Topic > A study of the foundations of quantum mechanics

What is quantum mechanics? Asking this question reminded me of a confusing idea created by some European theoretical physicists more than a hundred years ago. After doing more research so that I could understand it to a considerable degree, the idea that it was ridiculously confusing dissipated from my mind. Now I can say that I have gone "down the rabbit hole" (widely used term for when learning quantum theory) of quantum mechanics. Before starting I must say that quantum theory is not at all easy to understand or know. In fact, one of the theory's creators, Richard Feynman, said, “I think I can confidently say that no one understands quantum theory.” Another named Niels Bohr said that “anyone who isn't shocked by quantum theory doesn't understand it.” While these may just be guesses of people at the time, they still give an idea of ​​what lies ahead. Nowadays people can easily understand this theory if they grew up with it, and that seems to be the case with me. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay To explain clearly we must start with the basic principles. In an atom the electrons orbiting the nucleus follow exact orbits. Whenever energy is transferred to them, they instantly jump into outer orbits. There is no space between the orbits. The electron is here or there. When electrons move, they need energy to do so. When they get close they release energy in the form of photons, and this is how we get light. For this reason, electrons must receive a certain amount of energy to release energy at any frequency. If the electron moves back to the nucleus, it releases a lot of energy. To have higher frequency light you need to have more energy. When the electron travels a shorter distance it emits light of a lower frequency. If an atom receives a certain amount of energy, the energy will be distributed among all the electrons. The electrons will move approximately the same distance back and forth. Therefore the electrons will all radiate around the same frequency of light. For this reason every time we heat objects they glow from red to blue to purple, due to their average amount of energy. In most cases the frequency of the light emitted explains how hot the object is. Of course, each type of element can take on different colors at different temperatures. This is true of all things except one classification of substances: blackbodies. The Black Body Radiation experiment gives reason to believe all the above information. A black body is a substance that absorbs all light subjected to it. When heated to a certain temperature it emits a certain color which is the same as all black bodies. Using experimental data Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics, created the so-called Planck's law and defined the variable h. This law states that light energy is transferred in packets, or quanta. These energy packets are usually in small quantities, as shown above. If something is a quantum it is the smallest thing. Therefore, the name of the whole theory (quantum theory) is about the smallest particles in the universe and how they move and act. At the time everyone believed in classical science, starting with people like Newton and Maxwell. Classical science was very straightforward and simple for people to understand compared to quantum mechanics. It was very logical in the way we see the universe. Classical science said that everything could be completely predicted down to the last subtle movement or vibration. Scientists thought so because everythingwas derived from Newton and Maxwell's equations. No reason or experiment has been found that could dispel this theory. In the twentieth century, four experiments demonstrated that we need more explanations about the physical world around us. These experiments involved blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect, double-slit experiment, and optical line spectra. These experiments demonstrated that at the basic level throughout the universe, things operated based on probability, not certainty. Quantum mechanics applies to all things, but it only affects extremely small particles moving at very high speeds. On the surface where we are when I push an object it goes forward, not in a wave. Einstein didn't like the idea of ​​quantum mechanics. He thought that the universe was completely cause and effect and that everything could be determined completely by what came before. After numerous experiments we can safely say that there is no way to truly ask why everything works the way it does. We cannot go further into the universe because there is nothing further down to go. What is a wave? We might make this very hard to think about, but it's actually very simple. Think of an ocean wave, that's what a wave is. It has a large area it covers and travels at the same speed. It affects a wide range of objects but is not a defined location as it moves slightly circularly over time. What is a particle? Think of a ball. It travels in distinct ways, such as forward and backward, left and right. It hits one object, not many like a wave. In an ocean analogy, waves are waves and stones are particles. They are not the same and never will be. However, in Quantum Mechanics, rocks are waves and waves are rocks at the same time. In the next paragraph we will talk about it in more detail. Light travels in a very particular way, different from what we thought. Light travels both as a particle and as a wave. In the double-slit experiment, two slits were made in an opaque material. Light was transmitted through both slits. On a wall behind the two cracks there was an interference pattern, shown in the figure. Since light travels as a particle and as a wave, we find that the photon becomes a particle when it hits the wall. The wall serves as an act of measurement. In this experiment the waves overlap and cancel each other out in the two waves. When this experiment is repeated with one photon emitted at a time, we get the same result. The same interference pattern is seen for some strange reason. Since the photon travels as a wave, technically the photon travels through both slits at the same time. When an ocean wave passes through two cracks we see ripples emanating from both cracks. Likewise when we release a photon in the experiment. When it hits the object to be measured it behaves like a photon and the sensors detect where the photon hit. The wave we are talking about moves like an ocean wave, but in reality it is a wave of probability. The probability wave shows all possible outcomes and measurements are needed to obtain a result in that field. Everything is confusing until you measure it, but the measurement is also wrong, and this is called Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We will delve deeper into this topic in the future. This idea can be demonstrated with an experiment called Schrödinger's cat. A cat was placed in a bunker with poisonous gas that had a 50% chance of being released. When you are outside the bunker you don't know if the cat is alive or dead. Two things are happening at the same time right now. Before measuring everything is uncertain. The cat is aliveand the cat