Quantum Physics Concept Question

I'm probably being very thick-sculled right now and sound like a complete idiot..... So I was hoping someone could help me correct that. I get that you can't know the exact location of a particle, (say an electron orbiting a nucleus) but only form a probability cloud of where it might be. I also realize that, depending on how you look at it, said electron could either be a particle or a wave. What's really confusing me is that I've been led to believe that the waves are waves of probability. That loses me. I don't get it. I'm hoping someone could clear that up for me.

Those probability density clouds are in fact called wave functions. Although they are not waves in the classic sense of undulating strings or membranes, they do show up in split slit experiments where one quantum at a time is released to cast whatever on the screen past the split slit.

And what casts are light and dark bands, much like interference bands from waves. But in reality the light bands are simply those areas were the probability density functions specify the quantum is most likely to be found... the expected area. And, as you might guess, the dark bands are those areas where the quanta are least likely to be found when they strike the screen.

When the quanta (e.g., electrons or photons) are streamed through the slits, we get the standard interference bands. These indicate the other kind of waves, more classic kind, called the group wave. Here groups of quanta undulate and form the waves much like molecules form ripples on the surface of a pond.

So there you are. There are two kinds of wave: the group wave, which is a classic wave, and the wave function, which is a probability density function that can cast interference looking bands like true waves.

This is not an answer but hope it helps.

Let's go!

Time has two properties.

Progress(related to evolution) and Event(related to Creation) by turns.