Reply #7: There really is not a debate as such. [View All]

[NNadir]

For certain properties it is useful to think of electrons as waves. Orbitals, the things that determine directionality in molecules for instance are conveniently visualized as being the square of a wave function, a mathematical formalism associated with wave behavior. Electrons can be experimentally determined to have wave properties; they can for instance cancel one another out much as waves do when they interact.

For other purposes it is useful to think of them as particles. Electrons have momenta and they have charge and mass. These can be measured in other types of experiments. One can "weigh" electrons for instance. An electron cannot in fact be visualized. The attempt to look at an electron changes it. This is the basic idea underlying the Heisenberg Principle.

This is literally a duality and there is no question of "either/or". The nature of electrons is not constrained by the means we understand them by mirroring the macroscopic world with which we are more immediately familiar.