died. When we open the bunker and see whether the cat is alive or dead we force nature's hand, and the probability vanishes. This experiment makes it easier to see what is happening. Each released photon travels through both slits like a wave, and the waves counteract each other. It is the act of measurement that forces nature to decide where the photon will land. The photon then appears as a particle because it hit the wall. From these experiments we can see that there is a probability about how things work. Schrödinger also created many equations that we can use to find the probability of something happening. There are some areas of the wave that are more likely than others. Particles also rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. It's either one or the other. Before you measure it it could be one or the other and they change all the time. When we measure the rotation it is confirmed until it changes again. Since everything happens at the same time it is difficult to objectively define time in the physical world. A particle at any time is in any place at any speed until measured. This directly alters how we see the universe. Nothing is certain and perhaps everything happens at the same time until we force nature to give us a measure. The next paragraph will talk about how even a measuring machine cannot measure velocity and position completely accurately. The measurement is incorrect. The uncertainty principle states that you cannot simultaneously measure the position and momentum of a particle with absolute certainty, even if your instruments are completely accurate. To conceptualize this idea think of it as if you were on an ocean wave. How can you find the position of the wave? Find where the pulse of the wave is. While looking at the pulse of the wave how can you find the frequency of the wave? If you go on a wave you can't measure how close it is or how far it is from other waves. Likewise, if you're measuring how close the waves are to each other, you can't pinpoint where the actual wave is because you're measuring a large area outside the actual wave. It may seem very strange and strange, but it makes sense. So good luck trying to find out where everything is because it's theoretically not possible in the realm of science! Once its position is measured, it has already moved an unpredictable amount. There is the possibility that something could happen at any time, in any place and under any circumstances. Indeed, at this moment there is a possibility that a car will materialize right in front of you. However, the chance of this happening is extremely small and obviously negligible, but it still exists. This worldview is radically different from anything previously thought of. Indeed, Einstein rejected this view, stating that God does not play with dice. Einstein discussed this very idea with many other famous scientists and provided theoretical experiments that prove this view to be false. Today we have the technology to do these experiments and after doing them we can conclude that Einstein was wrong. Bohr, Planck, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and many other scientists were right. The other two experiments mentioned in the first paragraphs were optical line spectra and the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect affects how light shows up on some metals. On some metals, electrons leave when they receive ultraviolet light. Classical science stated that it is possible to increase the amount of kinetic energy by varying the intensity of light. After many experiments, this idea of ​​science has been debunked. It is not the intensity of the light but the frequency that changes the amount of energy reflected. Because of Planck's ideas on energyquantized, a higher frequency means a higher average energy. Therefore, when we transmit high-frequency light, we also transmit a higher average amount of energy than low-frequency light. Einstein said that light was a stream of photons, and this time he was right. The next experiment concerns the spectra of optical lines. When gases or liquids are heated, they radiate light because they receive energy and the electrons move to internal and external orbits. When this light passes through a refracting object, we see distinct lines. Classical mechanics had no explanation for why this happens. Niels Bohr created theories and equations that he used to predict the levels of hydrogen's spectrum and validated quantum mechanics in this way. The final concept of quantum mechanics is the most confusing and intimidating. While we have used experiments to prove this to be correct, we have not yet discovered why or how it works. Two particles can become entangled when they are close enough to each other and their properties are connected. These particles will not unravel, regardless of distance. There may be particles that got trapped after the big bang and are now separate galaxies but have no connection that we can see in between. They are simply connected. When one particle rotates clockwise, the other always rotates counterclockwise and vice versa. So when we measure one, we are affecting the other particle which may be millions of millions of miles away. This happens instantly without any delay. Quantum entanglement creates a wormhole in a sense. If we influence one particle to rotate clockwise, the other will always rotate counterclockwise. We can indirectly influence things throughout the universe. The possibilities of how we could use it are endless. For example, we can teleport people with this method. Someone walks into a scanner and their entire body is scanned so we know where every atom and particle is. Then we make the entangled particles at the destination recreate the original human. Today all we can do is teleport photons. One of the biggest problems with teleporting people is that we can't scan a person's body without destroying it. Then for a short period of time the person will not exist at all. Then they will materialize and may be able to continue living. Another question we should answer is: what exactly is a human being? Is it just atoms and particles or does human being have a soul or something else besides matter? Although this question is very philosophical for now, we will see it when we teleport a human. If this experiment works we will learn more about ourselves, in philosophical questions like “Do we have free will?” Another big issue is measurement. We can't measure both momentum and position exactly, so we may have a margin of error and confuse people's DNA code and body structure. If we only measure position, we may not know how hot something is or what chemical process is taking place. Once teleported, the body will have to react instantly to many changes in the environment for us to have complete replication without problems. We look forward to using it over the next few hundred years, but we're going to have to have a lot of problem solving and ingenuity to even come close to being able to do that. It may also require a lot of energy to do so, costing the common man a lot of money. Quantum mechanics has many other uses that we can use to improve our society. Since the rotation of a particle is.