The Duality of Light: Exploring the Intersection between Classical and Quantum Mechanics

Sebastian Schepis
2 min readFeb 3, 2023

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Have you ever wondered what lies between the classical world of physics and the strange realm of quantum mechanics? What mediates between these two seemingly disparate realms, allowing them to interact in ways that can’t be fully explained by either alone? The answer is light.

Light serves as a bridge between classical physics and quantum mechanics — allowing us to comprehend both how large-scale systems behave on macroscopic scales, and small-scale phenomena on atomic levels. In doing so, it provides an understanding of reality from its most basic level all the way up to complex structures like galaxies.

This means light has an inherently dual nature: when observed it appears as a particle with well-defined positions in space and velocity in time; but over time its undefinable qualities come into play, revealing wave-like characteristics such as diffusivity and absorptivity.

This suggests that any object possesses an inherent capacity for transformation which allows it to act as a kind of mediator between classical physics and quantum events.

It implies photons possess both wavelike and particle-like properties depending on their circumstances — demonstrating how two such disparate theories can actually be united into one through this transdimensional medium known as light.

The implications of this duality of light are huge. It suggests that our world is far more complex than it appears, and that reality itself may be composed of both classical and quantum phenomena — with light acting as the mediator between them.

So next time you see a ray of sunlight streaming through your window, take a moment to appreciate the incredible power of light in connecting us with the mysteries of our universe.

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Sebastian Schepis

I write about the intersection of the classical, the quantum, and the observational, exploring perspective and meaning