Q&A: What Are Particles and Waves in Physics
What Are Particles and Waves in Physics
Question
Apologies in advance—I don’t know whether this is the right place for a physics question, but I hope it’s okay to ask.
I read a little about what particles are and what waves are, and I have a question.
1. Did I understand correctly that particles are not really an actual thing, but rather a wave? Or is it impossible to decide because they can’t be observed directly (an electron in the two-slit experiment)? If it’s impossible to decide, then where does that leave us? What is a particle?
I understood that a wave is a disturbance in a “field,” and that a “field” is not necessarily something filled with particles like the sea (sorry for my ignorance), but rather some kind of layer of properties (interaction?) of space. This point isn’t clear to me, so for example, in an electromagnetic field, is there a wave of some property x? What does that mean? After all, say, electric charge is also made up of particles, isn’t it?
Answer
You need to study physics in order to understand this.
What we call particles are really wave functions, which can appear as waves and can appear as particles. Both a wave and a particle are real things. These are not two alternatives between which one must choose. There are situations in which it appears as a wave, and situations in which it appears as a particle. As for disturbances in a field, that is not relevant to the explanation here. Charge is not made up of particles. It is a property of particles.