Dual nature of the light

As we learn more about God’s creation, our commonsense understanding of things sometimes becomes limiting. Quantum physics, for example, is full of descriptions of the subatomic world that seem, on their surface, bizarre. Light can be described as either waves or particles. Good experiments produce evidence that supports both realities. And yet our commonsense view would suggest a thing cannot simultaneously be a particle and a wave.

Experiments in light

The best evidence for the wavelike nature of light comes from the so-called double-slit experiment, in which light shining through two narrow slits in a surface produces an interference pattern of bars of light and dark on a second screen. If light consisted of particles, then the double slits would result in an even and random distribution of light, not the interference pattern. The cancelling and combining effects of waves result in light and dark bars.

But Albert Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect as being due to light’s particle nature. A beam of light shining on a metal plate causes it to emit electrons, but the electron emission pattern only makes sense if light consists of particles.

If you want to know more, Google “curious kids: is light a wave or a particle” for an explanation of both these experiments that even I could understand – Wikipedia is too complicated (but probably more technically correct and complete).

Christ’s dual nature

I find this bizarre dual nature of light interesting because Christ is described as the light of the world at the beginning of the Gospel of John and describes himself this way in John 8. Christians believe that Jesus had a dual nature; he was simultaneously fully human and completely God. Just as it is hard to conceptualize light as both a particle and a wave, we do not understand the dual nature of Jesus. Being fully human means Jesus was not a superman with extra God-like powers at his disposal when needed. Being completely God, he could command demons to leave people and control the wind and the waves.

This dual nature of Christ comes into particular focus and complexity in the death and resurrection we celebrate this month. We know that death, sometimes peaceful but often painful, occurs for all of us, and we live in the hope of our resurrection with Christ. I don’t pretend to understand normal human death, but I have seen it often enough. The death on the cross of the God-Man is totally beyond my comprehension. Can the creator of the cosmos die? Or take on death? What does the cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Matthew 27:46 mean? How is the resurrected Jesus different from the Jesus who died? I can only trust and believe that we have been reunited with God in this incomprehensible event. For this, I praise the Lord.