Author: haroonkhan
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The Scale of Quantum Physics
At the beginning of the twentieth century, when quantum physics was born, a comprehensive and elegant framework had been developed to explain most everyday occurrences. When one looked very closely, there were a few curious discrepancies between theory and experiment, however. It was through the investigation of these that quantum physics came to light. It…
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The Process of Physics
We will introduce new concepts by describing how they were originally discovered. Unfortunately, in the quantum world, many of these concepts are not the most straightforward and easy to understand. To get off to a good start, then, let’s first get a feeling for the process of physics by considering a familiar, everyday occurrence. Imagine…
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Theory, Experiment, Gedankenexperiment
Like it or not, you can’t get very far in physics without running into mathematics. Mathematics is the language of physics, and at the end of the day nearly every law of physics has an underlying mathematical model. These models are what make physical laws so useful, and they are the very basis for making…
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Understanding, Predicting, and Applying
Like any branch of science, physics is inherently interesting because it helps to explain so much about the natural world around us. It satisfies basic curiosities about the workings of our world, and it reveals order in a universe that otherwise can appear pretty random and chaotic. There is a certain beauty in this order,…
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What Is Physics?
We normally associate biology with squishy things that sometimes smell, chemistry with things that go boom, geology with rocks and dirt, and astronomy with bright objects that dot the skies above. When it comes to physics, however, similar associations are not so handy. One reason physics is so hard to pin down is because it’s…
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Introduction
Surely you picked up the because you’re curious about quantum physics and you want to learn about it. Perhaps you’ve heard that some of nature’s smallest particles choose sometimes to behave (or misbehave) like waves. Or perhaps you read that in the quantum realm, cats can be both alive and dead at the same time.…
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Acknowledgments
Nearly every physicist under the age of 100 will have had, at some point, a quantum physics professor or two. We ourselves have had nine of them along the way. Without their patience and pedagogy, never have been written. We owe a debt of thanks to Bob Delaney, Mohamed Fellah, Tom Gorczyka, Gerald Hardie, Eric…
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How This Is Organized
Quantum vs. Classical Physics, constitutes a prelude to our main feature. Unlike what you’d see in a movie theater, though, it is not a series of coming attractions. It is more like a prequel to the quantum story. Here we will introduce the way that physics worked—and sometimes didn’t work—before the unexpected emergence of quantum physics.…
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Why This Is Different
This explains why quantum physics is such a popular subject for popular scientists. There are devoted to its introduction, and many of these are excellent. Nevertheless, the majority of them present the subject either in exclusively conceptual terms that rely on everyday analogies, or by quickly drilling down to the underlying mathematical basis. We have…
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Introduction
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” This sage advice from Yogi Berra revealed that he was not only a great baseball player and humorist, but also a secret quantum physicist. After all, everyday experience tells us that when you come to a fork in the road, you can go in…