How does Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle explain wave-particle duality?

Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle addresses wave-particle duality by positing that physical entities, such as light and electrons, exhibit both wavelike and particle-like characteristics that are mutually exclusive depending on the experimental setup.12

While classical physics views these properties as contradictory, Bohr argued they are actually complementary. The principle asserts that:3

• Context-Dependence: A phenomenon manifests as either a wave or a particle based on the specific measurement or experimental arrangement chosen by the observer.23
• Incompatibility: It is impossible to observe both the wave and particle aspects of a system simultaneously.1
• Completeness: Knowledge of an atomic-scale phenomenon remains essentially incomplete unless both aspects are considered, as they together provide a fuller description than either property alone.12

Ultimately, Bohr’s interpretation suggests that attempting to define an entity as strictly one or the other—or assuming it possesses definite, independent properties outside of measurement—exceeds the limits of scientific inquiry.3