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complementarity principle

   Also found in: Medical, Wikipedia 0.06 sec.
complementarity principle, physical principle enunciated by Niels Bohr in 1928 stating that certain physical concepts are complementary. If two concepts are complementary, an experiment that clearly illustrates one concept will obscure the other complementary one. For example, an experiment that illustrates the particle properties of light will not show any of the wave properties of light. This principle also implies that only certain kinds of information can be gained in a particular experiment. Some other information that is equally important cannot be measured simultaneously and is lost.

Bibliography

See W. Heisenberg, The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930, repr. 1949); N. Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958); B. L. Cline, Men Who Made a New Physics: Physicists and the Quantum Theory (1987).



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However, according to the complementarity principle formulated by Niels Bohr, it's impossible to observe both wave and particle characteristics at the same time.
Linking particles, waves, and uncertainties by Peterson, Ivars / Science News
Bohr had attempted to use the complementarity principle to explain life on the basis of a similar idea, as Stent puts it, that "life cannot be explained, but must be taken as the starting point of biology.
Going Bohr's way in physics by Thomsen, Dietrick E. / Science News
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