yanital1000 wrote:

It seems a rather "stupid" question ...

The only “stupid” question is the one that remains unasked.

I will elaborate :

energy uses the medium of air to transport sound waves.
Electromagnetic waves do not have a medium. how is that possible ?

The short answer is “It just is.”

Ever since scientists discovered that light moved like waves in a vacuum—similar to sound waves in air, and water waves in water—they assumed that there was an all-pervading substance (they called it “ether”) that “carried” light waves, analogous to the the way that air carried sound waves via vibrating air molecules, and that water carried water waves via vibrating water molecules. In other words, the mysterious ether was what was “waving” or “vibrating” to carry the light along.

However, all attempts to detect the ether failed. While many scientists assumed that these failures were due to the lack of precise-enough measurements or experimental errors, Einstein postulated that perhaps there was no ether, and that light waves didn’t “need” a “medium” in which to “wave.” He assumed that the experimental evidence was, in reality, a demonstration of a fact of nature. He didn’t ask “why”—he said, instead, “why not?,” and accepted the experimental evidence as “proof” that not every kind of wave actually needs a medium in which to “vibrate.” From this, he was able to develop his Special Theory of Relativity.

yanital1000 wrote:

Thanks Martin the moderator
for a good & quick answer.   

You’re welcome, yanital1000 the New Member.

So is it true that every phenomena like EM waves can  always be
broken into smaller components which in turn are described as waves-particles again ?

Electromagnetic radiation sometimes behaves as a wave, sometimes as a particle (“photon”)—but never both at the same time. Strangely enough, a particle of matter can sometimes behave as a wave (but also never both as a particle and a wave at the same time). This “wave-particle duality” is a general characteristic of all physical entities (matter and energy). So everything is both a wave and a particle, as well as neither a wave nor a particle. Someone once came up with the somewhat facetious term “wavicle” as a compromise.

yanital1000 wrote:

Thanks martin.

I might add that in the end I have yet understood something that suppose to be simple:

This is basically my question asked by someone else


"Ask a physicist what the connection between light and photon is, and he will say: Light is a stream of photons. Then ask him to draw a sketch of the photons making up a wave of light, he will say: That is not possible. Then you ask yourself the question: Why not? "

We call something a particle if it behaves in a particle-like manner. But what does that mean? What is particle-like behavior? Similarly, we say that something is a wave if it exhibits wave-like behavior. But what do we mean by that? What is wave-like behavior? Whatever your answers, they will be drawn from pre-20th Century (“classical physics”) constructs for describing the physical world that we observed. They are models originally distilled and codified from early observation and experiment.

A model is a representation that is as good as the accuracy of its results. Einstein showed (and won his Nobel Prize for doing so) that the photoelectric effect could be explained only if light behaved as (classically defined) “particles.” As I mentioned in my earlier post, he also argued against the existence of the “ether”—that mysterious, all-pervading substance folks assumed must exist, to “carry” light (because light was composed of (classically defined) “waves,” and therefore must have a medium in which to propagate). In both instances, Einstein freed physicists from the shackles of their own definitions. Yet despite a century of head-scratching, we still don’t have suitable replacements.

draw me a stream of photons that represent a wave....

Yaniv.

Tell me how many angels can stand on the head of a pin, and I’ll draw you a stream of photons.

yanital1000 wrote:

...

I now connect between some things:

-  "wave collapse into a particle form in certain situations"
so in that picture the particle exhibits its wave form.

The point in which i was confused was :
wave as shown, catches bulk in space (example: amplitude=the "height" of the wave).

-this fact confused me; because wave has dimensions
it has to have components;  because in my perception, everything that catches space can be defined in terms of particle
or in second way, defined as abstract energy (borderless field that have a center of magnitude)

I don’t understand what you are saying.

yanital1000 wrote:

...

What I understood was that sometimes particle behave as particle and sometimes as a wave.

That’s what I tried to explain in my earlier post in which I mentioned “wave-particle duality.” Specifically, I said:

Martin wrote:

... Strangely enough, a particle of matter can sometimes behave as a wave (but also never both as a particle and a wave at the same time).

My subsequent post was directed at your request:

yanital1000 wrote:

draw me a stream of photons that represent a wave....

I am not sure if I’ve answered your questions adequately. If not, please tell me.

yanital1000 wrote:

Dear Martin !

I appreciate your will to satisfy my misunderstanding. ...

On a conceptual level, the difficulty is in trying to understand how one phenomenon (light) can behave like two completely opposite things (waves and particles). The term “wavicle” really is a good descriptor, for it captures the notion that light is a phenomenon that “looks” different, depending on circumstances.

Perhaps a reasonable analogy might be a coin: It has two sides (heads and tails). When you flip the coin, it will land showing either the heads side or the tails side, but not both. You would not be at all perplexed by this: Even though sometimes you see the heads side but other times you see the tails side, you have no doubt that you’re looking at a coin. The coin is then analogous to a “wavicle” of light, which has two mutually exclusive properties: sometimes it shows its “wave” behavior, sometimes its “particle” behavior.

On a more quantitative level, the wave nature of light (as well as the wave nature of matter) is generally interpreted as descriptive of the statistical behavior of photons (as well as the statistical behavior of particles). The following articles (click on the links) may help to provide a better “feel” for this:

Primer on Quantum Theory of the Atom

What Is Quantum Theory About?

I hope this helps.

I have a question - how to attach picture? I have some nice ones..