Planck and Einstein showed it was made of particles.
Quantum theorist Werner Heisenberg decided
a mathematical solution based on matricies
could serve instead of a physical description.
Louis de Broglie insisted on a physical
description—
each particle of matter should physically also be a wave.
No one has proven de Broglie’s hypothesis,
but it inspired Ewin Schrödinger, whose wave function,
describing a physical system evolving with time,
shows what de Broglie’s idea looks like
mathematically,
plus Schrödinger’s equation can be
transformed
into Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics, and various
solutions
describe physical systems at any
scale—molecular,
atomic, and subatomic systems, even the universe itself.
Interference
Electrons, like photons,
show an interference pattern
after flying through two parallel slits.
De Broglie thought that an electron
has an internal clock that keeps it in synch
with its propagation wave
like other physical particles,
showing more harmonic synchronization
than our coarse senses can distinguish.
To explain
To say an electron is a wave
is not to say it’s a particle that waves.
When it’s a wave it’s not a
particle,
and when it’s a particle it’s not a wave;
what we know as particle or wave
is not the same as the electron itself.
Even a simple zen kōan
can stymie our expectations;
we might never have evolved
to understand anything’s true nature.
Einstein never managed to unify his general theory of
relativity with quantum theory, but Schrödinger’s
equation, because it includes the Hamiltonian operator, whose
spectrum is the set of all possible energies of particles in a
physical system and which takes different forms depending on the
system, has been taken as a description of everything.
Einstein never managed to unify his general theory of relativity with quantum theory, but Schrödinger’s equation, because it includes the Hamiltonian operator, whose spectrum is the set of all possible energies of particles in a physical system and which takes different forms depending on the system, has been taken as a description of everything.
See also in The book of science:
Readings on wikipedia: