They materialize in a place when they collide with something else. The “quantum leaps” from one orbit to another constitute their way of being real: an electron is a combination of leaps from one interaction to another. When nothing disturbs it, an electron does not exist in any place. Instead of writing the position and velocity of the electron, Heisenberg writes tables of numbers (technically called “matrices”). He multiplies and divides tables of numbers representing possible interactions of the electron. And, as if from the magical abacus of a magus, the results correspond exactly with
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