Particle or wave, object or path of object

Quantum Mechanics — a particle is a solid thing at any given single moment of time; a wave is a process that happens over time. They’re two different sorts of things. The difference between them is the difference between a point and a path. To say something is either a particle or a wave, depending on how you look at it, is like saying that I am either standing still or I’m running around the room. You’re either looking at me, or you’re looking at the path I’m following in running around the room. The first is a solid object at one moment, or multiple moments, of time, while the second is merely an abstract thing that only exists across multiple moments, as a mental construct assembled from a real solid object in motion. So the particle wave distinction in quantum mechanics is really a distinction between the time taken to measure the particle and the particle itself. Wait long enough, and it will become a wave; but if the smaller your measurement’s temporal interval is, the wave will become more particle-like, as you narrow down its location. The supposed paradox of the particle/wave duality of matter is really no paradox, as there is really no duality. To say that there is a duality here is like saying that, when I am standing still at precisely ten o’clock, I am an entirely different thing than I would be if you were to consider me running around the room between ten o’clock and five after ten. In the latter case you are considering the path of my motion, but the path is not me. Examining the path would tell you nothing about me other than the state of my motion.

An idea about time

The common view of “block time,” where everything that has happened, is happening or will happen, exists statically in a sort of three-dimensional block, is wrong. In such a model, the perception is that each moment of time is merely a slice of a greater whole, separated from one another by some sort of space, forming a block. That is, each moment of three dimensional space is but a slice of the block, each slice being an entire three dimensional universe stacked one on top of the other until a block is formed.

But this is an error. In actuality, each moment exists superimposed with all other moments, in a sort of jumble. For example, The block view would have my life strung out in a sort of temporal space, with, say, a million versions of myself strung out in a sort of line, each one separated from the others by some sort of distance. But such a view is too spacialized. This is how it really is: my nine-year-old self coexists in the same space with my current self, just as my current self exists in the same space with my ninety-year-old self. We are bound into a whole by the temporal dimension; space and time are bound inextricably together. But they are not a singular spacetime, as relativity would have us believe, and they are not bound together in the manner of the “block” view, where time is reduced to a merely spatial dimension. They are each unique and separate, yet bound into a whole in such a way that they cannot be separated, in much the same way that none of the supposed three dimensions of space can be isolated from the others. Much as my body has a volumetric extension in space, that spatial volume, at one and the same time, has a temporal component; not a component that is “stacked” as in the “block” view, but rather a component that occupies the same spatial position, but in a different temporal position—but yet not even really the same spatial position, for the space itself, seemingly the same, occupies a different temporal position. My consciousness spans the whole of my life, right now and at every moment. The consciousness I am thinking with now is the exact same consciousness that my nine-year-old and ninety-year-old self are also thinking with, “right now.” Every moment of my entire life is sort of “plugged in” to the same consciousness. Or, put another way, each moment of my life is like a different “frequency” to my consciousness, which is “global” to my whole temporal lifespan. “We” are all here, right “now,” each aspect of me being merely a different spatio-temporal side, much the way a cube has different spatial edges. That same cube also has a temporal “edge.” For example, suppose I sat and stared at a motionless cube for years. Each and every moment, though it looks the same, it is actually presenting me with a different aspect of itself. I am, as it were, seeing it from a different side, each and every moment, for I am viewing different temporal sides of it, much in the same way that, were I to walk around it, I would see different spatial sides of it. Yet in each case it is the same cube.

An idea about electrons

Just an idle thought--

Suppose the electron is constantly exploding into a cloud of debris, which then implodes, reforming the electron.

In its compressed form, it is solid—an electron. It’s pulled together by some sort of attractive force similar to the nuclear force. But thus compressed, its energy is so great that its solid form can’t be maintained. It explodes, dissolving into a cloud of debris, or gas. With its energy thus dispersed, the attractive force again dominates, and the cloud, the gas, collapses in on itself, reforming the electron, whereupon it explodes again…. This happens continuously, perhaps millions of times a second, so that, in effect, the electron is both a particle and a wave.

What we know as magnetism is actually the electron in its exploded, gaseous state. This constant cycle of explosion and implosion is electromagnetism.

This cycle also somehow propels an electromagnetic wave forward, much like a blowfish (or whatever that fish is) moves by drawing in water and expelling it. Perhaps when it implodes a small burst of energy is released that sort of knocks the newly-re-formed electron forward.

Kinetic Theory of Light?

In the double-slit experiment, the outcome—the interference pattern—is the same whether you fire photons individually or as a continuous beam. The difference is, individually, you’re spreading the process out over time. Just as in relativity, the observer in motion measures the same speed of light, but over a “longer” time.

You need to fire X number of individual photons to get a recognizable pattern, and a steady beam has to shine for X minutes to emit an identical number of photons.
X photons/time=interference pattern.

For example, for single photons, X photons/30 minutes (or whatever) = interference pattern. This is a timelike light wave—spreading the wave across time, i.e. the wave emerges over time.

Conversely, X photons/1 nanosecond (or whatever, just much less time)=interference pattern. This is a spacelike light wave—the wave exists all at once in space.

A timelike light wave has particulate properties, whereas a spacelike light wave has wave-like properties.

So light requires a certain number of photons to take on wave-like properties. The wave nature of light is thus an emergent property of the large number of photons. Just like with a gas—one atom does not a gas make. A gas is an emergent property of a large number of particles and temperature acting in concert.

Light wave = photons + time

Gas= particles + temperature

Can the kinetic theory of gases be applied to light?