Re: textbook revisions

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Hi all-

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
                          Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Daniel L. MacIsaac wrote:

> > (2) PSSC also had, and still has, an intelligible
> > storyline: particles versus waves. This is far
> > superior to the march-through-the-topics
> > attitude of even the better prereform texts
> > such as Halliday, Resnick, and Walker.
> I also learned from and admired PSSC physics.  However, I now
> believe that the waves-vs-particles storyline has been essentially
> superceded by QED.  Light is neither wave nor particle, though it
> has aspects that can be described by both models.  Duality is
> a feature of the limitations of the two models used; not of light itself.

        I agree that the storyline has been superseded, but it is ordinary
QM, not just QED, that has done the superseding.  Buckeyballs interfere.
Atoms show interference patterns.  Electrons show interference patterns,
exactly as in Feynman's <gedanken> experiment where one sees the pattern
develop electron by electron.  Helium atoms form Bose condensates.
Photons form Bose condensates.
        This doesn't mean that wave-particle duality isn't a viable
paradigm for introducing QM to students whose only backgroound is
classical mechanics.  It does mean that one needs a clear description
of each of the two concepts, and a thorough understanding of the kinds
of experiments that are wave-like and are particle-like.
                                                Regards,
                                                        Jack