> My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. Yo

> My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. Your intuition is inverted from reality. Quantum mechanics dictates that a harmonic oscillator in a state will remain oscillating in that state indefinitely unless perturbed. This has the counterintuitive effect that an atom with an electron in an excited state will remain there indefinitely if you can cut off the atom from external interactions. This was, in fact, one of the arguments that Bohr used against Einstein. Experimentally--atoms decay--there is no denying that. However, Einstein's formulations said that atoms should not decay without external influence. It turns out--Einstein was right. However, those kinds experiments require things like laser traps that were far beyond the capabilities of the time.