object actually has wave properties – in a way, everything is both a wave and matter at the same time. This is called the wave-particle duality.”
Mihai Andrei – The world’s first image of light as both a particle and a wave
Today, modern science tells us that all physical objects have wave properties. Essentially meaning that empirical objects are both physical and nonphysical; potentially at the same time. And because we are physical objects, we are also composed of wave properties. Therefore, we are also part of the wave-particle duality. As of today, wave-particle duality remains an unexplained manifestation of the enigmatic mystery.
“The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, ‘But how can it be like that?’ which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar… If you will simply admit that maybe [Nature] does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘But how can it be like that?’ because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.” [About wave-particle duality.]
— Richard P. Feynman
Ironically, the quantum answer to why the universe is the way it is may be “because that is just the way it is.” Not quite the kind of scientific explanation we are used to.
Next week Theological Mystery #3…
Get More Reality with the “Reality by a Thread” Paid Upgrade!
Click Image to Learn More…
Unique Content Makes Untangling the Knots of Reality “One of the Best Podcasts about History!”
Excerpt from this week’s Special Edition Podcast: “Untangling the Reality of Gravity”
“…this unique Substack podcast by FRANK ELKINS is not strictly speaking history. It is a strange mix of history, philosophy, theology, spirituality, physics, and astronomy…Try this podcast for a start.”
– Barbora Jirincova, The Best Podcasts About History
Excerpt from this week’s “Reality by a Thread” (Compatible and Incompatible Identities )
“In terms of rational and empirical identities, some identities are similar and compatible whereas some identities are dissimilar and incompatible. The more compatible the identities are, the more stable and consistent reality is. Identities tend to become more incompatible as rational identities increase. Empirical identity is limited to a focus on survival, but rational identity essentially has no limiting factors. Rational identities are not necessarily focused on survival, which may conflict with other important empirical identities.”
– Frank Elkins (Reality by a Thread: June, 2025)
All for less than a couple of cafe lattes every month at a local coffee shop! And You Will Have Something Interesting to Talk About With Your Friends at the Coffee Shop!!
Only $7.00 a month or $70.00 a year! UPGRADE NOW!
Book V – Quantum Consciousness
“Book V considers the questions related to what Consciousness is, how it evolves through levels of Perception and Awareness, why each step in the process is important, where we are currently on the ‘Arch of Consciousness,’ and how all of this connects to Artificial Intelligence.” (Click to Watch…)
Books I-VI Are Now Available! Click Image for more information…
