zlacker

Wave-particle duality (of e.g. light)

>>dvdkhl+(OP)
The usual misunderstanding is that light is sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle, but that is wrong. Light is always a weird thing, that you have never seen before in macroscopic objects, and you need to use some math to describe.

In some experiments the weird mathematical thing can be approximated as an almost classical particle. That approximation simplifies the calculation a lot, and sometime you can get some result intuitively. But it is never true, it is only a very good approximation.

In some experiments the weird mathematical thing can be approximated as an almost classical wave. That approximation simplifies the calculation a lot, and sometime you can get some result intuitively. But it is never true, it is only a very good approximation.

Try to read again everything you have read about the subject, but every time the text says "here light is a wave/particle" use a red marker to rewrite that sentence as "here light can be approximated as a wave/particle".

>>dvdkhl+(OP)
That is "less of an issue" when considering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory and Second Quantization

Basically: particle are the quanta of waves. So it's not really a duality in the end.