Are Particles Theoretically Tangible?

[polymath257]

Has *anything* been fully explained? I think of the wave-particle duality as a raw fact.

I remember in high school puzzling over this when we had to read about it in our textbooks. I kept asking her how something could be both a wave and a particle. Her short answer was: "it just is."

Raw fact or no, I have sought an "explanation" of the phenomenon via pop sci articles and YouTube channels.

What made the most sense to me (as a layman) is that the wave is an expression of the potentiality of the "particle's" location. When you narrow things down (ie. measure it) that measurement is going to mark that particle at a specific place and time and thus, when measured, the phenomenon is more particle-like.

I'm aware that's a pretty basic and bastardized explanation. That might help Jair with his befuddlement over QM, if that indeed is a correct way of seeing QM.

A LOOOOONG time ago, Iggy posted this video about an experiment where photons were sent through a series of filters. The experiment showed that the uncertainty principle isn't a "measurement" problem. It's a "locality problem." I doubt he'd remember it or I'd ask him to repost it here.

(aw fuck it) on the off chance @ignoramus ... do you remember that video? It was like 4 years ago, so no worries if you don't.


edit:

(I actually found it! So nevermind, Iggy.)

This is a good way to look at it. Usually, polarization is regarded as a wave phenomenon, but when you realize that it is all about the photons (particles), you start to see the basic quantum strangeness.

But, yes, the wave is a probability wave (well, close--it is a bit more complicated than that) for detection of various 'particle' properties (such as location, momentum, energy, spin, etc).

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Has *anything* been fully explained? I think of the wave-particle duality as a raw fact.

I’ve read that particles can behave like particles and can also behave like waves. How literally can this be taken though? Does this essentially mean what we call particles transform between particle states and wave states on the quantum level? Are particles becoming waves, literally, which then are waves that become particles again?

No, it is not a transformation. Our measurement determines what sort of properties we will detect.

The closest intuition is that the wave gives the probability of detecting a particle.

The remarkable thing is that *all* quantum sized 'things' have this dual property, whether they be electrons, photons, neutrinos, quarks, protons, neutrons, or even atoms (although the wavelengths are much shorter). All are 'probability waves of detecting a particle'.

An electron microscope is based on the wave properties of electrons, for example.