A Rational Cosmology: Why Light is Neither Particle nor Wave

Our insights into cosmology thus far can quickly debunk the devastating particle/wave duality of light:

1) Light is not a particle. A particle is an entity. It should be recalled that matter is one of the ubiquitous qualities of entities. Mass is the measurement of matter, yet light is massless. Light is not an element on the periodic table, nor is it a subatomic particle, such as an electron.

Light lacks mass, thereby lacking one of the ubiquitous qualities of entities, thereby not being an entity. Light also lacks all other ubiquitous qualities of entities, including volume and any measurement in any of the three dimensions. One could hardly say, "this beam of light is half a centimeter wide, twelve centimeters long and two centimeters tall." Thus, light thoroughly fails the test for being categorized as a particle.

2) Light is not a wave. A wave is a relationship of entities, a periodic disturbance of them. In order to travel from point A to point B, a wave has to encounter continuous entities to periodically disturb! Sound waves, for example, encounter such a continuity of entities in the form of air molecules.

However, in a vacuum, where no such continuity is present, neither is there sound. Light, on the other hand, can be made manifest through a vacuum, an observation requiring no highly specialized study. One needs only look out into the night sky and realize that one is seeing celestial objects separated from the Earth by billions of kilometers of the near-total vacuum which is space. Yet, somehow, light enables one to see them nonetheless!

The Sun is separated from the Earth by some 150 million kilometers of vacuum, yet its light not only is perceptible on Earth, but is the primary source of light here, and the precondition for all life on this planet. Thus, vacuum is not only no impediment to light, but light must be quite adept at transcending vacuum in massive quantities.

The objection might be raised that outer space is not a complete vacuum, but that the occasional gas molecule does appear there. However, there is certainly not a continuity of any type or combination of particles beyond the reach of a given planet's atmosphere, and a wave relationship, in order to be exhibited, requires a continuity of particles that exert contact forces on one another. Two hydrogen molecules five hundred kilometers apart will not produce a wave relationship. Thus, in order to transcend a vacuum, light cannot be a wave, but rather must be some other phenomenon.

3) Light cannot be both a particle and a wave. We have just proved that light cannot be a particle and that light cannot be a wave, and that the synthesis of these facts will yield the logical conclusion that it cannot be any combination of two categorizations that do not apply to it. Furthermore, we recall from "A Refutation of the Particle-Wave Duality of Entities" that it is impossible for any existent to be simultaneously a particle and a wave, since a particle is an entity and a wave is a relationship, two different ontological categories that cannot be applied to the same existent.

It is essential to note that, simply because light shares certain properties and behaviors also attributable to particles and waves, does not mean that it is a particle and/or a wave. It is merely similar to particles in some respects and to waves in other respects, just as a dog might be similar to a cat in the fact that it has four limbs and to a camel in that it has an elongated snout. This does not imply that a dog can also be described as a cross between a cat and a camel!

Because it chose to discard philosophical considerations by the wayside, post-Classical physics has conflated similarity with identity. Additionally, it has employed the empiricist-positivist fallacy, holding that a series of narrow, targeted observations about light, in which particulate or wave properties were observed, therefore implies knowledge of the fundamental identity of light, which can only be known on the more basic and universal level of ubiquitous observation.

Read other parts of "A Rational Cosmology" by clicking here.