TABLE OF CONTENTS That's how it is, says Pooh.
A.A. Milne Now we are six
We have seen that some experimental results can be explained if we regard the electron as a particle, whereas the explanation of some other experiments is possible only if we look upon our electron as a wave. Now which is it? Is it a particle or is it a wave? It is neither, it is an electron.
An electron is an electron; this seems a somewhat tautological definition. What does it mean? I want to say by this that we don't have to regard the electron as something else, something we are already familiar with. It helps, of course, to know that the electron sometimes behaves as a particle because we have some intuitive idea of what particles are supposed to do. It is helpful to know that the electron may behave as a wave because we know a lot about waves. But we do not have to look at the electron as something else. It is sufficient to say that an electron is an electron as long as we have some means of predicting its properties.
How can we predict what an electron will do? Well, how can we predict any physical phenomenon? We need some mathematical relationship between the variables. Prediction and mathematics are intimately connected in science or are they? Can we make predictions without any mathematics at all? We can. Seeing, for example, dark heavy clouds gathering in the sky we may say...
