Wave-particle Duality, Delayed Choice, and Probabilistic Presentism
This deposit contains the complete English translation of v1 (28 January 2026) of the preprint “Dualité onde-corpuscule, choix retardé et présentisme probabiliste”. Published French source and related work Published French v1: Zenodo 18404150 — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18404150 Concept DOI for the French work: 10.5281/zenodo.18404149 Reference preprint on probabilistic presentism: 10.5281/zenodo.18207811 Scope. Wave–particle duality and delayed-choice experiments are often presented as if present choices could rewrite the past. This article develops an alternative reading within probabilistic presentism: only the present exists ontologically, while the future corresponds to a structured space of possibilities. Central distinction. The wave aspect describes a coherent structure of possibilities before actualization; the particle aspect describes a present fact in the form of a localized event. The “late choice” fixes the experimental context in which a fact becomes defined; it does not retroactively alter an already factual past. Experiments and constraints. The discussion covers Born's rule, interference, which-path information, decoherence, outcome uniqueness, no-signalling, the double slit, Wheeler's delayed choice, delayed-choice quantum erasers, and EPR/Bell correlations. Conditional interference patterns are treated as post-selected correlations and not as signals sent into the past. Status. This is a conceptual and exploratory preprint. Interpretive claims are identified as such, and the framework is not presented as an experimentally validated replacement for quantum mechanics. Translation fidelity. This English edition is a translation, not a revised scientific version. It preserves the argumentative structure, equations, references, links, limitations, and epistemic qualifications of the published French v1.
Authors
- Alexandre Leroy
Institutions
- Laboratoire de Biologie du Développement (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Published
- 2026-09-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22677490
- Primary Topic
- Quantum Mechanics and Applications
- Type
- preprint