Physics - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 29

1995), although inspired by Bohr's complementarity initially, is based on the
complementarian logic (see above) whose validity is no longer solely dependent
upon the validity of Bohr's complementarity and can stand on its own feet. The
wave-particle duality, which served as the model for the complementarian logic,
may or may not obey all the three logical criteria (especially the exclusivity
criterion), depending on how one interprets experimental data such as the Airy
patterns (Herbert 1987, pp. 60-64) and de Broglie equation, Eq. 2.37 .
2.3.4 The Principle of Generalized Complementarity
and Complementarism
The term “complementarity” was introduced in 1927 by Niels Bohr (Pais 1991) in
an attempt to describe the novel situations arising from (1) the wave-particle
duality of light and (2) the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (Murdoch 1987;
Plotnitsky 2006; Lindley 2008; Camillieri 2007). But Bohr did not give any
rigorous definition of complementarity in his writings. One exception may be the
following quotation from (Bohr 1934), where he states that the quantum of action:
[F]orces us to adopt a new mode of description designated as complementary in the sense
that any given application of classical concepts preclude the simultaneous use of other
classical concepts which in a different connection are equally necessary for the elucidation
of the phenomena.
The Bohr's concept of complementarity so defined is not universally accepted by
contemporary physicists (Herbert 1987; Bacciagaluppi and Valenti 2009), and there
are recent reports in the physics literature claiming to have invalidated the
wave-particle complementarity (e.g., google “wave nature of matter”). Although
Bohr popularized the term “complementarity” beginning in 1927, the main seman-
tic content of this word was known to philosophers as early as fourth to sixth
century BCE (e.g., Lao-tzu, and Aristotle). Complementarity, in this broad sense of
the word, appears to reflect the following three characteristics of human language:
1. Words evolve to represent familiar concepts (e.g., waves, particles).
2. As human experience expands, new concepts are formed in the human mind
which cannot be adequately represented by familiar words, often leading to
paradoxes (e.g., wave-particle duality).
3. New words are coined to represent new experiences (e.g., wavicles, or quons,
gnergy, etc.).
On the basis of this reasoning, it may be suggested that the definition of
complementarity entails using three key terms, A and B, which are familiar but
have mutually incompatible or contradictory meanings, and C which represents a
new concept foreign to A and B and yet capable of reconciling the opposition
between them. The A-B-C “triads” collected in Table 2.7 all appear to comply with
the three characteristics of human language given above.