Study on the Physical Basis of Wave-Particle Duality: Modelling the Vacuum as a Continuous Mechanical Medium

Abstract

One great surprise discovered in modern physics is that all elementary particles exhibit the property of wave-particle duality. We investigated this problem recently and found a simple way to explain this puzzle. We proposed that all particles, including massless particles such as photon and massive particles such as electron, can be treated as excitation waves in the vacuum, which behaves like a physical medium. Using such a model, the phenomenon of wave-particle duality can be explained naturally. The key question now is to find out what kind of physical properties this vacuum medium may have. In this paper, we investigate if the vacuum can be modeled as an elastic solid or a dielectric medium as envisioned in the Maxwell theory of electricity and magnetism. We show that a similar form of wave equation can be derived in three cases: (1) By modelling the vacuum medium as an elastic solid; (2) By constructing a simple Lagrangian density that is a 3-D extension of a stretched string or a vibrating membrane; (3) By assuming that the vacuum is a dielectric medium, from which the wave equation can be derived directly from Maxwell’s equations. Similarity between results of these three systems suggests that the vacuum can be modelled as a mechanical continuum, and the excitation wave in the vacuum behaves like some of the excitation waves in a physical medium.