I was just having a casual conversation with my big brother and randomly asked him about the true nature of electron. This is what he replied, and I think, it by far best summarizes many of our doubts regarding quantum mechanics, wave-particle duality and what are we supposed learn in “Structure of an atom”
Look bro, electron is a wave, which means, it has various positions at a moment, as a spread of possibilities, until we pause the time and take a look, where the electron is. This is according to De-broglie’s wave-particle duality, and now probability-wave or Orbital measures where this wave is the strongest or where is the highest probability (orbital) of the wave being the highest or electron being present.
Basically we are using a wave (orbital) to measure another wave (electron) regarding it’s magnitude and it becomes a particle, once we observe and measure it’s exact location or when It collapses to a single value — a specific position — not a peak.