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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Somebody who's up with physics answer this: HOW does light behave as both a particle and a wave? I understand there's such a thing as a photon, but I don't know quite what it is or how it works. And that's the particle side of the equation; tell me also about the wave part.
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Man... This is going back a few years to my undergrad quantum class, but let me see if I can simplify this correctly...
Light in most circumtances as regular people will understand them (and have need to understand them) will act as a wave. The only thing about it being a particle is that a photon has a momentum, so when it strikes something that has mass (namely a subatomic particle and usually an e-), it can cause the subatomic particle move. Normally only things with mass can cause a force on something else with mass, but photons are an exception. Normally momentum is just the velocity vector times the mass of the object, but in photons it's measured by taking planck's constant and dividing by the wavelegnth of the photon. The units work out to be the same if you care to do the quasi-math.