The Photon Is Not a Wave

A Plain English Explanation of How Light Really Works

David Allen LaPoint

PrimerField Foundation
January 2, 2026

Summary

For over a hundred years, scientists have said that light is both a wave and a particle at the same time. This sounds mysterious, and it is—but not because the universe is strange. It's because our current understanding is incomplete.

This paper presents a different way of understanding light called PrimerField (PF) Theory. In this view, a photon (a particle of light) is not a wave. Instead, it's a tiny concentrated ball of energy surrounded by a much larger invisible field structure—like a marble sitting inside a much bigger soap bubble.

This simple idea explains many strange behaviors of light—including the famous double-slit experiment—without needing mysterious 'wave-particle duality' or probability magic.

About the Pictures: The diagrams in this paper show the basic shapes and arrangements we're describing. They don't show exact sizes or forces. The red and blue colors just show opposite orientations—like opposite ends of a magnet—not actual colors of anything.

1. The Problem: Light Can't Make Up Its Mind

We're taught that light is both a wave and a particle. But think about that for a moment—how can something be two completely different things at once?

When light travels through space, we say it acts like a wave. When it hits a detector, we say it acts like a particle. When we try to explain what's happening, we use probability—essentially saying 'we can predict the odds, but we can't explain how it actually works.'

This paper argues that this 'wave-particle duality' isn't a deep truth about nature. It's a sign that our understanding is missing something important.

2. What's Wrong with the Standard Explanation

2.1 Calling It Two Things Isn't an Explanation

Imagine if someone asked you what a dog is, and you said 'it's both a cat and a fish.' That wouldn't explain anything—it would just postpone the real answer.

That's what wave-particle duality does. It says light is a wave when it's convenient and a particle when it's convenient, but it doesn't explain how light actually transitions between these two very different things.

2.2 Probability Instead of Mechanism

The standard model of light predicts where photons will probably land on a detector. It can tell you that if you send a million photons, about 30% will land here and 20% will land there. But it can't tell you what makes any single photon go where it goes.

Probability is useful for predictions, but it's not an explanation. If I said 'there's a 70% chance you'll get wet in the rain,' that's not the same as explaining how rain forms.

3. A New Way of Looking at Light

PrimerField Theory starts with one simple idea: A photon is a concentrated ball of energy surrounded by a much larger invisible field structure.

3.1 What a Photon Actually Looks Like

Think of a photon like this: there's a tiny core (the 'particle' part) sitting in the center of two bowl-shaped field regions that extend outward in opposite directions. One bowl points one way, the other points the opposite way—like two bowls placed rim-to-rim with something small at the center.

Figure 1: A photon has a small core (green dot) surrounded by two bowl-shaped field regions (red and blue) pointing in opposite directions. The arrows show the orientation of the structure—they don't represent energy moving around.

Here's the key insight: the field structure around the photon extends much, much farther than what we normally think of as the photon's 'size.' If the core is like a marble, the fields might extend outward like a beach ball—or even bigger.

3.2 What Is Wavelength, Really?

In a beam of light from a laser, photons travel in a line with consistent spacing between them. PF Theory proposes that this spacing—the distance from one photon to the next—is what we've been calling 'wavelength.'

Figure 2: Photons in a laser beam line up with consistent spacing. The red and blue regions of adjacent photons interlock. The spacing between photons corresponds to what we measure as wavelength.

This is a big shift in thinking. Wavelength isn't some abstract 'wave property'—it's simply the spacing between photons in a well-organized beam of light.

4. How Photons Stick Together in a Beam

In a laser or other coherent light source, photons don't just travel independently like a stream of bullets. Their extended field structures overlap and interlock with neighboring photons.

Imagine a chain of paper clips—each one hooks into the next. Photons in a coherent beam are somewhat similar: their fields overlap and connect, creating a unified structure rather than a collection of independent particles.

This helps explain why laser beams stay so well organized over long distances—the photons are essentially locked together by their interlocking field structures.

5. Explaining Interference Without Waves

When two beams of light meet, they can create bright and dark patterns called 'interference patterns.' Standard physics explains this using wave mathematics. PF Theory explains it with field geometry.

5.1 Bright Spots (Constructive Interference)

When photon fields from two beams overlap so that their orientations match up (red with red, blue with blue), they reinforce each other. A detector in that region registers more light. We see a bright spot.

