You use that as a technique to solve the problem.
I don't think it's necessary to use it to describe a particle. You don't describe anything else in the physical world by the maths you use to predict it's behaviour.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 4 Jul 2011, 16:28, 1 reply, 14 years ago)

I asked the question in the wrong way.
What I should have said was: how could you explain the behaviour of matter at the atomic or molecular level without using a wave-like model? A wave-like model that approximates particle-like behaviour more and more closely as you scale it up.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 4 Jul 2011, 16:30, Reply)

That's fair enough for describing behaviour.
I just don't like the metaphores and little thought experiments that go with all the descriptions of the sub atomic. An electon is not like a coin that has to flip twice to get back where it started, it's an electron, these are it's properties that's how it should be taught.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 4 Jul 2011, 16:37, Reply)

Problem is, if you wanted to give a full explanation without any hand-waving, you'd have to go into the hard mathematics.
But I agree that the metaphors and explanations most non-scientific folk are familiar with are clumsy and ambiguous.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 4 Jul 2011, 16:49, Reply)