Quantum Theory for absolute beginners, Thank you, Gerd Altmann, for this image.[/caption]It will be fascinating as well as crazy to say that whatever we perceive about the world is wrong.
If I say there is no distinction between past present and future, you might laugh at me, as I did when I tried to understand the quantum theory. But how can we be so wrong about the things that are around us? Scientists and physicists have always tried to unlock the mystery of the universe. How does the universe work? Science used to think just in terms of the matter or object before the concept of Quantum Theory appeared. But now science is changing. Like always Vedic science said if you want to understand the universe don’t go out, first of all, try to understand the fundamental forces of nature. Science was moving around, it expanded the research to learn about planets, galaxies, but finally, Science is now in the good track where science is trying to know things at a fundamental level.
If we look at the basic components on the fundamental level things are quite confusing. Quantum mechanics is now redefining the understanding and reality of the universe. Quantum mechanics rule over every atom and tiny particle in every piece of matter. The tiny particle may be atoms, molecules, protons, electron, neutron, etc. It applies to everything. You and me, stone, buildings, planets, etc.
Don’t be in confusion if you have knowledge of quantum physics. The particle is not actually particles they are waves, I just wrote particles to make it simplified. In quantum physics, almost everything is a probabilistic approach. It means the world is random. In the quantum realm, everything is a wave. It seems like a wave unless you measure it and it is particle if you try to measure it. So, it is called the particle-wave duality. Seems confusing right? Let’s try to understand, the approach of the physical world understanding that we have.
Let’s change the perspective for now to understand the quantum world. If we get into the quantum world or the tiny world of atoms and it’s particles, you will find that the laws are completely different from the laws that govern the big objects that we can see. How would our world look like if people and every object that we can see behave like the atoms and the particles?
You might see the same thing in more than one place at a time. Everything is inter-related. So what you do at a certain place might affect the things that are thousands of kilometers far away from you, even there is nothing to affect that object. If people start to behave like electrons, you will not exactly know where they actually are and if you try to find out where they are you will not know where are they going next. There are the fundamentals of the quantum world. If you are a physics person try to relate this with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle.
But wait, why worry about such crazy laws when things are different outside? We must understand how the world works, as we all are nothing more than atoms. Simply we are nothing more than energy, vibrations, and frequencies. When classical mechanics was making a lot of sense, we could predict the circumstances easily, why there came this non-relatable quantum physics?
Let’s get back to the 20th century from where the idea of Quantum Mechanics came. When the scientists didn’t saw the continuous spectrum of light when heating some gas but rather saw some very distinct lines (pencil beams of light) very different from the rainbow of light. Now that became a mystery. Unless Bohr gave his theory that when electrons leps from the upper orbit to the lower, each downward leap would emit light of some fixed frequency (wavelength), which makes the light of specific color. The energy of the atoms and electrons can be subdivided into discrete chunks called quanta, whose energy is always fixed and which cannot be further subdivided.
Now, there came the Double Slit experiment, which furthermore surprised the physics world. We thought electron as a particle but is a wave! Means, the stone is a wave, the house is a wave, you are a wave, I am the wave. What??? Everything. But we cannot find out where the electron is exactly. But we can find out the probability of an electron being in a certain space. But we cannot be sure!
So, nature is probabilistic. Einstein was not satisfied with this approach, so he said Quantum mechanics is incomplete. Later again the concept of Entanglement was added in it. So it basically means two entangled partners are always connecter no matter how far they are. Any change in one particle will also affect the entangled partner although they are not connected at all. Einstein denied this theory, unfortunately, Einstein was proved wrong later.
So, there were the basics of quantum mechanics who are really new to it.
Note that, everything today digital camera, LED’s, computers everything is the product of quantum mechanics. It seems fuzzy but is the future, with unimaginable possibilities.
Reference, From the book of
