You know, it's discussions (not the previous post specifically) like this that require the explanation of the postulates of quantum mechanics in the Freshman year of high school, instead of waiting to the sophmore/junior year for physics majors. Then we can just say that the electron is a quantum object and forget all of this wave/particle B.S.
Yeah, they should put pictures of electron orbitals next to the solar system one and say that we'll show how to derive them after the student has learned some Calculus.
It really p****s me off when journalists, and especially textbook writers, go on about how weird and mysterious some physics concepts are when the actual concepts have been non-controversial for decades in the physics literature. I admit it could be strange to a novice, but don't leave the impression that a little more background won't cure the metaphysical vertigo. Doesn't anyone know that Newtonian mechanics was just as weird for most people back then as Quantum mechanics is now? Heck, once someone REALLY knows how to do Classical mechanics, Quantum mechanics is a very small extension.