Re: [Phys-l] Question about Quarks and the Standard Model

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, chuck britton wrote (in part):
> 	Can't I use the analogy of
> 			 wave => incoherent and
> 			 particle => coherent
> 	as a warm-up exercise?
> 	or is there too much evil lurking in the words wave and particle for
> this to be acceptible?)
__________________________________________
	If you think of an electron as a particle and an electromagnetic 
wave as representing your idea of a wave, the answer is, "no".  As Feynman 
predicted, and as has been demonstrated more recently, a beam of 
electrons, no matter how attenuated, can be made to show diffraction 
patterns (that, in fact, is why electron microscopes work).  So the 
problem with wave-particle is to specify what you mean by ``particle'', a 
non-trivial task.  A coherent beam will show diffraction phenomena, an 
incoherent beam will not -it doesn't seem to matter what the beam is made 
of.
	Bottom line: coherent-incoherent is not the 1:1 equivalent of 
wave-particle.
			Regards,
				Jack

>

--
"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
		General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
		just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley