Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

middle of hmc 2 is an equal sign, which tells us that what is on
the left side is just another way of saying the same thing as what
have a frequency. On the right is mass (m), and only particles
have mass.
What de Broglie did by joining the two equations is to assert that
the strange particle-wave duality attributed to light would also hold
true for matter. Matter, if this were true, would have to be thought
of as a wave.
This concept gives rise to what physicists call .
If we have two electrons that bounce off of each other, then
classically, we think of the interaction as similar to a game of
billiards. The cue ball hits the eight ball and goes off in one
direction, and the eight ball falls into a pocket.
But in quantum mechanics, all we can know is that two
electrons went into the interaction and two electrons came out.
There is no sense of identity throughout the collision.
The problem here is that self-identity is the most basic property
of “thinghood.” Something is an entity—a real object—if it
retains its identity over time. If we surrender identity over time,
then we give up on the existence of things.
In the years after de Broglie’s work, physicists probed the structure
of the atom, with surprising results. Rutherford had shown that the
atom was largely open space with virtually all its mass focused in
the central nucleus.
Because atoms were electrically neutral and electrons were
negatively charged, the nucleus must not only be massive, but
also positively charged. Because we knew that nuclei of light
atoms could be stripped of electrons and the nuclei isolated into
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