{"id":212,"date":"2018-04-23T07:21:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T07:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.milq.info\/?page_id=212"},"modified":"2026-07-13T13:39:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:39:42","slug":"m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/","title":{"rendered":"Misconceptions about wave-particle duality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p><\/p>\n<p>In many popular-science texts, and also in some older school textbooks, the mysterious behavior of quantum objects is reduced to the duality of wave and particle.<\/p>\n<p>The impression is conveyed that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics consists in the fact that one cannot predict whether a quantum object will behave as a particle or as a wave in a given experiment.<\/p>\n<p>This is misleading. It is true that the description of quantum objects cannot be reduced to a pure wave or particle model. This is a remarkable fact that contradicts classical notions and must be given due attention in teaching.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201criddle\u201d of wave-particle duality in this naive form is, however, completely resolved by <strong>Born\u2019s probability interpretation<\/strong> (this is discussed in detail in the lesson Probability interpretation and wave function): the wave function obeys wave laws, and the square of its magnitude gives the probability of finding the quantum object at the location in question. For every experiment one can predict unambiguously whether one will find \u201cwave behavior\u201d or \u201cparticle behavior\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The indeterministic element of quantum mechanics lies rather in the fact that only statistical statements can be made about the outcome of measurements. For the interference experiment considered in this lesson, this means: one cannot say in advance at which point on the screen the next photon will be detected. One can only state the <strong>probability<\/strong> with which it will be found at a particular location (cf. Lesson 4.2 \u201cThe double-slit experiment with individual photons and the probabilistic statements of quantum theory\u201d).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/mehr\/3-wellen-und-teilchen\/\">Back<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In many popular-science texts, and also in some older school textbooks, the mysterious behavior of quantum objects is reduced to the duality of wave and particle. The impression is conveyed that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics consists in the fact that one cannot predict whether a quantum object will behave as a particle or as&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Misconceptions about wave-particle duality<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-212","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","without-featured-image"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Misconceptions about wave-particle duality - milq<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Misconceptions about wave-particle duality - milq\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In many popular-science texts, and also in some older school textbooks, the mysterious behavior of quantum objects is reduced to the duality of wave and particle. 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The impression is conveyed that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics consists in the fact that one cannot predict whether a quantum object will behave as a particle or as&hellip; Continue reading Misconceptions about wave-particle duality","og_url":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/","og_site_name":"milq","article_modified_time":"2026-07-13T11:39:42+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/","url":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/","name":"Misconceptions about wave-particle duality - milq","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-04-23T07:21:53+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-13T11:39:42+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":[["https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/"]]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/m6_falsche_vorstellung_von_dualismus\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Startseite","item":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Falsche Vorstellungen \u00fcber den Welle-Teilchen-Dualismus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/","name":"milq","description":"Quantenphysik in der Schule","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2761,"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212\/revisions\/2761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milq.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}