Quantum Wave Functions: What's Actually Waving?

Taking the quantum brick road. "Do I turn right or left here?" "Yes."

“The events are probabilistic. The probabilities are deterministic.“

A side note for those interested in the math: We don't use sine and cosine just because "they look wavy." We use them because there's a piece of mathematical machinery called the Fourier transform which let's us write any periodic (aka wave) function as the sum of sine and cosine functions. It's incredibly convenient to be able to represent any possible wave function in terms of just two relatively simple functions, so that's why we use them. 3blue1brown did a video explaining how the Fourier transform works for anyone who wants to know the details: https://youtu.be/spUNpyF58BY

your skills on teaching are the most outstanding qualities a person can have.

Skinny rectangles = Calculus by stealth. Nice job Nick :)

Descartes is at fault here, he was the one who coined "imaginary numbers" as a derogatory term. Gauss knew better and named them lateral numbers.

this is what I like about these videos. Even if you don't learn anything profoundly new sometimes, when you see a good animation changing from one aspect to another, two previously separate things get connected and it clicks. A new level of understanding!

This is the best explanation of quantum wave functions that I ever seen. I've seen a lot of videos from a lot of YouTubers and this is the only one that is actually understandable by non physicians. Great work!

This is the most intuitive explanation I've seen so far for laypersons like me. I've seen so many videos say, basically, "You get the probability by squaring the wave function." OK, so what exactly is the wave function? "It's a probability thing." Which doesn't feel very helpful.

Underrated moment in this video was when Nick made sense of why we use sine and cosine: they make shapes that look like waves. Like, you need something to look wavy? Here, use this. Doesn't matter what that wavy thing is, but this will get you a pretty good picture of it on your graph, bud. Thanks.

Not only did this help me understand quantum mechanics better, it helped me understand probability and statistics better, or gave me ideas for how to convey it to others. There's a lot of power in the term "skinny rectangles" especially for helping students transition from discrete probability distributions to continuous ones.

This might be the best layperson-accessible video on quantum mechanics I've ever seen

Waaait, what? Yesterday i was searching something on this topic and meanwhile i was thinking "man, i really hope the science asylum will release a video on this". Nice

I clicked on the video for science and stayed for .......... SCIENCE!!!!! Your explanation is amazing !!!

Oh my god .... It's probability of being helpful is really high..... Helped me with deeper understandings...

Max Born is one of the unsung heroes in science, 'cause his interpretation in 1926 of wave function as a probability function was groundbreaking at that times!

for me , this is your best video..... quantum mechanics looked simple in this

damn, that boxxy reference brought ME down to memory lane.

That was a great description of the QWF. The graphs really clicked the issue into my mind. I love the humour and general presentation of the video. Keep up the excellent work, videos like this should be compulsory in all physics courses. Cheers

This madman is teaching about the basic idea of integration without letting the people watching the video know (which is probably good since you are trying to explain quantum wave functions in a simple way at the same time). Also, I finally noticed that 3Blue1Brown plushie on your shelf, nice!