Real and imaginary parts of wave function

spastic
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A very general question:

What do the real and imaginary parts of a wave function correspond to physically?
Cheers
 
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spastic said:
A very general question:

What do the real and imaginary parts of a wave function correspond to physically?
Cheers

nothing since we can modulate these by a phase, only the modulus square of the wave function is physical
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!

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