B Understanding Waves, Particles and Probabilities

[geordief]

TL;DR Summary

Am I getting close to a basic understanding of probability waves?

In the ongoing quantum interpretations and foundations thread vanahees71 explained to me that the wave particle duality has been explained by the model where the position of a particle is calculated according to a probability distribution traveling in space.

Am I understanding this correctly.The probability distribution has the same shape as a wave and that accounts for the wave part of the wave-particle duality?

And the particle part is when an interaction actually takes place?

Or am I nowhere near understanding this still?

 

[Demystifier]

Am I understanding this correctly.The probability distribution has the same shape as a wave and that accounts for the wave part of the wave-particle duality?

Roughly, yes.

And the particle part is when an interaction actually takes place?

The wave looks like a particle when the width of wave is small. Interaction can be a part of the reason why this happens, but it's not that simple.

 

[PeroK]

Summary: Am I getting close to a basic understanding of probability waves?

In the ongoing quantum interpretations and foundations thread vanahees71 explained to me that the wave particle duality has been explained by the model where the position of a particle is calculated according to a probability distribution traveling in space.

Am I understanding this correctly.The probability distribution has the same shape as a wave and that accounts for the wave part of the wave-particle duality?

And the particle part is when an interaction actually takes place?

Or am I nowhere near understanding this still?

Classical physics involves two seemingly different physical things: particles and waves. It was assumed that some things were particles (e.g. electrons) and some things were waves (e.g light).

Then certain experiments were carried out that appeared to show light behaving like a particle (photoelectric effect) and electrons behaving like waves (electron diffraction). This was called wave-particle duality.

QM explains wave-particle duality by modelling an electron using a wavefunction. This single model explained both its particle-like and wave-like behaviour.

QM itself doesn't have wave-particle duality as part of the theory. And, indeed, some popular QM textbooks (e.g. Griffiths and Sakurai) either mention it only as a historical footnote or not at all.