[quote=kzb;1032044]JohnD wrote:
Well whatever direction it oscillates in, the fact remains the reasoning is applied across the quantum world and is borne out by any number of experiments.

In microscopy, you cannot see objects smaller than the wavelength of the light you are viewing in. This is fundamental, and hence the invention of the electron microscope, to utilise the much shorter wavelength of the electron compared to light.
QUOTE]

Thank you kzb, for that teling riposte!
And yet, and yet.
You point out in another reply that the position of the electron is uncertain, a probability. So the path of a free electron is not the simple harmonic motion of an undamped ocillating spring, translated into forward motion, that we think of as a 'wave', but a fuzzy strip, denser at the edges, as a simple wave spends more time there than in the centre? Can such a strip have a parameter called 'wavelength'? The shorter the 'wavelength the denser the edges.

Such a strip would have difficulty resolving objects smaller than a certain size, not because of wavelength but because it is so denser at the edges and diffuse in the middle - or rather the probability of sensing an object would increase, then decrease and increase again as the 'beam' scanned across the object.

Moreover, a particle that moved in that SHM way would also have an amplitude that would be a measure of its energy. But sub-atomic particles do not have amplitude - I think! A photon is a photon is a photon, and it is the frequency that measures its energy. A quantum level particle like an eletron would be similar - oops, getting out of my depth here.

Hope this is not seen as ATM. It's just a different way of looking at the same thing. And if so, one man's way is as good as anothers, if it makes it clear.

Jhn