Q is for Quantum Physics
Jul. 2nd, 2008 12:37 amI'm probably going to butcher this and I'm going to tag my friends ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quantumswordsmn and kuantum_fizax to set the record straight where I goof up, so please bear with me. My understanding of quantum mechanics is elementary at best. I'm lucky if I get much better than knowing that somehow it involves a cat who lives in a steel box, curled up with a Geiger counter and a flask of acid, and theoretically belongs to some guy named Schrödinger, who ponders whether the cat is alive or dead and postulates that in fact it is both at the same time until the moment of revelation. Yay superpositions!
But seriously, quantum physics or quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that views energy as not constant but being broken into packets called quanta, and also viewing energy as both particles and waves. Quantum mechanics is used to describe systems on the atomic level and smaller and deals a lot in probabilities of outcomes. It is one of two sound theories that led to modern physics, the other being general relativity. The two are seemingly contradictory so there has been a lot of effort expended in trying to find a unified theory. Neither of these should be confused with classical physics, which is all that stuff that Newton loved so much and really applies more to larger systems.
So that's my understanding of quantum mechanics in a nutshell, but I realize it's likely very simplistic and almost certainly quite flawed, so stay tuned for corrections from my more able-minded friends.
quantumswordsmn and kuantum_fizax to set the record straight where I goof up, so please bear with me. My understanding of quantum mechanics is elementary at best. I'm lucky if I get much better than knowing that somehow it involves a cat who lives in a steel box, curled up with a Geiger counter and a flask of acid, and theoretically belongs to some guy named Schrödinger, who ponders whether the cat is alive or dead and postulates that in fact it is both at the same time until the moment of revelation. Yay superpositions!But seriously, quantum physics or quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that views energy as not constant but being broken into packets called quanta, and also viewing energy as both particles and waves. Quantum mechanics is used to describe systems on the atomic level and smaller and deals a lot in probabilities of outcomes. It is one of two sound theories that led to modern physics, the other being general relativity. The two are seemingly contradictory so there has been a lot of effort expended in trying to find a unified theory. Neither of these should be confused with classical physics, which is all that stuff that Newton loved so much and really applies more to larger systems.
So that's my understanding of quantum mechanics in a nutshell, but I realize it's likely very simplistic and almost certainly quite flawed, so stay tuned for corrections from my more able-minded friends.
