most people give an example of water waves but I thought every single “wave” has particle-like atomic structure. What does it mean for the most smallest particle like an electron to be a wave?
In: Physics
It’s all probability.
Imagine a pool. You stand with your back towards it. You throw a ping pong ball over your head, behind you. The closer you guess where the ping pong ball lands the more money you win. Let’s say a million dollars if you’re within an inch. And a penny if you’re 10 feet off.
Now you have no idea where the ping pong ball will land. But you can take a pretty good guess that it’s slightly to the left about half way (the middle) of the pool. Now this is a fair guess. Now the odds of it landing “about the middle” might be 80%. But the ball could really be anywhere. And this is mathematically calculable. For example the odds of it being it the very absolute corner of the far left side might be .01% let’s say.
Okay! So when we add up all the possible locations, this is the “wave”. The ping pong is most likely in x locations, and less likely in y locations. It’s weird to imagine a single ping pong ball as many locations but essentially that’s what we’re talking about.
The particle isn’t a single electron just sitting there. It’s the totality of everywhere it could possibly be. And this is why it behaves weird. (See double slit experiment)
To add on. The “wave function” collapses when we know the location. So the ping pong goes from 80% possible location to 100% once you turn around and see it.
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