Thread: Multiple Questions

I've been talking to someone and it has raised many questions in my mind. Can anyone here help answer any of these?

Is light in a duality? Is it in the form of particles(photons) & a wave at the same time?
Must a particle have mass?
What are electrons, neutrons & protons themselves made of?
Is the speed of light different all the time?
What is heat?
Is there a mass to a bond between protons? Does F=ma relate to this?

Thanks

Protons and are made of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark held together by gluons
Neutrons are made up of 1 up quark and 2 down quarks held together by gluons

The speed of light is never different. It's a constant no matter who is observing it.
Heat is the transfer of thermal energy.
And I may get corrected on this, but I'm pretty sure all objects have both particle and wave properties. For objects with larger masses the wave energy decreases.

The speed of light in a vacuum is always constant, but light slows down whenever it travels in any medium, such as glass or water.

Originally Posted by JordieW

I've been talking to someone and it has raised many questions in my mind. Can anyone here help answer any of these?

Is light in a duality? Is it in the form of particles(photons) & a wave at the same time?
Must a particle have mass?
What are electrons, neutrons & protons themselves made of?
Is the speed of light different all the time?
What is heat?
Is there a mass to a bond between protons? Does F=ma relate to this?

Thanks

Yes, what you speak of in the first two questions is known as "wave-particle duality."

A particle doesn't have to have mass. For example, photons, gluons, the hypothetical graviton, and possibly some neutrinos are massless.

As stated above, protons and neutrons are composed of quarks and then gluons that bind the quarks together via the strong force. Electrons are elementary particles (meaning they have no further structure), but if you want to go as far as string theory, they're little vibrating strings of energy.

The heat question has been answered.

A mass to a bond between protons... Well, if you consider that the protons and neutrons in a nucleus are held together via the exchange of virtual pions, or the residual strong force, there'd be energy there, and that would contribute some mass. It has nothing to do with F = ma.

Originally Posted by SteveF

The speed of light in a vacuum is always constant, but light slows down whenever it travels in any medium, such as glass or water.

Oops..sorry, I forgot about the whole indicies of refraction thing. I was thinking in terms of relativity.

Is light in a duality? Is it in the form of particles(photons) & a wave at the same time?

I'm guessing that, rather than a yes or no response, you'd prefer an deeper explanation describing the nature of wave/particle duality.

Although I learned about wave/particle duality during high school, I didn't understand it then, perhaps becuase I couldn't visualize it. It wasn't until I was 29 years old that I experienced an insight that, in part, enabled me to mentally visualize it, and consequently understand it.

Feifer mentioned, all things have W/P duality. Well, I would go further and say that W/P duality is more than a property of things, I would say that existence IS W/P duality. Things emerge as a result of the W/P nature of our universe. In other words, without W/P duality, no thing would exist. So, W/P duality is more than a property of things, it's a fundamental principle of existence.

To visualize W/P duality, I perceive the wave aspect of a thing as the thing itself, as a whole comprised of its interacting parts. And as a particle, the thing is one of many other things that interact to form a greater whole. So you can see that it's a relative perception. You perceive the wave aspect relative to the parts of the thing, and you perceive the particle aspect relative to the greater wave that the thing forms with other similar things.

You are a wave of your parts (skin, nervous system, skeletal system, digestive system,...) and, at the same time, you are a particle ( a part) of your family, or your team, or whatever greater whole you're a part of. And these levels of W/P duality extend infinitely outward and inward, like the levels of order of our universe ( quark, proton, atom, molecule, cell, skin, animal, habitat, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy, ...)

Does this explanation make sense?