Q:

What is an electron? Is it an orbital?

Is an orbital a wave or is an electron a wave? Does an electron exists in an orbital or is an orbital a wave cloud of electrons? Is there really particle inside an orbital or is an orbital a particle?

A:

Physicists do not all agree on the answer.
The orbital is sometimes likened to a "cloud" across which the wave function is distributed. Mathematically the wave function gives the probability of the electron being detected at any given point in the cloud at any given moment of measurement.
Some physicists have suggested that the electron basically is the wave, and the probability distribution in measurement arises as a result of that. Some have suggested that the electron is a particle and the wave somehow "pilots" it to its position at the time of measurement according to some hidden variables we are unaware of. According to quantum field theory it is a disturbance in the zero-point electron field (whatever that means!). And so on.
Ultimately, all a physicist can say is that an electron is the subject of some particular mathematical equation that is good at predicting experimental results. The commonest view is therefore to stop thinking about it because it is impossible to know the underlying answer, best to just "shut up and calculate."

