Allow me to dumb-splain some of this stuff, as a person who sat through six quarters of intro physics (once without calculus, once with): Two weeks from being done with "physics that isn't mechanics", our professor spent ten minutes as an aside to the whole "particle/wave duality of light." He cautioned us that the maxim "light is both a particle and a wave" is a platitude invented for intro physics students, and that quantum mechanics, as presented to the amateur or neophyte, is an assortment of disparate models presented as a unified one. He further cautioned us that the methods of discovery and exploration of quantum mechanics, as presented at the intro-to-electricity-and-magnetism-with-calculus level, could not be made unified without a great deal more math and many concepts that simply were not germane to anyone but students, professors and researchers of quantum physics. He lamented this because bright classes invariably drew conclusions from their learning that simply should not be drawn, and he felt it necessary from time to time to give this speech and implore anyone curious about all the stuff they weren't being taught to continue on their physics path, but also that those of us who were wrapping up their journey with Physics 131 could be happy that their knowledge was good enough for parties, casual conversation and a basic grasp of the physical world far beyond the average layman. Speaking as someone who sold books with titles like "Radiation Hydrodynamics" to employees of the Los Alamos National Labs Theoretical Physics division, I can say with confidence that the physics the normie world is familiar with and the physics practiced by actual investigators of quantum phenomena do not touch in many points. I was heartened to discover that my best friend's dad's pet project was actually pretty simple: it's just a precision 3-axis Michelson interferometer. Of course, that's only "simple" if you're comfy with ideas like Michelson interferometers and even I had to look it up to get rid of the "t" I wanna throw in that name. Which is not to say "you'll never understand it?" It's more to say "you'll never understand it if you take journalists for granted." "Gell-Mann amnesia" was literally coined by a theoretical physicist to describe what a cockup the press makes of theoretical physics, thereby it's safe to say they make a cockup of everything, but we forget that or else we start wearing WWG1WGA shirts. If the navel-staring of quantum mechanics is what you're interested in, goobster, I wholeheartedly recommend Max Tegmark.