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The Strange Quantum Realm


sayan23

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The quantum world or the world of atoms and molecules is quite different than our world as we know it. The scientific laws in the quantum world are different than the ones we experience in our day to day life. But one must think how can we behave differently than the particles we are made of? That is a very simple question but with no satisfactory answer as to why. The differences in the quantum world and our world became significant in 1801 when Thomas Young conducted a peculiar experiment that is known as “The Double Slit Experiment“. Although originally designed to study interference patterns observed when light travels through slits, the experiment pointed out some gaping truths that the scientists were not ready to face. At that time there was a huge dispute over the behavior of light, whether it was a particle or a wave. Then Hertz discovered that when a light of certain frequency fell on a metal surface, it ejected electrons. Einstein explained the whole process under his “Photoelectric effect”. Thus concluded light to be a particle. But the particle nature of light failed to explain Young’s double slit experiment about the interference of light as particles don’t interfere, waves do. The dispute was finally resolved when Louis De Broglie came up with his “Matter Wave” theory where he postulated that matter behaves as both a wave and a particle. This was confirmed by the Davisson Germer experiment where the duo found out the wavelength of X-ray emitted when an electron falls on a surface. Incidentally, the wavelength was a spot on match as calculated by the de Broglie theory. Thus the birth of quantum mechanics took place when scientist observed how the atomic world was different than ours.

This dispute over the behavior of light gave way to the discovery of a new branch of physics called the “Quantum Mechanics”. Now by name quantum is derived from the word “Quanta” that means “a packet of energy”. This can be recognized as a photon(particle of light) of a definite wavelength and frequency with a definite energy. Now the way quantum mechanics works in counter-intuitive. It doesn’t work the way you expect it to be. For example, according to quantum mechanics, you can’t predict the position of a particle correctly by any means you try. But assume you throw a ball up in the air, you can correctly predict the trajectory of the ball so accurately that you can even catch it. The same can’t be said with the atoms or electrons. Quantum mechanics has baffled physicist in the last century and to such an extent that Neils Bohr once said, “Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.” Slowly this branch of physics seeped into the pop culture and whenever a director wanted to make a movie where the physics of the plot isn’t very clear, they will certainly use the word “quantum” just to make it look more sciency.  Now Quantum mechanics is a very misunderstood topic among the general public and people generally relate quantum mech. to stuff like time travel and all the fictional stuff. Humans have this strange tendency to love something they don’t understand, that’s, why quantum mechanics is really loved among the scientific community and women, are really loved among everyone ;).

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