QUANTAM WORLD

____________, (2004) “In the beginning” NEW SCIENTIST (http://www.newscientist.com/quantum/inthebeginning.jsp:jseesionid=LKIEGIN…)

____________, (2004) “Putting the Weirdness to Work: Scientist Say that quantum materials will be the basis for amazing devices, but when?” BUSINESS WEEK, 3/15,

P.103-104.

There’s no there, there. That’s right. After the collapse of Newtonian physics, quantum theory (Max Planck, 1900) describes a world where tiny bits make up solids, but some parts of the tiny bits go their own way. In other words, matter comes in discrete quantities and some of the tiny bits of the whole can slip away. Those tiny bits that Planck called quanta are sometimes waves and other times particles.

Say that light is reflected in a mirror. You’re in the dark; you put a flashlight to a mirror and see the light from the reflection in the mirror. You are not going to see all of the light. About 95% gets through to you and the remaining 5% goes somewhere else. They could be little waves and/or particles. Objects do not always act in ways that you want or that are predicted (uncertainty principle.)

Then you have another problem. With Newton, you thought that you could measure many things. Now, you can measure things, but the measurement is generally accurate, but not totally accurate. In other words, a measure is a measurement, but it is not completely and totally and comprehensively accurate. God has hidden the dice.

Our seemingly solid landscape is also a problem. It is not so solid. An atom in one place can also be in another place. Or an atom in one place can have a profound impact on another atom in another place.

The basis of MRI’s and laser are practical applications of quantum theory. In the distant future, there may be quantum computers. Allegedly, the computers could deal with a 400-digit number. Therefore with the computers that we have now, it would take 10 billion years in what a quantum computer could do in 30 seconds.

Future applications may be unbreakable codes for secure communications, quantum computers as mentioned above, powerful tools for seeing individual molecules, and new insights into fundamental physics.

Strangely, atoms can be everywhere at once and then settle down into valleys. Atoms can temporarily be placed in rows. Atoms may be able to evaporate. The energy is never lost it is just outside of measurement.

If you run into a wall with a car at 60 miles an hour you die, but quanta carry on. You change, the car changes, and so does the wall.

Welcome to the quantum world.