

The theory of matter waves tells us that particles like electrons are also waves. That adding of waves is the essence of the phenomenon of the interference of waves.

Superpositions of Matter WavesĪ distinctive characteristic of waves is that we can take two waves and add them up to form a new wave. For the picture of matter in the small presented by quantum theory is quite unlike our ordinary experience of matter in the large. It will lead us to the problem of indeterminism and then to very serious worries about how ordinary matter in the large is to be accommodated into quantum theory. Doing that is what is going to visit problems upon us. Quantum theory demands that we get some of the properties of classical particles back into the waves. But it makes no sense for particles, classically conceived. One of the essential properties of waves is that they can be added: take two waves, add them together and we have a new wave. To enter into the foundational problems of quantum theory, we will need to look more closely at the "roughly speaking." It is needed since it is not so easy to see how matter can have both wave and particle properties at once.

Speaking, a combination of wave and particle-like properties. We have seen that the essential idea of quantum theory is that matter, fundamentally, exists in a state that is, roughly
