No Evidence for Particles

Abstract

There are a number of experiments and observations that appear to argue for the existence of particles, including the photoelectric and Compton effects, exposure of only one film grain by a spread-out photon wave function, and particle-like trajectories in bubble chambers. It can be shown, however, that all the particle-like phenomena can be explained by using properties of the wave functions/state vectors alone. Thus there is no evidence for particles. Wave-particle duality arises because the wave functions alone have both wave-like and particle-like properties. Further the results of the Bell-Aspect experiment and other experiments on entangled systems, which seem to imply peculiar properties for particles if they exist, are easily and naturally understood if reality consists of the state vectors alone. The linear equation-Hilbert space structure for the state vectors, by itself, can explain every mystery in quantum mechanics except the origin of the probability law.