Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (Perennial Classics)

by Gary Zukav

Every quantum mechanical experiment has an observed system. Every observed system has an associated wave function. The wave function of a particular observed system (like a photon) is the coherent superposition of all the possible results of an interaction between the observed system and a measuring system (like a photographic plate). The development in time of this coherent superposition of possibilities is described by Schrödinger’s wave equation. Using this equation, we can calculate the form of this thing-in-itself, this coherent superposition of possibilities which we call a wave function, for any given time. Having done that, we then can calculate the probability of each possibility contained in the wave function at that particular time. This gives us a probability function, which is not the same as a wave function, but is calculated from a wave function. In a nutshell, that is the mathematics of quantum physics.