🌊 No Particles, No Collapse, No Spooky Action: A Wave-Only View of Quantum Mechanics

By Khawar Nehal

Date : 1 August 2025

I might have a similar earlier article posted somewhere else, but not sure. If I find it, then I shall combine them into one.

🔹 Introduction

For more than a century, quantum mechanics has been portrayed as a mysterious world where particles exist in superpositions, wavefunctions collapse, and “spooky action at a distance” defies classical intuition. But what if the mystery is artificial?

I propose a simpler interpretation:
✅ There are no particles, only continuous waves.
✅ A detector does not collapse a wavefunction, it merely registers a local interaction when the wave amplitude exceeds a threshold—like a digital comparator.
✅ Entanglement correlations are not spooky because both detectors are sampling the same extended wave, just at different locations.

🔹 The Problem with “Particles”

The idea that electrons, photons, or any quantum objects are tiny billiard balls is misleading.

Experiments like the double-slit experiment show wave interference patterns, even when “one particle at a time” is sent.
But what we actually detect are localized clicks, which led physicists to think in terms of particle arrivals.

The particle picture is an illusion, a result of how detectors work.

🔹 The Comparator Analogy

Consider a continuous analog voltage between 0 and 5 V.

A comparator outputs 1 if voltage > 2.5 V, else 0.
If you only look at the digital output, it seems as if discrete “events” are happening.
But the analog wave has always been there—nothing collapses; the comparator just responds to the wave amplitude locally.

Quantum detection is the same.
The “particle click” is just the detector crossing a threshold (in energy transfer, resonance, or probability amplitude). The wave continues to exist.

🔹 Entanglement Without Spookiness

When two detectors measure entangled particles, the standard story is that measuring one collapses the wavefunction of the other instantly—even light-years away.

But in the wave-only view:

The two detectors are sampling the same extended wavefunction, like two comparators connected to different points of a single sine wave.
If the two points are 180° out of phase, when Detector A registers “1” (above 2.5 V), Detector B naturally registers “0”.
The correlation exists before measurement—there is no faster-than-light signal.

🔹 No Collapse, Just Detection

In this framework:

✅ The wave never collapses.
✅ Detection is a local event, not a global change.
✅ Probabilities arise because interactions happen when conditions (thresholds) are met, not because of inherent randomness in nature.

This view eliminates two long-standing quantum paradoxes:

Wavefunction Collapse: The wave is not destroyed; it always exists.
Spooky Action at a Distance: Correlations are just properties of the same wave.

🔹 Why This Matters

By rejecting the particle myth, we remove unnecessary mystery:

Double-Slit Experiment: The wave goes through both slits. The “particle detection” is just a threshold-triggered event.
Entanglement: Two detectors measure different parts of one wave. The outcome is correlated because the wave is correlated, not because of magic.

🔹 A New Perspective on Reality

The universe is made of continuous waves, not discrete particles. “Particles” are just localized energy exchanges—artifacts of measurement.

This view aligns with:

✅ Pilot-Wave Theory (Bohmian Mechanics) – but without hidden particle trajectories.
✅ Quantum Field Theory – where “particles” are excitations of fields (waves).
✅ Classical Wave Thinking – detection is just a threshold effect, not a collapse.

🔹 Final Thought

What we call “quantum weirdness” is not a property of nature but of our misinterpretation of measurement.

There are no particles.
There is no collapse.
There is no spooky action.

There are only waves, extended across space, interacting locally with detectors. The apparent discreteness is simply the detector acting like a digital comparator—registering a click when the local energy transfer exceeds a threshold.

By discarding the particle myth, quantum mechanics becomes intuitive—just waves, probabilities from interaction conditions, and correlations from shared waves.

Dimensions in a Wave-Only Universe

In the traditional particle-based view, we think of dimensions as the “stage” where discrete particles move. But in the wave-only framework described, dimensions aren’t containers for particles—they’re the natural parameters of continuous waves.

The Wave Perspective on Dimensions:

1. All dimensions are wave parameters

In a universe without particles, dimensions aren’t “things” but mathematical parameters needed to describe wave behavior
Just as a water wave needs coordinates to describe its amplitude at different points, quantum waves require spatial and temporal parameters to be fully specified

2. The 4 observable dimensions emerge naturally

The 3 spatial dimensions + 1 time dimension we observe aren’t fundamental—they’re the minimum parameters needed to describe how waves interact with our detectors
Just as the comparator in the article only needs voltage and time to produce digital outputs, our universe’s waves only require 4 parameters to produce all observable phenomena

3. Extra dimensions become mathematical tools, not physical realities

Theories proposing 10, 11, or 26 dimensions aren’t describing “real” spatial dimensions, but rather mathematical constructs needed to describe wave harmonics and resonance patterns
In this view, string theory’s extra dimensions are like the Fourier components of a complex wave—they help calculate behavior but don’t “exist” as physical spaces

Why 4 Dimensions Suffice in This Framework:

The article argues that detection is local threshold-crossing, not particle arrival. This means:

No need for extra dimensions to explain quantum behavior—entanglement correlations come from the same extended wave, not hidden spatial dimensions
All observations (from double-slit experiments to quantum computing) can be explained by waves evolving in 4D spacetime, with detectors acting as comparators
“Spooky action” disappears because correlations exist in the wave itself, eliminating the need for higher-dimensional explanations of quantum non-locality

The Radical Implication:

If there are truly no particles—only waves—then the question “how many dimensions are there?” becomes misleading. Instead, we should ask: “How many parameters are needed to fully describe the behavior of quantum waves as they interact with detectors?”

Based on all current observations, the answer remains 4: three spatial parameters to locate where the wave amplitude exceeds detection thresholds, and one temporal parameter to sequence these interactions.

This wave-only view suggests that dimension-counting debates (4 vs 10 vs 11 vs 26) might be asking the wrong question—focusing on mathematical machinery rather than physical reality. The universe doesn’t “have” dimensions; it has wave behavior that we describe using dimensional parameters.

In this framework, the mystery of quantum mechanics dissolves not by adding dimensions, but by recognizing that what we call “particles in dimensions” is really just waves doing wave-things, and our detectors are simply comparators that make discrete clicks when wave amplitudes get strong enough.

No Particles, No Collapse, No Spooky Action: A Wave-Only View of Quantum Mechanics