The Quantum establishment doesn't believe in waves
Where General Relativity deals with continuous space, Quantum Mechanics deals with discrete particles. GR studies the macro world of planets, stars, and galaxies. QM studies the invisible world of atoms and light. QM is a world of particles and more particles and yet more particles. In QM, even the vacuum is made of particles.
" There can be no space nor any part of space without gravitational potentials; for these confer upon space its metrical qualities, without which it cannot be imagined at all. The existence of the gravitational field is inseparably bound up with the existence of space." [1] " Another surprising entity, and the real surprise is that it can be described as an entity at all, is the vacuum. Common sense tells us that a vacuum is nothing, or more precisely that it is empty space. However, in general relativity theory the vacuum isn't simply that... For quantum physicists the vacuum is much more complicated...Throughout the vacuum, energy can appear as a result of a quantum fluctuation..." (p. 100) "experiments really have shown that the vacuum can produce particle and antiparticle pairs...All this is possible because of the quantum properties of the vacuum." (p. 102) [2]
QM explains every physical phenomenon via a billiard-ball mechanism. This corpuscular religion is mostly a product of the first quarter of the 20th Century. Perhaps the reader has heard or read at one time or another that QM’s fundamental building blocks also have a wave nature. This is a lie, a big fat lie, and whoever told you this is a big fat liar. I’ll say it in their faces if I have to. The mathematicians use the wave only to silence the reporters at the end of the press release. It is only when the presenter cannot explain certain aspects of his corpuscular theory that he casually invokes the word wave just to get through the impasse. Let there be no doubt, and I’ll make it as plain as I can. For the purposes of Quantum Mechanics, there are no such things as 'waves,' in great measure because the waves themselves are explained in terms of particles. The mathematicians of today give absolute lip service to the wave and are actually annoyed by this teasing aspect of nature. No one, and I mean no one in mainstream mathematical physics believes that light, electrons, or muons are waves. No one who is someone in Quantum uses the wave as a model. In one reviewer’s words:
“ One such misleading presentation is the idea that quantum objects are both particles and waves (some authors say neither particles nor waves). Actually, all experiments ever conducted point to the fact that quantum objects are particles. Nobody has ever observed any wave in quantum mechanics. The waves are used as a mathematical tool to describe the statistical motion of these particles” [1] “ I want to emphasize that light comes in this form—particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it does behave—like particles.” [2]
The handful of mathematicians that even insinuate that light or the electron could possibly be waves are known as dissidents and comprise about 10% of the guild. You will recognize a dissident because he publishes only once in a while in a journal of importance, more often in some obscure journal, or not at all. The wave mathematicians are treated as heretics because they cannot specify or account for the medium that is doing the waving. They haven’t been able to for the past 400 years. The sole mention of or allusion to the mysterious medium that could be doing the waving upsets even the most neutral Quantum peer reviewer. Those who say the prohibited word out loud are ridiculed beyond description, ostracized, fired from their jobs, stomped on, spitted on, and sometimes hunted down, killed, chopped up into little pieces, and burned at the stake. Their lives are for the most part over with. Those that timidly whisper this prohibited word are instantly shunned and quarantined. Colleagues evade them like people instinctively evade a leper. Their wives desert them and become the wives of their peer reviewers. And those that happen to insinuate the word indirectly are treated with contempt and warned. It is a grave crime in QM to even think about what could possibly be waving. However, if I am to discuss the history of light, I must as a minimum mention this mysterious medium. On the other hand, I fear for my life should I even write the word. So, do not be offended if I choose a somewhat middle course: I will use its ancient Greek version, place it in italics, and whisper it. Please do not hurt me. The infamous medium is known as the aether. Personally, I have little regard for the aether. No. Let me restate that. There is no such thing as the aether. But if we are to discuss the history of Quantum Mechanics, we have no alternative but to review this tantalizing medium. Things weren’t always like this. In its heyday the aether was a respectable entity. Physicists would bathe in it and mathematicians would drink the stuff from public fountains. The aether was a useful medium that calmed our thirst for knowledge: we could explain everything with it. It was a wonderful world back then, a candid world that lasted perhaps 300 years. But one day GR and QM came along and the aether surreptitiously fell from grace. Disclaimer followed disclaimer. Mathematicians denied having believed in it. The Aether Inquisition scoured the countryside and burned witches at the stake. All mathematicians who wanted to be someone eventually fell in line. Even gods like Einstein, who never recanted and believed in the aether to the very end of his life, was ‘reinterpreted’ by his disciples who retrospectively ‘set the record straight’:
“ To Einstein, the ether was just a remainder, and he got rid of it.”[3] [Contrast this blatant lie with Einstein’s own words: “According to the general theory of relativity, space without ether is unthinkable” 4]
The aether was erased from humanity’s collective memory, wiped out so that it would never rise again. Yet the Quantum establishment hasn't got rid of the wave completely. There are certain physical phenomena and observations not easily explained with particles, and that's when the wave comes in handy. Of course, what is waving is a bunch of particles each of which could be a vibrating string: a wave.