🌊 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.
Leave a Reply