Abstract
The photoelectric effect showed that waves behave like particles. A wave with a frequency f has a minimum packet, or quantum, of energy E = hf, where h is Planck’s constant. Compton showed that when hf is comparable to the rest mass energy mc 2 of an electron, the scattering of electromagnetic radiation from electrons behaves like the scattering of one compact object from another. The particle-like behavior of light seems so prominent in these cases that the quantum of light has been given the particle-like name of “photon.” Individual photons can be detected with a photomultiplier tube; such detection also suggests a degree of localization in space that is characteristic of particles rather than waves.
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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Holbrow, C.H., Lloyd, J.N., Amato, J.C., Galvez, E., Parks, M.E. (2009). The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In: Modern Introductory Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79080-0_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79080-0_18
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