Many scientists spent time looking for "hidden variables" that controlled electron behavior just like the spin controls the movement of a baseball. Some early scientists thought that perhaps the wave function could only predict the probability of an electron being at a given location because the wave function was missing information. They believed that the wave function was actually missing information that was necessary to describe electron behavior with "certainty". Some scientists suggested that the wave function couldn't make exact predictions because it wasn't complete. Most importantly, scientists wondered why the wave function could only predict the probability of finding an electron at a given location, and not the exact location where the electron actually was. When scientists first suggested that the wave function was related to the probability of an electron being at a specific point in space, it raised a lot of questions. Heisenberg Proposed the Uncertainty Principle for Behavior of Electrons The Uncertainty Principle Figure 6.10: Warner Heisenberg. Explain why the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle helps to justify the fact that a wave function can only predict the probable location of an electron and not its exact location.Explain what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle means in terms of the position and momentum of an electron.Define the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Why can they only predict the probability of finding an electron at any given point in space? Is there something wrong with the theory? Is it possible to improve the theory so that scientists can predict exactly where an electron is and where it's going? This, however, leads to the question, why can't scientists predict where the electron will be with certainty. Max Born found a way to use the electron wave function to calculate electron density, and that electron density is actually equal to the probability of finding an electron at any point in space. If you think back to the last lesson, you'll remember that scientists had a lot of difficulty understanding electron density and the wave function in terms of the wave properties and the particle properties of the electron.
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