re: “ from within the range of possible sites that Quantum physics predicts it MAY be at”
QM, just one big “curve fit”.
Where’s the “predictive” capability in that? And the reason science has stalled out, QM has an erroneous basis ... no basis on “first principles” such as electromagnetics (Maxwell) for instance.
Here is a partial list of predictive results
•A particle in a spherically symmetric potential can only occupy a certain number of energy states always. This fact successfully explains all atomic structure.
•Electron degeneracy pressure occurs when fermionic (matter) particles are squeezed tightly together but are forbidden from squeezing even tightly together because Pauli’s exclusion principle forbids them from sharing the same state. This fact explains what keeps white dwarf stars alive.
•The application of an external magnetic field to a a collection of magnetic dipoles causes energy states to split into two, separated by a small amount of energy. This is the secret behind magnetic resonance imaging.
These predictions can be tested both qualitatively and quantitatively - quantum mechanics predicts the exact energies of each state, not just the most likely ones; it predicts the exact amount of pressure you can expect, not a distribution; and it predicts the exact amount that the energy levels should diverge by.
None of these are influenced by the uncertainty principle - which only applies to specific pairs of measurable properties, and not to every possible pair of them - because we aren’t measuring pairs of properties simultaneously. Remember: the uncertainty principle doesn’t stop us from measuring any one property as accurately as we like, only on measuring some pairs of properties with the same level of accuracy at once.
In such cases, of course, it’s very easy to check if quantum mechanics is correct: simply compare the value obtained from theory to experiment. We have already done this, and in every case the predictions have been borne out successfully. These predictions are what we refer to when we talk about quantum mechanics being the most precisely tested theory in history.