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Critique of Wave-Particle Duality of Single-Photons

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A prominent way through which wave-particle duality has been ascribed to photons is by illustrating their “wave-like” behaviour in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and “particle-like” behaviour in the anti-correlation experiment. This… Click to show full abstract

A prominent way through which wave-particle duality has been ascribed to photons is by illustrating their “wave-like” behaviour in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and “particle-like” behaviour in the anti-correlation experiment. This duality has been formulated in two ways. Some have based the claim on the complementarity principle. This formulation, however, has already been shown to be problematic. Others have made a much simpler duality claim by considering that single-photons are analogous to waves and particles in the above experiments. I criticise this formulation by arguing that the analogies cannot be distinctly established. Thus, this duality claim is found to be unsubstantiated.

Keywords: duality; particle duality; critique wave; single photons; wave particle; particle

Journal Title: Journal for General Philosophy of Science
Year Published: 2021

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