Are Particles Theoretically Tangible?

[Angrboda]

It's best not to think in terms of particles at all.  There are "particle-like observations" and "wave-like observations."

Is it better to think of the observations as detecting the point of highest energy or charge within the probability wave?

Try not to think of points at all. I'm not very savvy about physics, so I hope somebody will correct me if I'm wrong or misleading, but I'll illustrate how I see it.

It's like those optical illusions where you look at it and you see one thing (see below). But then you look at it a while and it becomes something else. This is because our brains are conditioned to separate the elements of a visual perception into foreground and background. The illusion occurs because our brain keeps shifting between picking out one outline as the foreground and the other. I think in a similar way, looking at reality as consisting of either a particle or a wave is similar. From a young age we are conditioned to see the things in our perception as objects, as things which persist even when they leave our sight. We naturally think of things as consisting of substance or stuff, real, tangible material. That works for the macro world but when you get down to the most fundamental level, it's at best a metaphor; a set of filters through which we order our perception and thinking about the world. There's a Scientific American article about Bell's Theorem that would be well worth your time to read (Scientific American, Bernard D'Espagnat). In it, D'Espagnat argues that the results of the experiments testing Bell's Theorem suggest that at least one of three common assumptions about reality must be violated (realism, that there is a there there, induction, and separability). These three assumptions seem necessary to our traditional picture of reality, yet if the experiments and their assumptions are correct, one of them must give. Regardless of whether that's true or not, the point I'm making is that at bottom level, when you get down to the quantum level, our assumptions and intuitions -- the way our brains are geared in terms of thinking about the world -- likely mislead us. As an aside, there's a grey area regarding the interpretation of what might be termed quantum reality, so the details don't appear completely nailed down, but one thing is clear about it: our brains aren't equipped with intuitions which fit the quantum world. Is there an intuitive picture which we can summon up which would fit? I don't know.