Jen has taught Science in accredited schools in North & South America for twenty years and has a degree in Sociology (Epidemiology & Aids Research). Her work in quantitative data has been published in the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America & Cambridge University Press.
Quantum physics is tricky, even for the most brilliant of scientists, but you got this. Put on your favorite thinking cap, and here we go!
Quantum physics is the study of things that are very, very small. This branch of science investigates the behavior of matter and the activities happening inside of atoms in order to make sense of the smallest things in nature.
Before we move any further, let's clarify two key things that quantum scientists are attempting to understand:
- Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. In other words, it's the amount of stuff inside of an object. Yep, that pretty much describes everything. That's because everything in the universe is made of matter.
- Atoms are the smallest unit of matter. The universe and everything around us is made of atoms. Even our bodies have billions of atoms.
One reason quantum physics is so complex and has boggled the brains of scientists for years is that humans have limited experience with these teeny tiny objects in their day-to-day lives. These objects are always around us; however, they cannot be seen without the help of powerful microscopes and other science instruments.
The discovery made about waves and particles demonstrates how wonky and complex quantum physics really is! Physicists, the scientists who study quantum physics, discovered that everything in the universe behaves like both a particle and a wave. This concept revealed one of the most powerful ideas in the world of quantum physics. Here's why:
- Particles are small pieces of matter. For example, a piece of a rock is a particle.
- Water, sound, and light are all made of waves.
Ocean waves and rocks don't really seem to have anything in common, and scientists never thought to classify them together until Albert Einstein expanded upon the work of another scientist named Max Planck. During the early 1900s, most people believed light traveled in waves; however, Einstein discovered light is actually a flow of photons.
Waves are very different from photons because photons are individual particles that look like little marbles, and waves are long, curvy lines. This big discovery (or, should I say, very small discovery, since we are discussing quantum physics) demonstrated that if particles act as waves, then they do not have an exact position. This idea also makes it difficult to know how fast the particles move. Einstein's findings opened the door for more research and changed the way humans think.
Another scientist, an Austrian named Schrödinger, is famous for an experiment he never actually did. Rather, he asked a question: ''What would happen if a cat was placed in a closed box with something that had a fifty percent chance of killing it within an hour?'' Remember, he didn't actually do this experiment. Instead, he wanted to know what state of matter the cat would be in. He concluded:
- Just before the box is opened, the cat is in two states: equally alive and dead.
- One state of matter is only present when the box is opened.
- His experiment claims the experiment is ruined by the observer opening the box.
The purpose of his experiment was to prove that large objects should not be thought of in tiny quantum states because you end up with ridiculous results, like a cat that's dead and alive at the same time.
In this lesson, we learned everything that takes up space is called matter and the smallest unit of matter is an atom. Quantum physics investigates the behavior of matter and atoms. Two important facts were also discussed:
- Schrödinger showed that experiments do not work when combining large objects with quantum objects.
- Einstein proved photons travel as both particles and waves.
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