But what is a wave?
Does a wave exist or is it our way of describing something that may be physically different in reality.
This is really a nagging question, because the concept is simple and the observation of waves is found everywhere, and yet the concept of gravitational waves that cannot be directly observed can be problematic to some.
I dont understand wave collapse...we have a wave that becomes a particle.
Is that a correct description?
I find the quantum mechanics application of the wave function to be the scientific community’s way of saying that we cannot know both the precise momentum and location of a particular particle at the same time.
I interpret the wave function as a mathematical convenience, and not something that applies to waves in terms of an objective reality. The mathematical location of a particle at any instant is within some volume of space, but where in that space is not evident until it is observed.
At the instant it is observed, we cannot know its precise momentum (direction or velocity).
So for doing the math in QM, the wave function is a set of probabilities; there is a different probability value for each point in the space. I find the wave function concept to be much like the concept of a gravitational field that contains a particle, and the quantity for each point in the field is a probability value for the presence of the particle at that point in the space.
Surely it was always a particle and only a wave because that is our description to manage data.
That is not true in the ISU. In the ISU, every particle is composed of wave energy in quantum increments (quanta) which I think of as meaningful wave convergences, (there is no particle that is solid through and through).
The presence of a particle is in the form of a complex standing wave pattern. The pattern of any stable particle in space is the decay product of the hot, dense ball of wave energy dating back to the instant of the big bang. The hot dense ball of wave energy (plasma) expands and cools, and the dense containment of the wave energy is loosened, and decays (breaks up) into tiny pieces that start out as exotic particles (Higgs bosons) and decay further until the space in the expanding arena is filled with stable particles.
Those stable particles are the wave-particles of the ISU. Every individual particle occupies an amount of space, at a precise location, and has a precise momentum (direction and velocity) at all times; we just are unable to detect both the location and directional vector at the same time. Any such detection in the ISU equates to what is described as the collapse of the wave function in QM.