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Quantum Mechanics (QM) is one of the most studied parts of physics in human history. It’s never been proven wrong, though no one really understands why it’s right; it makes little sense to the average person and possibly even less to the physicists that study it; and yet it does exactly what you want science to do-- it makes predictions before an event that are proved to be accurate.
QM is a branch of physics that is the fundamental theory of particles and sub-particles; basically it’s science at the lowest size and lowest energy that it is possible to study given our current knowledge and technology. We’re talking VERY SMALL THINGS guys. Like, smaller than a grain of sand, or even smaller than your little brother’s bladder on that car trip to Myrtle Beach. QM arose from studies in the late 1800s and early 1900s when scientists were trying to understand the Black Body Radiation Problem. The specifics of the black body problem are not essential to understanding QM, but in short, the problem was that the classical physics prediction of how a Black Body (an idealized object which absorbs and emits all frequencies-- think of it as a REALLY black shirt) would emit radiation was not predictive. A scientist named Max Plank was able to develop a predictive model that treated particles as Quanta (discreet units) rather than as continuous, and it solved the black body problem. QM grew from this small seed into one of the most studied of all science theories, and some of the conclusions around the world that stem from QM are truly amazing. To illustrate the first conundrum of QM, think of a bullet hole. A bullet goes directly through a target and makes a single hole in that target. Scientists originally thought that was how a particle would react in the quantum world if you shot it through a target-- after all, that’s how it happens in our physical world, so why wouldn’t the tiny, tiny world that makes up our physical world react the same way? However, when scientists performed such a test on particles-- where they would shoot the particle, like a bullet, through a target-- sometimes it would react the way they expected, the way it happens in the physical world, leaving what looked like a bullet-type pattern in the target. But sometimes they got what looked like a wave pattern on the target, which means there were parts of the target that appeared to be splashed, like by a water wave. It seemed that sometimes the atom or the subpart of the atom, the sub-atom (usually an Electron) could act as a particle, while other times, it could act as a WAVE. There is another famous test, called the One Slit and Two Slit Problem, where whenever scientists allowed the electron to go through just one slit, they got a bullet pattern on the target. If the electron was allowed to go through two slits, they got a wave pattern. The scientists were able to allow only one electron through at a time, so they thought that could give them a bullet pattern even if they shot the electron through two slits; however, it didn’t-- it gave them a wave pattern. The scientists even tried to move the detector before the electron entered the slit and record it that way, and when they did, they always got a bullet pattern. It seemed that the electron would act as a wave only when it could not directly be seen acting as a wave. THIS MEANS THAT THE VERY FACT THAT THE SCIENTISTS WERE OBSERVING THE PARTICLES WAS AFFECTING HOW THE PARTICLE WAS BEHAVING! There are other really weird things that seem to occur in the Quantum world. There appear to be effect before cause in some circumstances, which is equivalent to a broken cup jumping back off the floor and fitting itself together perfectly on the kitchen table. There is Quantum Entanglement (which Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), which occurs when knowing a characteristic about one electron forces another electron to assume another characteristic. Although there is still debate on this subject, it seems to some that this happens because one electron has communicated with another in some fashion, even over a great distance, and this may violate Albert Einstein’s most famous theory, the Theory of Relativity. There are many other strange things that occur at the subatomic level that just don’t make sense to how we conceive of nature in the physical world that we live in. A little confused? Don’t let it bother you-- some of the best scientists we have ever known were confused by the subject-- including Albert Einstein (who once expressed how bizarre the theory was simply by stating “God does not throw dice.”) Perhaps a quote from the great physicist Richard Feynman should be our last word on the subject: “If you think you understand Quantum Mechanics, you have failed to understand.” |
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GLOSSARY
Black Body an idealized physical body that absorbs all wavelengths of light.
Electron a stable subatomic particle with a negative charge.
One Slit and Two Slit Problem a demonstration that light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles.
Quanta discrete packets of energy emitted as light and other electromagnetic waves.
Quantum Entanglement a physical phenomenon which occurs when groups of particles interact and intertwine in such a way that they can not be described independent of one another, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.
Quantum Mechanics a fundamental theory in physics which describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic
Theory of Relativity published by Albert Einstein in 1916, the general theory of relativity explains that gravity, as we perceive it, comes from the curvature of space and time.
Electron a stable subatomic particle with a negative charge.
One Slit and Two Slit Problem a demonstration that light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles.
Quanta discrete packets of energy emitted as light and other electromagnetic waves.
Quantum Entanglement a physical phenomenon which occurs when groups of particles interact and intertwine in such a way that they can not be described independent of one another, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.
Quantum Mechanics a fundamental theory in physics which describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic
Theory of Relativity published by Albert Einstein in 1916, the general theory of relativity explains that gravity, as we perceive it, comes from the curvature of space and time.
