I spent 3 nights in a row staring at my computer screen just thinking, “What to write?” I wrote a horror story. Left it. I wrote something about love, and what it has become now. Left it. I realised. I just couldn’t fathom what to write. This would be my 4th attempt. I thought I’d tell a story. The story of quantum mechanics. Regardless what Avengers Endgame may say, Quantum Mechanics is not something easy peasy. In fact, there isn’t a single person who understands it completely. I understand maybe 1.001%. The rest 98.999% is ugly maths. Feel free to correct me or point out any contradiction you may find.
First, quantum. The definition, ofcourse, is the smallest quantifiable anything. Here, it refers to light and energy. Imagine multiple dots after a sentence. (…………..) If you see from a distance, it seems like a straight line. Light travels in straight lines, just like that. (except when it don’t, but that’s not an issue right now). Now light has energy (solar panels, photosynthesis). Now imagine that multiple dots ………. to be our ray of light, each dot, a single packet containing energy. We call each packet, a photon. Now the smallest amount of energy, so far we measured, is that contained in one “dot”, or one photon, called ” one quantum of energy”.
Ofcourse light also shows wave-like property. For example, diffraction and interference. The reason for it’s wave like properties, is, because, in the quantum realm, there are no definite. In real world, you are sitting on your bed, or on a chair, reading my blog. But, zoom down, to the quantum realm i.e. the level of atoms, and you will be, if you were an atom, simultaneously sitting on the chair, on the bed, in the White House, or on Pluto. How? Because you haven’t determined your position. So, unless you see that you really are on your bed, there is probability that you are everywhere. Ofcourse, the probability of you being in the White House is enormously microscopic, smaller than the smallest number you can imagine. The probability exists, nonetheless. Sounds crazy? That’s because it is. And the wave nature is just a side effect of the probabilities.
It’s a lot to understand. And it may not make sense. Its okay. It doesn’t. This is the true beauty of quantum mechanics. There is a lot of history, and a lot of mistakes made, in the history of atoms. But it all really began when Max Plank discovered the aforementioned packets of light, the quanta of photon. Then, the next big name is the man, Einstein himself. (Who, rejected the Quantum Theory because of the probabilities). His theory of Relativity, and other works, paved the path for “Theoretical Physics” Before him, physics was confined to any experiment that could be performed in a laboratory. ( This was actually one of the reason of Hitler’s persecution of Jews, and their Jewish, or, theoretical, physics). Einstein’s theories were no less than sacrilege to the German Genius Phillip Leohnard.
Now, during WW2, along comes along a German, Werner Hisenburg, a mountaineering enthusiast, who gave the fundamental law of Quantum Mechanics. “The more accurately you measure a particle’s position, the less accurate your measurement of its velocity will be”. Many people said, he was an mountain climber, what did he know about physics. But after WW2, those people realised he was Germany’s Director of the Operation to create a Nuclear Bomb, and came to mere inches to fruition, before Americans beat him. So then, they started taking Hisenburg’s Principle seriously.
So by now we have established travels in packets called photons, each photon contains one quanta of energy. Also, nothing can be certain in quantum realm. Next big thing came from another man from the American Nuclear Bomb project(Project Manhatten), but he wasn’t a Director. He was just some guy who went along cracking safes, making mischief, getting patents, and generally being himself. And his theory wasn’t formulated in the war. It was years later. Richard Feynman’s Sum Over Histories. The final piece of the confusing puzzle. It says, in the simplest term, that for a particle to go from A to B, it takes all the possible path. The probability of the infinite paths differ, ofcourse, with the actual path being the highest probability, but the there is a probability, that there exists a path that runs from A to B, via the Taj Mahal. It’s all a game of probability.
So here is how we stand. A particle can be anywhere it wants, can move from one place to another, by any path. It does not have a fixed path or position. And if we try to measure it, its either position or velocity, one of it decreases in accuracy. So, now we say it exists in a “Cloud”. Region where its probability is highest. This concept is totally alien to normal everyday phenomena, where an object stays where it is ut, or moves in pre determined path. But herein lies the wonderful after-effect of quantum mechanics that, almost seems magical. Also, this might be a possible explanation to how your mother finds stuff you can’t. She simply wills the probability of the object being there by the superpower that moms innately have because they are so awesome. Anyways, back to quantum realm and it’s magic.
Quantum tunneling. Suppose you take a proton. As we established, you cannot take a proton. Only the cloud of region where the possibility of its presence is highest. Imagine a sphere with colours fading outwards, the density of colours representing the probability of the proton. Or like the halo, the faint glow that dieties have. Suppose it’s travelling and it encounters a wall. It can not move further. Now suppose, more and more protons keep crashing in the wall at the same spot, unable to go thought the wall. What happens now? The probability field grows, as number of protons keep adding up, until, the probability field crosses the barrier. Mind you, no proton has crossed the barrier. Only the probability cloud, sphere, field, whatever you want to call it, has. As soon as the cloud spills over, protons are suddenly found on the other side. How? No one knows. This is the effect of quantum mechanics. There were no protons on the other side. The probability field kept growing., crossing over. And suddenly, there was protons. It makes sense if you see from a quantum mechanic point of view, where there is only probabilities. How is this even helpful? Right now, electronics are getting smaller and smaller. But there will come a time when, devices get so smaller, that the electron itself cannot flow. Then, quantum tunneling in the only way forward, powering a new generation of devices. Quantum computer. Right now, information is stored as 1 or 0. But by utilising quantum effects, we can utilise 1 and 0, at the same time, creating a computer that will render even the toughest of computerised encryptions useless.
Second, we have quantum entanglement. The premise is this. By measuring the state on one particle, you can determine the state of the other. Maybe they spin in opposite direction, (spin, of particles, is as integral feature as mass, or charge) maybe they have opposite polarity. Suppose the total charge is -1. You measure one particle to have charge of 4. Instantly, you also know the charge of the other particle to be -5. Ofcourse, arithmetic aside, the fact is that information about the charge of the other particle reached to you instantly, as you measured the charge of the other particle. The information about the other unmeasured particle reached to you faster than light. Because if the other particle was taken on a spaceship to Mars, light would have taken 20 minutes to reach you. But you had information about it in an instant. But an unbroken rule of quantum mechanics, along with Uncertainty Principle, is nothing travels faster than light. While quantum entanglement makes faster than light communication possible, the consequence and its place in our current understanding of quantum mechanics, is all a big fuddle.
Science, like social media trends, is always changing. One day, it’s all Bohr, next day, its Feynman. As we understand more, we update our theories. Sometimes we realise our old theory was correct. Sometimes our new theory was outlandishly wrong. But science can’t stop. maybe one day quantum mechanics will be outdated, replaced. But that wont ever happen ,if we don’t come up with a better theory. It’s a long slow journey. But one that has to be made.
Stories are meant to be told 