Are Photons and Electrons Really 'Real'?

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In physics, there is constant discussion of electrons and photons.

But are they real particles, or are they merely useful abstractions?

To my knowledge, an electron or photon has never been the input or output of any experiment. When scientists talk about the electron shell, we are only ever given an area with a certain probability that an electron might be there at some point. Experiments such as the double slit experiment strongly suggest that light is best explained as a wave. How can we tell photons exist as discrete particles, as opposed to being something else (such as a particularly condensed point in a wave, like the peak of a wave in the ocean)?

If they are real, why can't we capture one somehow (instead of the probabilistic presences in an area notion that is used)?

Had learned about it in school. I've never seen them.

https://owlcation.com/stem/Millikans-Oi ... Experiment

Millikan's Oil Drop Experiment: How to Determine the Charge of an Electron

Quantum physics first: Researchers observe single photons in two-slit interferometer experiment

Single-electron beam observed in IOTA for the first time

This guy had put together an entertaining video to try and explain it all
that relates to the proton and electron

just a quick note
i am not a physics expert, although i have a degree that uses some basic physics plus complex but not advance maths
i haven't studied this yet, never really could afford the parts to create a time machine, so didn't bother
alas, perhaps in another world or parallel lifetime where people haven't robbed every thing i have
and where people are actually really nice to each other....

The oil drop experiment is most easily explained by assuming electrons with the same charge to weight ratio. I wonder if any else got to do experiments like that when they were in school? The school I went had a fortune invested in stuff to do that.

I remember an experiment involving radioactive Cobalt 60. Someone brought up playing with gears while we were doing it. Another student said they never got to play with gears, though he went to really expensive schools.

What you're perhaps getting at here is the nominalism/realism debate in philosophy, which like all such heated questions, is really a wordgame rather than a serious, answerable question.

It doesn't really make sense to question whether the physical world is really "out there", or whether it's an epiphenomenon of our consciousness, for what would it mean for it to be merely an epiphenomenon?

The bottom line is that there's no MORE reason to believe that electrons and photons are unreal than there is to believe the same thing about macroscopic matter; the former two can be observed with the same degree of certainty as the latter, in theoretically simple ways. It's perfectly possible to observe both singly.

Both electrons and photons exist as both particles and waves (de Broglie wavelength). The wave nature of electrons can be demonstrated through diffraction experiments, as well as being predicted by the simple de Broglie relation; the particle nature of photons can be demonstrated by the photoelectric effect, and the fact, predicted by Einstein, that photons will have momentum, which can also be demonstrated experimentally.

Electrons (and their anti-matter compliments, positrons) are indeed particles of matter. They both have mass and both carry charge. So, why then do they act like waves in some aspects is the question I often hear?

It is because both electrons and positrons are composed of electromagnetic energy. Each one contains 511 KeV of this energy. This can be measured directly during annihilation evens between the two particles. In that process, both particles are converted back into the electromagnetic energy that created them. The “light” energy that is given off will be at a right angle to the collision event and the two energies will be emitted at 180 degrees from each other.

Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is followed in this case. The reverse process can be done, but can be much harder to control. It is called pair production. In both cases, the conversion goes at 100% efficiency. Since all matter and anti-matter is composed of electromagnetic energy, they will still retain some of the properties of the starting energy used to make up the particles.

What we consider properties of matter or anti-matter is dependent upon how the electromagnetic energy is shaped to make up the particles. String Theory is a method of explains how this happens, but it is incomplete at best. One major thing that is missing from String Theory is that electromagnetic energy must always have a net momentum vector (a directional path that it can travel) or it cannot exist. One cannot stop electromagnetic energy without it being converted into something else via a process like absorption.

I have been working for a few years on a method to correct String Theory into a usable form. Unfortunately, we do not have the technology to test it yet. It may not happen within my lifetime, but hopefully someday it can be tested.