A Does Matter Really Move Like a Wave and Hit Like a Particle?

elou
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Waves are a perceptual phenomena, not a physical one
This is meant as a challenge to look more closely than we usually do to the concepts of "wave" and "particle". You often hear that matters moves as a wave but hits at a particle, making it sound like a super Mohamed Ali's "move like a butterfly and sting like a bee".
To give a simple example I would say that, as a group, water molecules move like a wave, but each molecule moves like a particle.
 
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We can physically measure waves with physical devices in a variety of physical experiments, so saying that they are not physical is rather unjustifiable.
 
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What is being measured is of course physical. But what is being measured?
We all know that all water molecules do is move up and down, and hardly forward and backward. We certainly see a wave, but if we slowed down our vision a few million times or more, all we would see are individual molecules moving up and down.
 
elou said:
What is being measured is of course physical. But what is being measured?
A wave. What is measured has all of the properties and behaviors that a wave is supposed to have, so it is a wave.

If an object walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and has all of the other properties and behaviors attributed to ducks then it is a duck.
 
elou said:
You often hear that matters moves as a wave but hits at a particle,
Yes, we often hear that. It is an attempt to simplify quantum mechanics by describing quantum mechanics in layman-friendly language, not an accurate explanation of how quantum mechanics works and the role of "waves" in the theory.

Because the starting point of this thread is a misconception we are closing the thread.
OP is reminded of the forum rule about acceptable sources - "will often hear" is not the starting point for an informed discussion..
 
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Not an expert in QM. AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is quite different from the classical wave equation. The former is an equation for the dynamics of the state of a (quantum?) system, the latter is an equation for the dynamics of a (classical) degree of freedom. As a matter of fact, Schrödinger's equation is first order in time derivatives, while the classical wave equation is second order. But, AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is a wave equation; only its interpretation makes it non-classical...
I am not sure if this falls under classical physics or quantum physics or somewhere else (so feel free to put it in the right section), but is there any micro state of the universe one can think of which if evolved under the current laws of nature, inevitably results in outcomes such as a table levitating? That example is just a random one I decided to choose but I'm really asking about any event that would seem like a "miracle" to the ordinary person (i.e. any event that doesn't seem to...
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