Its one of those enduring Zen koans of science that weve all grown up with: Light behaves as both a particle and a waveat the same time. Einstein taught us that, so were all generally on board, but to actually understand what it means would require several Ph.D.s and a thorough understanding of quantum physics.

Whats more, scientists have never been able to devise an experiment that documents light behaving as both a wave and a particle simultaneously. Until now.

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Thats the contention of a team of Swiss and American researchers, who say theyve succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of lights dual behavior. Using an advanced electron microscope one of only two on the planet at the EPFL labs in Switzerland, the team has generated a kind of quantum photograph of light behaving as both a particle and a wave.

The experiment involves firing laser light at a microscopic metallic nanowire, causing light to travel as a wave back and forth along the wire. When waves traveling in opposite directions meet, they form a standing wave that emits light itself as particles. By shooting a stream of electrons close to the nanowire, the researchers were able to capture an image that simultaneously demonstrates both the wave-nature and particle-nature of light.

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This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics and its paradoxical nature directly, says lead researcher Fabrizio Carbone of EPFL, on the labs project page. The study is to be officially published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

The image provided is shown above, issued with the following caption from EPFL: Energy-space photography of light confined on a nanowire, simultaneously showing both spatial interference and energy quantization. If you find it all a little hard to unpack believe me, Im entirely sympathetic the team has also released this rather friendly companion video:

Read the rest here:

Photo First: Light Captured as Both Particle and Wave