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Mar 23, 2024 · Quantum mechanics is a theory that deals with the most fundamental bits of matter, energy and light and the ways they interact with each other to make up the world. This landmark theory originated in the early 20th century and is finding many real-world applications in the 21st century. Applying quantum mechanics in the laboratory, Argonne ...
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- Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
- Black Body Radiation
- The Photoelectric Effect
- Optical Line Spectra
- Basics of Quantum Physics For Dummies
- De Broglie’s Matter Waves
- Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
- The Wavefunction (Ψ) Encodes All Particle Information
- Determinism Is Probabilistic
- Schrödinger’s Cat in A Box
As seen by a layman, quantum mechanics appears to be more like a bizarre phenomenon or science fantasy flick, full of jargon and complicated mathematical equations. However, it is easier to take a look at the basics of quantum mechanics, provided one isn’t baffled by the fact that every electron is a particle, as well as a wave at the same time. In...
According to the classical theory, a black body (any object capable of absorbing radiation at all frequencies and radiating it back) would emit infinite amount of energy. This was not found to be true experimentally. The energy emitted by a black body seemed to be a function of its frequency, showing a typical bell shaped curve. In 1901, Max Planck...
When ultraviolet light is shone on certain metal surfaces, electrons are emitted. This phenomenon, whereby electrons in atoms get liberated by the absorption of energy from incident light, is called the photoelectric effect. Classical electromagnetic theory predicted that the number of electrons emitted and their kinetic energy is dependent on the ...
Classical electromagnetic theory could not explain the optical line emission or absorption spectra, arising from gases and liquids. Bohr’s atomic model, based on angular momentum quantization and quantized energy levels provided accurate experimental values of optical spectra for Hydrogen, thus providing further validation to the quantization appro...
To understand the quantum realm, you need to unlearn and unplug yourself from classical intuition – which serves us well in the macroscopic world, but is eminently useless in here. Let us peel off our classical intuition layer by layer.
Experiments like the photoelectric effect demonstrated particle wave duality of light. If light waves behaved like particles, could matter particles also behave like waves? In 1924 Louis de Broglie, a French physicist, hypothesized the existence of Matter Wavescorresponding to every particle, whose wavelength would be inversely proportional to the ...
The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. – Werner Heisenberg In its most non-nerdy version, it states – ‘You cannot know the position of a particle and how fast it’s moving with arbitrary precision at the same moment.’ Or, ‘It is fundamentally impossible to simultaneous...
Since we cannot measure the position of a particle accurately, the entire concept of a fixed orbit or trajectorygoes for a toss. You can no longer plot the path of a particle on a graph, like in Newtonian mechanics. The particle itself being a wave has its position spread out in space. The entirety of information about particles is encoded in the w...
Once we have Ψ (the wave function) – for a system, the probability of a particle’s position is determined by the square of its modulus – │Ψ│2. So we have essentially given up on predicting the position of a particle accurately, because of the uncertainty principle. All we can do is predict the probabilities. One unnerving consequence of this fact i...
This is a hypothetical experiment in which a cat’s put inside a box, with some equipment which releases poisonous gas, on detection of beta particles emitted by a radioactive source. Since beta emission is random by nature, there is no way of knowing when the cat dies. There is no way of knowing whether the cat is dead or alive, until the box is op...
Quantum physics is the study of matter and energy at the most fundamental level. It aims to uncover the properties and behaviors of the very building blocks of nature. While many quantum experiments examine very small objects, such as electrons and photons, quantum phenomena are all around us, acting on every scale.
Jan 10, 2021 · Quantum mechanics is more right, but most of the time classical mechanics is good enough. What I find fascinating is that "good enough" increasingly isn’t. Much of the technology developed in ...
