The inner life
Wave Function
Direct answer
Wave Function: The wave function is the mathematical description of a quantum system, from which physicists calculate the probability of each possible result of a measurement.
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At a glance
- Also called
- wavefunction
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Observer Effect, Double-Slit Experiment, Quantum Entanglement, Complementarity
The wave function is the mathematical description of a quantum system, from which physicists calculate the probability of each possible result of a measurement.
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What is a wave function?
In quantum theory a particle such as an electron is described by a wave function, written with the Greek letter psi. It is not a picture of where the electron is. Squared, it gives the odds of finding the electron here or there when a measurement is made. Between measurements it changes smoothly, according to the equation Schrödinger published in 1926.
When a measurement gives one definite result, the textbooks say the wave function collapses. What that means is still argued among physicists, and several interpretations do without collapse altogether. None of the working interpretations lets a person's wish choose the result.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Physics and the mystics.
What sets Wave Function apart
The wave function has a peculiar status: it is the most precisely tested tool in physics and nobody has ever observed one. Only its consequences are seen, as frequencies of results over many runs. It takes complex-number values and lives in an abstract space with three dimensions for every particle described, so it cannot be a wave in ordinary space once there are two particles. Whether it is a real thing or a ledger of what can be known is the oldest open question of the theory.
- Symbol: the Greek letter psi
- Equation of motion: Schrödinger's equation, 1926
- Reading as odds: Max Born, 1926: the squared magnitude gives the probability
- Collapse: formal statement by John von Neumann, 1932
- Rival readings: Copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot-wave and others, all with the same predictions
Often mistaken for something else: A water wave is a movement of stuff in space; a wave function is a calculation of probabilities, and for more than one particle it does not live in ordinary space at all.
The story behind Wave Function
Erwin Schrödinger introduced the wave function in 1926, hoping it described a real wave of matter. Max Born showed the same year that it is better read as a measure of probability, for which he later received a Nobel Prize. John von Neumann gave collapse its formal statement in 1932. The dispute over what the wave function is, a real thing or a statement of knowledge, has run from the debates of Bohr and Einstein to the present.
Why Wave Function matters
Much spiritual talk of infinite possibilities borrows this idea, so the plain meaning shows where the borrowing stops being physics.
How to read Wave Function
Physicists calculate with it; readers meet it as a metaphor, and can keep the metaphor once they know it is one.
Wave Function in practice: an example
Before an electron is detected its wave function gives a spread of odds across a screen; the detector then records it at one spot.
Where readings of Wave Function go wrong
The odds it gives are fixed by the physical set-up, and nothing shows that attention or intention shifts them.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- wavefunction, wave function collapse, wave function meaning, collapse of the wave function
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
See Wave Function in your personal almanac
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Common questions
What is a wave function?
It is the mathematical object that describes a quantum system. Its square gives the probability of each outcome when the system is measured.
What is wave function collapse?
It is the change from a spread of possible results to the single result a measurement records. Physicists agree on the calculation and still debate what, if anything, physically happens.
Does consciousness collapse the wave function?
A few physicists once proposed it, Eugene Wigner among them, and he later dropped the idea. In experiments a detector is enough, with no person watching, and most physicists see no role for mind.
