"Quantum mechanics" is the description of the behavior of matter and light in all its details and, in particular, of the happenings on an atomic scale.Things on a small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about.They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, the do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen.
Newton thought that light is made up of particles, but then it was discovered that it behaves like wave.Later, however, it was found that light did indeed sometimes behaves like a particle, and then it was found that in many respects it behaves like a wave.So it really behaves like neither.Now we have given up. We say: "It is like neither."
-The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol.III
Newton thought that light is made up of particles, but then it was discovered that it behaves like wave.Later, however, it was found that light did indeed sometimes behaves like a particle, and then it was found that in many respects it behaves like a wave.So it really behaves like neither.Now we have given up. We say: "It is like neither."
-The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol.III
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