5.2 Dark Spots (Destructive Interference)

When the fields overlap but their orientations are opposite (red with blue), they cancel each other out. A detector in that region registers less light or no light at all. We see a dark spot.

The photons don't disappear—they're still there. But their fields are in a canceling arrangement, so detectors don't respond to them in those locations.

6. How Photons Bend Around Edges

When light passes near an edge or through a narrow opening, it bends and spreads out. This is called diffraction. Standard physics says waves spread out naturally. PF Theory offers a different explanation.

Remember that a photon's field extends far beyond its tiny core. When a photon passes near an edge, part of its field interacts with that edge even if the core passes by cleanly. This interaction deflects the photon's path.

The closer the photon passes to the edge, the more its field interacts with it, and the more it gets deflected. Photons passing far from edges aren't deflected much. This creates the spreading patterns we observe.

7. The Famous Double-Slit Experiment—Solved

The double-slit experiment is considered one of the great mysteries of physics. You shoot one photon at a time toward two narrow slits. Somehow, each single photon seems to go through both slits at once and interfere with itself. How is this possible?

Figure 3: A single photon approaches two slits. While the tiny core is much smaller than either slit, the extended field structure is large enough to span both openings at once.

PF Theory has a simple answer: the photon's core goes through one slit, but its extended field passes through both.

Figure 4: The photon's field is split by the two slits. Different parts of the field interact with different edges. When the field portions recombine on the other side, they affect where the photon ends up. The yellow line shows a possible resulting path.

Here's what happens step by step:

1. The photon (core plus field) approaches the double slit.

2. The core passes through one slit only—it doesn't split or duplicate.

3. The extended field, which is much larger, passes through both slits simultaneously.

4. The field portions interact with the edges of both slits differently.

5. After the slits, the field portions recombine and affect where the photon lands.

Figure 5: Looking at a photon head-on shows how its field structure extends far beyond the tiny core (green). This extended field is what allows a single photon to interact with both slits.

No quantum mystery. No photon splitting itself in two. No probability wave 'collapsing.' Just a particle with an extended field that can interact with both slits at once.

8. Why It Still Looks Random

If photon behavior is determined by field geometry, why do experiments seem random?

Because we can't track the exact field configuration of each individual photon. Every photon approaches the slits at a slightly different angle, with slightly different field orientations. These tiny differences strongly influence where each photon lands, but we can't measure them.

It's like flipping a coin. The result isn't truly random—it depends on exactly how you flip it, air currents, surface texture, etc. But since we can't control or measure all those factors, it appears random to us.

9. How to Test This Theory

Good scientific theories make predictions that can be tested. Here are some predictions from PF Theory:

If photon fields have a definite size (much larger than wavelength), then interference should fail when slit separation gets too wide. At some point, the field won't be able to span both slits anymore, and the interference pattern should disappear.

Similarly, diffraction effects should change in a specific way as apertures get very large—there might be a point where the effect drops off more sharply than standard wave theory predicts.

10. How to Prove This Wrong

Any good theory must be falsifiable—there must be possible experimental results that would prove it wrong. Here's what would disprove PF Theory:

• Finding interference patterns with slits so far apart that no reasonable field structure could span both

• Finding diffraction from edges that a photon's field couldn't possibly have touched

• Finding that diffraction continues exactly as predicted by wave mathematics at all scales with no special transitions

If any of these experimental results occurred, PF Theory would be wrong. That's how science works—theories must be testable.

11. Conclusion: A Simpler Picture of Light

For a century, we've accepted that light is fundamentally mysterious—both a wave and a particle, governed by probability rather than physical mechanism.

PF Theory offers a different view: a photon is simply a concentrated particle surrounded by an extended field structure. This single idea explains:

• Why 'wavelength' is consistent—it's the spacing between photons

• Why interference happens—overlapping fields reinforce or cancel

• Why diffraction occurs—fields interact with edges

• Why single photons make interference patterns—the field spans both slits

The photon isn't mysterious. It isn't both a wave and a particle. It's a particle with an extended field—and that's all it needs to be.

The old approach describes. This approach explains.

Test both. See which survives.

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PrimerField Foundation

19 Years of Plasma Confinement Research

US Patent 8,638,186 B1