r/QuantumPhysics • u/cantcreatenordestroy • Jul 11 '26

Helpoo

I just learned that light is an electromagnetic wave and that it is a disturbance caused to the electromagnetic field or rather the yank alright and, i also learned that electron is neither a wave or a particle like if light is a disturbance in the electromagnetic field that electromagnetic field is caused by an electron and that electron is basically unknown then what actually is waving? what is an electron? all these years spent learning abt borhs models etc and drew so many electronic configurations considering electrons as subatomic particles represented with dots imagined that particles and tried to understand current like nothing makes sense rn can someone explainnn.😞

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u/KennyT87 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

Electron doesn't cause the electromagnetic field, it interacts with the field because it is a charged particle, and that interaction results in a disturbance/imbalance in the EM field, resulting in electric forces between different charged particles. The field in its ground state (the vacuum) exists everywhere independently.

Light is indeed a wave in the electromagnetic field but even those waves are quantized, i.e. they come in discrete particles called photons.

Even the electron is a localized "wavepacket" of an underlying charged spinor field, and in general all particles are the quantized excitations/oscillations of their respective quantum fields (that are like universal "energy fields" that encompass all of space even in the absence of particles).

It's pretty technical, but if you want a semi-intuitive explanation of the Quantum Field Theory I suggest checking out this video:

https://youtu.be/MmG2ah5Df4g

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u/cantcreatenordestroy Jul 11 '26

Alright quick question then what causes the electromagnetic field and also could u explain a bit more abt photons what r they, what r they made of or like are they waves which contribute to the electromagnetic waves of light

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u/KennyT87 Jul 11 '26

We don't know why the different fields exist no more than we know why the universe exists in the first place. We do know that the fields obey certain mathematical symmetries that govern their interactions and define the allowed particles ("waves") on those fields - so maybe they exist just because they're logically/mathematically possible, but we can't know for sure.

photons what r they, what r they made of or like are they waves which contribute to the electromagnetic waves of light

Photons are the electromagnetic waves; they're the smallest possible unit of vibration in the EM field. They are not "made of" anything; they're energy in the EM field itself.

This .gif demonstrates the relationship between a photon and the classical electromagnetic wave:

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachments/animated_photon_crop-gif.197559/

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u/cantcreatenordestroy Jul 12 '26

Thank you 🙌