A generic quantum state and the charge of an electron

  • #1
138
2
I'm watching a lecture and the professor is talking about generic quantum states as

[tex] |\psi> [/tex]

He's making the point that this state is very generic. It can represent anything. He references some examples like the polarization of a photon and the path of a photon and the spin of an electron. Those (I think) make sense to me as quantum states.

But then he says that the "charge on an electron" could be represented by this generic state, ## |\psi> ##.

This example I didn't understand. How could talking about the charge of an electron by itself by represented by ## |\psi> ##. For one, what would a superposition of states look like in this case? The charge can't be fractional or be 2e or 3e. It's just e. What am I missing?
 
  • #2
Can you write exactly what he says, word for word, in context?
 
  • #4
I'd rather he post the text than "here's an hour long video and somewhere in it he says this".
 

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